Work-Life Balance Tips for Remote Workers: 12 Habits That Actually Work

Before 2020, my work never came home. It stayed at the office, and when I left, I left it there.

Then I started working from home, for a digital agency in Brazil. For the first time, my work lived where I lived, and nothing ended the day for me anymore. Since 2024 I’ve worked remotely for an agency in the United States, still from Brazil. That added a time difference, but it was never the hard part. Ending the day was.

These are the 12 habits I’ve built since 2020 to keep work in its place. Most of them I do every day; the rest are what I’d tell a friend who’s just starting out. Where research backs a habit up, I link to it.

12 work-life balance tips for remote workers, in short

1. Work somewhere that isn’t where you sleep.
2. Get dressed for work.
3. Start the day with something for yourself.
4. Set fixed work hours, and keep them.
5. Line your hours up with your team’s.
6. Let your status say when you’ll be back.
7. Announce time off two weeks early, and leave a handoff doc.
8. Agree on what counts as urgent.
9. Move a little every two hours.
10. Keep your water bottle small.
11. Train before work.
12. Put people back into your week.

Why work-life balance is harder when you work from home

The commute used to end your day

When I worked on site, the trip home did a job I never noticed: it drew a line. Work on one side, life on the other. Working from home removes that line, and nothing replaces it unless you do. Without it, one more message turns into one more hour, and the workday fades into the evening.

“Always on” becomes the default

The numbers say I’m not alone. In Buffer’s 2023 State of Remote Work survey of 3,000 remote workers, 81% said they check work email outside working hours, and 22% named not being able to unplug as their biggest struggle. Microsoft’s 2025 Work Trend Index found that the average employee now sends or receives more than 50 messages outside core business hours, and that chats outside the 9-to-5 rose 15% in a year.

Time zones stretch the day

Working for a team in another time zone adds its own stretch. The same Microsoft report found that meetings starting after 8 p.m. were up 16% year over year, driven by collaboration across time zones, and that 30% of meetings now span more than one.

My workday starts at 1 p.m. in Brazil, which is 8 or 9 a.m. in Los Angeles, depending on daylight saving, and ends at 9 or 10 p.m. It would be easy to let it run later, and to let work creep into the morning too. Habits 3, 4 and 5 are how I keep it in its place.

What remote workers struggle with most

Buffer’s survey also ranked the biggest struggles: staying home too often because there’s no reason to leave (33%), loneliness (23%), not being able to unplug (22%) and working across time zones (19%). Every habit below takes on at least one of them.

Is your work-life balance off? A 2-minute check

Answer yes or no:

• You often keep working past the time you meant to stop.
• You check work messages in bed, first thing in the morning or last thing at night.
• Your laptop lives where you eat or sleep.
• You skip breaks because you’re “almost done”.
• Whole days go by without you leaving home.
• Weekends feel like recovery, not rest.
• You feel you must answer messages right away, at any hour.
• You can’t remember the last time you moved for more than a few minutes during work.

Three or more yeses? Start with habits 1, 4 and 9: a place that’s only for work, fixed hours, and moving every two hours. Fixed hours made the biggest difference for me.

Set boundaries in your space

1. Work somewhere that isn’t where you sleep

My desk is a proper workspace: a good chair and two screens. What matters more than the setup is where it is: away from where I sleep, and away from the usual distractions of home. When I’m there, I’m working. When I leave it, I’m not.

You don’t need a spare room. A corner or a small table works, as long as it isn’t your bed or the sofa you relax on. The point is to teach your brain that one place means work.

2. Get dressed for work

I have work clothes. Not a suit, just clothes I put on to work. Getting dressed is my signal that it’s time to be productive, the way leaving the house used to be.

It sounds small, but it turns the start of the day into a ritual, and a ritual is easier to keep than willpower. Try it at the other end of the day too: changing clothes is a clear sign that work is over.

Set boundaries in your time

3. Start the day with something for yourself

Before work gets your attention, give part of the morning to something that’s yours: exercise, study, a side project. If work chat is the first thing you open, the day belongs to work before you’ve even started.

The time difference with my team in the US makes this easy for me: I start at 1 p.m., so the whole morning is mine. I go to the gym, I study, and I work on Becare, my own company. The things that matter most to me get done before anyone needs anything from me.

You don’t need a whole morning. If your team is in your time zone and you start at 9, one hour before it does the same job, as long as work chat stays closed until then.

4. Set fixed work hours, and keep them

This was the biggest shift for me. At the office, work stayed at the office. At home, work is always there, so the only thing that ends the day is a decision.

So I have fixed work hours: I start at 1 p.m. and stop at 9 or 10 p.m. Outside those hours I’m not working, even when the laptop is right there.

Two things help fixed hours stick:

• Put them where your team can see them, such as the working hours in your calendar and your chat status.
• When the time comes, close your work apps instead of just walking away. An open app pulls you back.

5. Line your hours up with your team’s

My hours follow my team’s. Starting at 1 p.m. puts my whole workday inside theirs, so meetings happen during my working hours, not on top of my evening. The price is working until 9 or 10 p.m.; the reward is a morning of my own (habit 3).

If your team is spread across more time zones, agree on a core window when everyone is online, keep meetings inside it, and let the rest of the work happen in writing. That makes it much easier to say no to a call at 9 p.m.

