What a different world we now live in! Those who can have moved to working from home and while I understand that it’s not for everyone (I personally love it!), some companies might keep going with this. Some employees might even prefer and ask to continue with this set-up.
(🤓 Btw, here’s a good article from Fast Company on this shift we’re experiencing)
Wherever you stand on this new set-up, I’m pretty sure it’s a huge adjustment. Even when I made the conscious choice to shift to working from home almost 10 years ago, I had to adjust and adapt. What more those that were just thrown into this.
Here are some things and tips that I’ve learned along the way.
1. Keep a routine.
It doesn’t have to be super detailed but have a routine. Set the time when you want to start working, when to take a break and when to end your day. Put that into your calendar. It matters that you have this in writing so to speak so you can follow it. Here’s an example of my routine:
You might think, you’re working until 10PM?? Look, you don’t have to do that but years of trying to find the best rhythm for me showed me one consistent thing - my brain dies midday. You cannot expect anything from me at those hours.
But if you look at when I’m most productive and add them up, that’s less than 8 hours of work. Count it.
Which brings me to:
2. Find out when you’re most productive
It will take you a lot of trial and errors but you have to find out when, during the day are you most productive. When you find those hours, you’ll be amazed at how much you can achieve in a short span of time.
But, make sure you consider what your boss requires of you too. 😉
3. When you take a break, step away from the screen.
So break does not mean surfing Facebook or Instagram. Nope. Stand-up, close that laptop and do something that will make you move. Do an errand, a chore or a short exercise. Just literally step away from your computer.
This will reduce fatigue and eye strain and will make you feel refreshed when you come back to your work.
4. Find your spot/s at home.
If you have space and feel the need to build an office, go ahead. Do that. For me, I work in 4 areas:
my bed (when I want to feel how awesome it is to work at home)
our living room (when I want some TV show on the background)
our dining room (when I need to concentrate and for meetings)
our bedroom ledge (works like a standing desk, when I need to wake myself up)
Alla, on the other hand, prefers to work in one spot. So move around your house and see what you like.
5. Learn to do a hard stop.
Declare when to end your day and end it. Log off digitally:
✔️ Declare it to your boss and team. In INAM, we send a message in Slack: “Logging off! :)” ✔️ Actually log-off - set your chat stuff to away, close your email, turn-off notifications.
✔️ Do something to tell your body that you are ending your work day like maybe have wine or read a book or just do something physically to signal that your work day is done. This is basically you “leaving the office”.
There you go! Hope this helps you adjust to working from home. If you need help or have questions, feel free to send me a message via Facebook or Instagram.
👋 Entrepreneurs! Do you need help with shifting your team to a work from home set-up? Here are some tips that you can do to do this shift for your team.
