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eWorkLife was a project that ran from 2020 in response to the sudden switch to remote working that was brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.

We designed a self-reflection tool which aimed to help workers understand their remote working needs and provided personalised recommendations. This tool took the form of a brief survey, which included some open self-reflection questions and some validated surveys that were used to both help workers reflect on their work practices and provide recommendations to strategies they could adopt to help them adapt.

Our 3 step process

1. Before you start, take some time to reflect on your work-life balance and what is it exactly you would like to improve. You can spend as much time as you want on this activity. Don’t know where to start? Click here to take part in our research project – we will guide you through a self-reflection exercise (10 mins) and provide you with guidance as to which strategies are most likely to work for you
2. Select one or two strategies to start with and see how you get on. Remember, your time = your rules. If something doesn’t work for you, you can always revert back to old habits or try out new strategies. Click here to find an overview of the evidence-based strategies that can help you stay productive while working from home
3. We know from psychological research that goal setting is really important in terms of changing a behaviour. A bit like setting an objective, it’s important to choose a clear and measurable goal. In order to help you stick to your new goal, we recommend you write down what you intend to try. You can also decide to share your commitment on social media, or just by talking to friends, family and/or colleagues. Keeping track of how are you going, and what is working, or not working is really important. Also, you will find that as time goes by, or situations change, you might want to revisit your strategies. Don’t be hard on yourself if you don’t achieve your goal. If that happens, set a more realistic goal and start again. It’s best to set small achievable goals than lots of different ones. Most importantly, make sure you give yourself a reward when you have achieved your goal! Those taking part in our research project receive additional support with setting goals to change their digital behaviours.

We have carefully chosen the examples of apps that are listed on this site and we hope you find them beneficial, however, unfortunately, we cannot be responsible for the information provided on other websites or in the apps listed.

• Index of Strategies
• Video content describing the strategies
• The science behind these strategies
• Feedback from people who have used our recommendations

Physical Activity during Lockdown

We were interested in how much physical activity people were engaging in – after the move to remote working erased the need to commute, the gyms closed and, for a period of time, even going out to exercise outside was only allowed once per day. We also wanted to understand the role of digital technology in helping people stay active during the lockdown.

We created a Physical Activity survey that was distributed on social media and through newsletters at University College London. The initial survey attracted a total of 390 participants who told us about their physical activity habits: how much time they spent exercising, commuting and sitting – before and during the lockdown and at the start of the survey, in May 2020.

We then sent out four weekly follow-up surveys, so that each week participants could tell us about the changes in their physical activity as well as their motivations and experiences of using technologies aimed to support activity, such as apps, online classes or step trackers. A total of 126 participants completed all five surveys.

We found that people who used digital activity trackers during lockdown demonstrated an increase in vigorous physical activity. This suggests that a robust exercise regime can be maintained even when access to gyms and classes is restricted and using digital activity trackers may facilitate it. On the other hand, we did not find the use of technology to be related with levels of sedentariness during lockdown. Moreover, although many people became more aware of the importance of physical activity during lockdown, problems with motivation and injury resulting from rapid changes in exercise routine, posed a challenge to staying physical active.

People

A team of researchers developed this project: Professor Anna Cox, Dr Sandy Gould, Dr Joseph Newbold, Dr Marta Cecchinato, Dr Anna Rudnicka and Dave Cook.

Publications

Rudnicka, A., Newbold, J., Cook, D., Cecchinato, M., Gould, S., & Cox, A.L. (2020). Eworklife: Developing effective strategies for remote working during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Newbold, J. W., Rudnicka, A., & Cox, A.L. (2021). Staying active while staying home: The use of physical activity technologies during life disruptions. Frontiers in Digital Health, 3, 753115.

Newbold, J. W., Rudnicka, A., Cook, D., Cecchinato, M. E., Gould, S. J., & Cox, A. L. (2022). The new normals of work: a framework for understanding responses to disruptions created by new futures of work. Human–Computer Interaction, 37(6), 508-531.

Gould, S. J., Rudnicka, A., Cook, D., Cecchinato, M. E., Newbold, J. W., & Cox, A. L. (2023). Remote work, work measurement and the state of work research in human-centred computing. Interacting with Computers, 35(5), 725-734.