Set boundaries with people

6. Let your status say when you’ll be back

On Slack, my status always says two things: an emoji for what I’m doing and the time I’ll be back. People don’t have to wonder whether I’m ignoring them, and nobody has to ask “are you there?”. For example:

🍽️ Lunch · back at 11 a.m. PT (3 p.m. in Brazil)

🌙 Done for today · back tomorrow at 9 a.m. PT (1 p.m. in Brazil)

My team works on Pacific time, so I put their time first and mine next to it, and nobody has to convert. If your team shares your time zone, the time alone is enough.

7. Announce time off two weeks early, and leave a handoff doc

Two weeks before any time off, I change my status to:

🌴 Time off soon, any requests?

My colleagues bring me what they need while I’m still around, instead of finding out on my first day off that they needed something.

Before I go, I also write a detailed handoff doc. It starts with a summary of where everything stands, and I tag the people who need to know it. When a task can’t wait for me, I assign someone to deliver it while I’m away. Less is waiting for me when I’m back, and there’s little reason for anyone to reach me while I’m off.

8. Agree on what counts as urgent

Most messages can wait until tomorrow; a few can’t. Agree with your team on what counts as urgent and who handles it when you’re offline. Then everything else can wait for your next workday without anyone feeling ignored.

If you can, keep your personal phone out of it. My team doesn’t have my number: work reaches me on Slack, where my status says when I’ll be back.

Take care of your body and mind

9. Move a little every two hours

Every day I pick one or two simple exercises and do a few every two hours. The goal isn’t to sweat; it’s to stay awake and alert through the afternoon.

It isn’t just a feeling. In a 2023 Columbia University study, five minutes of walking for every 30 minutes of sitting lowered both blood sugar and blood pressure, and cut blood sugar spikes after a large meal by 58% compared with sitting all day. It was a small study, with 11 adults, but the direction is clear: breaking up sitting is good for you.

I also use MovePoints, an app I’m building to get people who sit all day moving. It’s in open testing on Android, so anyone can join it on Google Play, and the iPhone version is coming soon.

10. Keep your water bottle small

I drink a lot of water, and I’m always getting up to refill my bottle. Every refill is a reason to stand up and walk, even on days when I forget everything else. A small bottle, or one kept away from your desk, turns drinking water into a movement habit.

11. Train before work

I go to the gym in the morning, before my workday starts, and do cardio two or three times a week. When work begins at 1 p.m., my training is already done, and nothing at work can push it out of the day.

Staying active through the day adds up too. Researchers call it NEAT, the calories you burn in everyday movement outside exercise, and according to Mayo Clinic’s Dr. James Levine it can differ between two people of similar size by up to 2,000 calories a day (Harvard Health). An active body burns more, and that makes it easier to keep the body you want. That’s what I use MovePoints for: the gym takes care of my training, and the app keeps me moving through the rest of the day.

12. Put people back into your week

Remote work can quietly shrink your world. In Buffer’s survey, the most common struggle was staying home too often because there’s no reason to leave, and nearly a quarter of people named loneliness. Give yourself reasons to leave home: the gym, a class, lunch with a friend, a day at a coworking space. My morning at the gym does that for me.

What working remotely since 2020 has taught me

Three things I’d tell anyone starting out:

• Remote work doesn’t give you balance; you set it up. Nobody ends my workday for me, so I end it on purpose.
• Small signals beat willpower. My clothes, my desk and my Slack status do the remembering, so I don’t have to.
• What you do first gets done. My mornings go to training, study and my own company, so they happen no matter how busy work gets.

None of it is complicated. What makes it work is doing it every day.

Frequently asked questions

What is a good work-life balance for remote workers?

One where work has a clear start and end, happens in a clear place, and leaves room for health, people and rest. There’s no perfect split of hours: if you stop when you planned to and can switch off afterwards, you’re in good shape.

How do I stop checking work messages after hours?

Make checking harder. Log out of work chat on your phone at the end of the day, or use a focus mode that silences work apps outside your hours. Then agree with your team on what counts as urgent and who handles it when you’re offline, so nothing important depends on you checking.

How do I set boundaries with a team in another time zone?

Show your working hours and time zone in your calendar and your chat status, keep meetings inside the hours you share, and write things down so work can move without everyone online at once. When you take time off, announce it early. I do it two weeks ahead.

Is working from home better for work-life balance?

It can be. Most remote workers want to keep it: in Buffer’s survey, 98% said they’d like to work remotely, at least some of the time, for the rest of their careers. But flexibility only turns into balance when you set boundaries. Without them, work spreads into the rest of the day.

How often should I take breaks when working from home?

Take a short movement break at least every two hours, and more often if you can. The Columbia study found that five minutes of walking every 30 minutes offset some of the harms of long sitting. I do one or two exercises every two hours. Add a proper lunch, away from your desk.

Sources

• Buffer, 2023 State of Remote Work: survey of 3,000 remote workers, October to November 2022.
• Microsoft WorkLab, Breaking down the infinite workday: Work Trend Index special report, June 2025.
• Columbia University Irving Medical Center, Rx for prolonged sitting: a five-minute stroll every half hour: January 2023.
• Harvard Health Publishing, Use the NEAT factor to burn calories.