The weirdo’s guide to WFH productivity: Sanity shower, squats, and snacks

Are you working from home and is your productivity suffering as a result? Are traditional ‘normie’ tips failing you?

If the answer to both these questions is ‘yes,’ you’re in luck because I’m here to share three weird — but effective — productivity hacks that will help you solve this problem.

The sanity shower

At this point I don’t really need to tell you why you should take regular breaks throughout the day to clear your head, but what if you used one of those breaks to take a sanity shower? 

It sounds strange, I know, but I can promise you it helps to boost productivity. 

[Read: 4 tips to keep work out of your weekends during the pandemic]

Picture this: You’re at your desk, emails are coming in fast, your Slack notifications are off the scale, and your phone rings.

You’re tired, frazzled, restless, and you need to get away. You get up, grab a towel, head straight to the shower and once there you literally wash away your stress.

As you lather in your shampoo or shower gel, you are transported to a calmer state of mind where all that matters is the present. Your only focus is how relaxed you currently feel and how soothing the water is against your skin — and not what your manager thinks about the report you just handed in or whether your client is content with your latest email reply.

Remember you’re working from home now. So don’t be constrained by the boring social conventions the office forced you to adhere to.

Believe me when I tell you that you’ll return to your desk feeling completely refreshed and ready for the challenges that await you. Try it for yourself and see how much your productivity improves.

The sanity squats

Squats create an anabolic environment — which is a fancy way of saying that it helps you improve muscle mass. But what if they could also help you be more productive?

[Read: 5 HIIT workouts that’ll make you feel the burn while working from home]

When things get a little too much, I get up, walk into another room, hit my Spotify, and squat.

I’m not denying it’s strange, but it helps. I tend to stick to 20 or 30 squats at a time and once I’m done, I return to my computer, pick up where I left off, and use the endorphin-induced high to blitz my to-do list.

The sanity snack

People often say you should avoid snacking throughout the day but I think they’re missing a beat: The extent to which a healthy snack can boost your stagnating productivity.

This is how it goes: You get up and walk to your kitchen or fridge (that’s exercise, right?), grab what you want to eat, prepare it, and you eat it.

[Read: 7 tips for my fellow humans stuck working from home]

The time you spend doing this is time you are spending away from your computer screen, work, and all the annoying questions your colleagues are intent on asking. And if you happen to grab a banana, then congratulations because they’re considered to be “brain food“and making this choice proves you’re doing OK in life.

It goes without saying that the sanity snack is, by far, my favorite productivity hack but don’t underestimate the power of the sanity shower and sanity squats — just promise me you won’t try them out simultaneously.