Learning to Work From Home

I would like to start this with a bit of an acknowledgement and a disclaimer. While I have been working form home for several years now, I do not have children that are also home needing to be manage. I can empathize with those of working from home with kids also at home, but I also know that this adds a level of challenges that I do not have experience in navigating and I respect that it makes things infinitely more difficult when trying to parent and work.

Onto the meat and potatoes, if you will.

While remote work became the norm during lockdowns and social distancing of 2020, it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Workers are more happy when we’re able to utilize the technology we have to get our work done efficiently without the added hours of a commute, or the distractions that can come up in an office environment. I personally believe that in the long term this will lead to a happier work force with better balance as studies continue to show that WFM not only leads to happier workers, but more productivity and less turnover. As technology has improved as lightning speed, office-based work seemed stuck in the 60s. Overnight, all of that changed as we were forced to stay home. Now, we’ve been punted into a new world where we actually use technology to make our work lives more efficient…while at home.

Many people think that if you work from home, you’re faffing around all day. This is why so few companies are open to keeping telecommuting as their primary job structure. Study after study shows that people are generally more productive in a WFM setting (of course there are exceptions, but overall it holds true). When people don’t have to spend time commuting, then decompressing from the commute, dealing with office politics, being distracted by water-cooler talk, etc, it’s easier to get work done. There is something to be said for in-person work and teambuilding, and there are certain jobs that simply don’t work in a remote environment. People want their work to be a part of there life - integrated into it - not their sun and entire personality.

While the assumption about working form home may be that you never work - the opposite can often be true. When your home is your office, it is very easy to allow the lines to blur and find yourself essentially always on the job. Answering emails at all hours. Taking calls 24/7. Trying to find that report you printed under a stack of laundry that you started. It is surprisingly easy to let working from home take over your life and actually lead to more stress instead of more balance. The other side of the coin is that people are more likely to want to get their work done quickly, and in the end more work gets done. What’s the real incentive to be efficient if you’re going to be forced to be in a cubicle until 5:00pm no matter what?

Below are my tips for working from home: staying productive and staying sane. I recognize that some of these suggestions are not going to be feasible for everyone. Some of them are possible because I have the privilege of the space in my house, or an additional phone plan available to me, and the financial freedom to do so. That said, if you are able to take the idea behind the suggestion and implement it in a way that works for your situation and budget, I believe that you will still find a benefit.

Have a morning routine.
When you go to work in an office, you probably have a morning routine that is the same every day. Wake up, get dressed, make coffee, drive to work, etc. When you work from home it’s easy to just wake up and start doing whatever needs to be done. You could find that you are starting at 7am, or get caught up and don’t even see your email until noon. Here’s my morning, every morning: Wake up, get dressed, make coffee, go out with dog, have breakfast, put on record, open work email around 9am and reply to anything unread or outstanding from the day before. You’re essentially creating your ‘morning commute’, that starts shifting your brain from ‘I’m at home’ to ‘I’m at work’.

Get dressed.
I know it’s tempting to stay in your PJs all day, and sure I’ve done it plenty of times. Over the last several years, though, I’ve realized that I definitely feel more organized when I get up and get dressed for the day - even if I’m not going anywhere. I’m not talking a business suit. Even something as casual as what you would wear to run errands. Just don’t stay in your pajamas. For me, it helps ‘clock in’ to work mode.

Set time boundaries.
When you work in an office it’s easier to keep things separate. When you leave for the day, you leave for the day. Working from home removes that separation. Setting firm time boundaries is probably the best thing I ever did for myself when it comes to working from home. This will look different for every person and every job. If your job has hard deadlines, like mine, that might mean that there are days where shutting it all down at 5:00pm is simply not an option. If something needs to be done for a regulatory purpose, or payroll, it has to get done and you can’t simply throw your hands up and say ‘welp, it’s 5!’. Other jobs allow for harder lines of 9-5p availability. Time blocking can be super helpful here, where when you split the day up into sections of work and breaks where you WORK and then break and step away. This is great for jobs where you have lulls mid-day, and then can get work done on your own after hours. Taking advantage of the WFM let’s you disperse your 8 hour day into something that both meets the demand for your job, but let’s you spread it out as you see fit. Stepping away is critical for doing your best work. It’s so easy to find yourself under water or falling behind without structure. How that structure is built will vary - but I definitely suggest creating something that you can stick to and keep your sanity.

