Getting used to the new Normal

Are you one of those who hate working from home? On those days, when you were forced to work from home, you would wish that you had rather been at home on a holiday or been at the office. And not that we do not love our job isn’t it, else that is the discussion for some other day.

For the last month, the fortunate ones like me have been working from home due to the dangers posed by the invisible enemy. This situation might continue until the enemy is no longer invincible.

The first two weeks of work from home was terrible. With 2–3 projects happening in parallel, I could not afford to be unproductive. But being productive was way out of question, for how could one individual handle so many things. I faced several issues

1. Multi-tasking was not working as there were different tasks at hand — project work, team communication, sweeping-mopping, washing dishes, preparing meals, spending time with family, and checking the phone for updates about Corona every 5 minutes!
2. Had to spend more time for communication as remote working is new for all — how do we conduct remote sessions, how do we analyze the data (no point in making a wall of post it’s now!), how do we brainstorm, how does discussion happen without a whiteboard, how do we help others and work as a remote team
3. No more eating out, or swiggying so had to take out more time to prepare meals. And cooking in large quantities did not work as repeat meals added to the frustration
4. Sitting for hours in front of the laptop hurts the back; gives headache as we strain our eyes, forget to drink water and at times forgetting to have meals
5. Absence of maid forcing us to do all the household chores was the icing on the cake

My biggest problem was managing time

There was no demarcation of personal vs work in terms of space as well as time. My days would stretch out till almost midnight, and weekdays would stretch into the weekend. Work had crept into my personal space affecting the work-life balance immensely

We keep receiving a lot of tips on creating the right atmosphere for working from home: getting dressed up to draw the line between office and personal time, having a proper workspace (this is important!), socializing with colleagues, having clear working hours. Some things worked for me, some didn’t.

I made some significant amendments to suit my needs:

The most important one was to sort out was the ‘time’ factor. I did something simple, yet difficult — I just woke up early!

Waking up at 6 AM bought me four hours before work officially began with our daily standups. Time is aplenty now — for work, spending time with family, preparing meals, doing the dishes, and even for yoga!

Some other things which helped me to a great extent:

1. Taking a short 15 minutes nap in the afternoon makes me fresh since waking up early was new and difficult initially
2. Shifting to a two-meal day instead of three. I had tried this as an experiment earlier and it had worked. Nah this is not intermittent fasting, I simply realized that two nutritious meals per day are enough for the body. This also helped in managing time, for we cook only twice — first meal before the workday starts and the second meal after the workday ends
3. Having (only)fruits in the afternoon serves as a quick break to do switches(in case of multiple projects) as well as to calm the hunger pangs
4. Preparing and planning for the day in advance and communicating it to the team
5. Having constant communication with people you are working along (preferably not through the most distracting medium — WhatsApp) This provides lesser surprises and more clarity in tracking our work. Having a call when the day starts to communicate what needs to be done; a call after the workday to communicate what has been done and what is left for the next day
6. Getting rid of distractions — deleting the apps with infinite content (Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, news apps), and sometimes keeping the phone away
7. Taking a break every 50 minutes — getting up, drinking some water, resting the sore eyes, and the stiff back. During longer breaks, I read a book instead of looking at the phone. To my surprise am at least reading one book per week

Things work differently for different people. We just have to try things and see what works for us

So how are you handling remote working during this situation?