Learning to WFH
If there’s anything that self-employed, freelance and small business owners have in common, it’s that we know how to WFH (Work From Home). Some of us have quite elaborate home offices meant for hours of work, meetings and maximum productivity while others accomplish the same from merely a laptop. However, due to the COVID19 pandemic, mandatory quarantines are requiring the rest of the global workforce to set up shop in their own living rooms. I understand what they’re going through because a few years ago, I was there.
Back in 2016, I ditched the overpriced office I rented from WeWork and moved my operation to my own apartment. As a naturally social person, there were many days that I found myself desperate for human interaction. However, after re-evaluating my approach, workspace and attitude, I soon found my productivity soaring and business thriving. In fact, Harvard Business Review quoted a 2013 Stanford University study which found that the productivity of employees who worked from home was 13% higher than their off-bound colleagues. So even if this is just temporary, here are a few steps you can take to maximize productivity from home:
Keep Your Routine
Everyone has their own morning rituals and it’s important to maintain some semblance of normalcy. Some people rise at the crack of dawn, others prefer to hit snooze until the last possible minute. One colleague of mine likes to wake up an hour early and listen to The Daily while slow-pouring his coffee. Whatever it is that jumpstarts your day on a normal workweek, try and stay consistent with that. This includes taking a shower and getting dressed as though you were going to be at an office. If you wouldn’t wear a bathrobe and slippers to the office, there’s no reason you should be wearing them while working from home. According to author and Speaker Gretchen Rubin, “Dress to signal to yourself that you’re ‘working’ by putting on some kind of appropriate outfit…it’s good for morale to take care of ourselves, and we’ll feel more competent and ready to take on the tasks of the day. Act the way you want to feel, and look the way you want to feel.”
It’s also important to note that everyone has different times where they feel most productive. For instance, I find my best focus at night so it’s not unusual for me to be up working late when everyone else is asleep. For someone else, that time of productivity might fall in early hours of the morning.
Make a Workspace
It doesn’t matter where that workspace is, whether it’s in a laundry room on top of a dryer, or a home office that belongs in architectural digest.
As someone who already works from home, I live in a two bedroom apartment where one room is a dedicated office which serves no other purpose but a workspace for myself and my team.
However, Boredpanda hilariously featured 30 unglamorous home workspaces which ranged from upside down laundry baskets to piles of tissue paper to using large dogs as a desk.
One couple I spoke to described how they handled working from home together. “As much as I love having her here, it has been hard to navigate our meetings and limited space. We have to be in diff rooms so one of us may be working from the bed, and one in the living room. We don’t have a desk set up, and our living spaces have become makeshift offices.”
Keep On Schedule
If you normally work a standard nine to five schedule, do your best to adhere to that. When you’re ready to stop for the day, remove yourself from that dedicated area as you would on a normal work day. According to Harvard Business Review’s Guide to Being More Productive, Carolyn Ohara mentions, “Setting a schedule not only provides structure to the day, it also helps you stay motivated. Start the day as you would if you worked in an office: get up early, get dressed and try to avoid online distractions once you sit down to work. Whether you just started working at home or you’ve been doing it for months or years, take a few weeks to determine the best rhythm for your day. Then set realistic expectations for what you can accomplish on a daily basis.”
Get Disconnected
A comedian friend of mine described the recent phenomenon “Non-Consensual Facetiming,” after finding herself the recipient of many unsolicited video chats from people in her life. From distant family members to former friends, people she had been on a single date with two years ago and even exes who would never video call under under normal circumstances. In this unique time in history of ‘Social Distancing’ many of us are feeling the need to constantly connect to the people in our lives. However, thats leaving some of us feeling bombarded by the over-connectedness — too much content, too much news, too many calls and facetimes and emails and check-ins. So when it comes down to a few hours of productivity, silence your phone. Disable your internet and turn off the news.
As they say, theres an app for that. Freedom promises to keep you from distracting websites and apps so you can focus on what matters. Mindful Browsing is a Chrome plugin that helps keep you focused and reminds against time wasters. Cold Turkey boasts being Mark Zuckerberg’s greatest match by by blocking distracting websites, games and applications.
Take Turns
All these steps are easy enough if you live alone or with a partner. But for parents, being productive from home is not so simple. Taking turns is a strategy my sister and brother in law employ, so while one is in charge of the kids, the other can retreat to a quiet room to focus on work. Other methods include scheduling work time around naps and screen time, or after the kids are put to bed. On Demand or Streaming education tools are a great way to keep kids busy while you’re working. For listings in New York City, check out CalendarKiddo.com. Other great resources include OutSchool, SkillShare and 2simple.
The most important thing to remember about working from home is that theres no one size fits all approach. What works for one person wont necessarily work for another. Some people may be perfectly content and productive working from their bed, whereas I would just end up streaming episodes of The Crown all day. The challenges faced by someone with a needy pet are completely different than what a person with two toddlers is dealing with. And a single person living alone is dealing with their own set of challenges in these difficult times.
As Therese Moriarty founder of data visualization firm Eyeful put it, don’t put yourself under pressure to always have a solid 8 hour work day. Some days you’ll work 0 and others you’ll work 16, it all evens out.
And when in doubt, tune out what everyone is telling you, and just do you.