Do not use your personal email for work, and have a separate phone number if possible.
It’s free and easy to set up separate emails if your work doesn’t provide you with one. Having an email that is strictly business and one that is personal allows you to log out. It prevents getting caught up in work emails during your off time. The phone number is different. If you are able to add an additional line to your phone plan and are financially able to support that, I cannot recommend it enough. I added a personal line 6 years ago or so and it was life-changing. In my opinion, the ability to put my work phone in a desk drawer every night/weekend was huge. Only friends and family were given my new personal line (My immediate boss also has it in case of emergencies which is has used maybe twice in five years. He refers to it as my ‘burner’, and the only reason I gave him or anyone else at work the number is because I’ve worked with him/them long enough that I trust them to only use it if absolutely necessary and time-sensitive information is needed). Now, I completely recognize that not everyone has this ability. ‘Do not disturb’ is another option on iPhones. You can create a contact list of Friends and Family, and set your phone to automatically silence all calls from anyone not on that list between certain hours. Google Voice is another option that my husband utilizes. You can set up a Google Voice number to direct to your phone that you are then able to essentially turn off when you are ‘off the clock’. Last I checked, it is $20/month for one number.

Create a designated work space.
I believe that this will become critically important for both working parents and kids during the coming weeks with more schools shutting down and kids getting into home study. Having designated areas for work and study helps keep things in order, but it also helps keep you in the ‘work’ mentality when you’re working, and ‘off’ when you’re not. We have a two bedroom house and no kids. Last year, I turned our second room into my office and it not only made life easier, but I felt less anxious and got way more done day to day. Prior to that, I worked all over the house. Kitchen, bedroom, TV room. My stuff was everywhere and I felt scattered all the time. Having an area that was my work space allowed me to keep everything in one spot. When I’m in my office, I’m working. I’ve decorated in in a way that is clean and comfortable. I don’t hate being in that room at all. Keeping work to one space stops it from taking over. I would imagine that for kids newly studying from home, setting up a designated ‘school work’ area would create similar benefits. I know that not everyone has access to an entire separate room, but even if you can turn a corner of your living room or kitchens or bedroom into an area that is specifically your work space - it makes a world of difference. Having this space also provides the other people in your house with a physical boundary to identify as a sort of, ‘when mom/dad/spouse/partner/roommate is in this room/at that desk' they’re working and I need to ask if they have time for what I need right now instead of assuming that they do’..

Shut it down.
Depending on your industry and job structure, this time will vary and may not even be possible in your exact job function, but whatever time it is that you decide your work day ends- end it. Shut it down. When you’re not leaving an office at the end of the day, it is SO easy to just keep working forever. Force yourself to stop at what you’ve decided is quitting time and go enjoy your evening. You can come back to it later in the evening when you’ve got some down time if you really need to get it done, or first thing in the morning. Again, this is regular day-to-day, not time sensitive deadline-critical work.

Get up often, drink water, move around.
A huge benefit of working from home is that it’s so much easier to stretch your legs throughout the day. Try to remember to get up and move around every hour. Go into the other room, get a drink of water, have a snack, step outside.

GET OUT OF THE HOUSE
Long time work-from-homers know it’s way too easy to look up and realize you haven’t breathed fresh air in 72 hours. Go for a walk, sit outside, go to the gym, go for a hike, drive around, I don’t care what it is but for the love go god GO. So many people just go from home to work to home. Maybe it’s home to work to gym to home. When you remove ‘work’ from the equation, it’s a slippery slope before you find yourself a hobbit who hasn’t left the house in six weeks. Make it a point to leave the walls of your apartment or house daily, even if it’s just a quick trip, and make sure you keep the other things in your routine like going to the gym intact.

You may have noticed a theme in these tips: create separation and boundaries. We want to Integrate work into our lives, not let working from home mean we’re always on or always off. The hardest part about working from home is how easily everything can bleed together, and before you know it the thing that sounded so great (no more office to drive to), is the thing that is slowly driving you to insanity.