Working from Home: Tips from LaunchGood, a 100%-Remote Team!
With a team of 25 remote global change-makers spanning 3 continents and various accents, the time zones may vary but somehow we make it work. We’ve made lots of mistakes along the way but here are a few tried-and-tested methods from our team on working from home.
Ready?
1. Schedule your day around prayer
The lack of structure is one of the hardest adjustments for remote working. And structure is the first thing you need to institute in your household for yourself, and especially if you have children.
Praying our daily prayer not only gives us a routine everyday, but a chance to reconnect with God and yourself. These uncertain days are making many of us anxious and prayer will help to soothe us. Being at home all the time can also make you feel like the days are melting into each other. Is it Tuesday? Thursday? What’s a weekend again?
Even if we can’t go to the mosque for Jumu’ah, we should still make it an event at home. Take a shower, dress up, pray together with your family members, recite the Qur’an together — all these would also help inject structure and excitement to your home.
Our team-mate Ameera from Singapore has this tip: Every morning, make intentions for what you want to achieve in your day and ask Allah to help you with it. A prayer I’ve been making the past year and which I really feel has helped me is “O Allah, grant me barakah in my time, my health, my wealth, my ‘ilm, and my relationships.”
2. Don’t work from the bed, no matter what!
Yep, this one used to get a few of us. It’s tempting to hit snooze a couple times and then think “Why not just open the laptop and start typing, typing, typing?” and “Oh look, there’s something else to do”. However, we’ve learnt it’s extremely important to have physical boundaries for work, sleep and meals. Mentally, it helps to separate when it’s time for bed, and when it’s time to be creative and focused for work. Additionally, it’s terribly bad for your posture!
3. Dress up!
Yes, one of our favourite things about working from home is not needing to ‘dress up’ for the office and figuring out if this hijab matches the rest of the outfit etc. HOWEVER, just like not working at the bed is really important in setting boundaries, not wearing your night clothes is also important to get your mind in the right state for work.
Our Co-Founder Amany has this to say: “Never wear pajamas when working! Try to stick to a routine of waking up around the same time. Most importantly, don’t change your sleep cycle!”
4. Manage your time
Something that I read often to remind myself about time management is this great lesson from Imam al-Ghazali:
“Your time should not be without any structure, such that you occupy yourself arbitrarily with whatever comes along. Rather, you must take account of yourself and order your worship during the day and the night, assigning to each period of time an activity that must not be neglected nor replaced by another activity. By this ordering of time, the blessing in time will show itself. A person who leaves himself without a plan as animals do, not knowing what he is to do at any given moment, will spend most of his time fruitlessly. Your time is your life, and your life is your capital: by it you make your trade, and by it you will reach the eternal bounties in the proximity of Allah.
Every single breath of yours is a priceless jewel, because it is irreplaceable; once it is gone, there is no return for it. So do not be like fools who rejoice each day as their wealth increases while their lives decrease. What good is there in wealth that increases while one’s lifespan decreases? Do not rejoice except in an increase of knowledge or an increase of good works. Truly they are your two friends who will accompany you in your grave, when your spouse, your wealth, your children, and your friends will remain behind.”
This is a great time to start a schedule to make sure you are taking care of each aspect of your life — work, family, worship, self-care, exercise, rest, friends and wider family etc. A great book to read about this is “168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think” by Laura Vanderkam.
“Make sure you take 15-minute breaks every 45-minutes. You are in charge of your time, don’t let work gobble up all of your day. Additionally, put your phone on airplane mode. Trust me, it takes time to get used to, but your time will suddenly open up and expand and you’ll be thankful you did it!”, says Shehla, our team-mate from the UK.
5. Have a clear desk space
Find a corner in your house with a proper table or desk for you to do your work. Some of our team-mates do move around the house over the course of a work-from-home day, but some of us prefer to stay put at a home office. It takes some time to find which way works best for you.
Most importantly have whatever you need for work available on the desk before you begin working. Moving things around will only waste time and you’ll avoid getting things done. It also helps your mind to not get distracted by constant movement at the beginning.
We hope our tips have helped! InshaAllah once this global pandemic and crisis is over, we’ll be able to appreciate our time a lot more and be better at time-management.
Despite all of this, our team has been working hard remotely to produce the Ramadan Challenge, our 30 Days of Giving for the blessed month of Ramadan. Why not join us www.launchgood.com/Ramadan?
