I've been WFH for years. And now I'm changing the way I work.
This whole crisis isn't easy for anyone. But when the lockdown came into effect, there was little question for me on how that would affect the way I work. I've been working from home mixed with a lot of travel for many years now, which not only means I'm used to it but also that I've got a dedicated home office space for it. I got this, that was definitely my first reaction to this new-ish work situation.
The crisis has me working from home since March 1st and last week I realised it wasn't working out for me anymore. Or at least, not as good as before. Was it the lack of travel or the overload of Zoom, Teams & BlueJeans calls? Was it the lack of real human meeting energy or the overdose of screentime? I wasn't immediately sure what caused it, but did decide to make a few changes which helped me so I thought they're worth sharing.
Away with the screens
With everything you normally do being translated to something on a screen the first thing I wanted to do was change that. I needed more time to think, to sketch & draw, time away from the computer. One of the advantages of traveling a lot is that it gives you loads of time to think while you wait — I'll read & annotate printouts, make scribbles in a notebook, draft some thoughts on the back of a magazine… I will actually never buy WiFi onboard because of the type of work you focus on while being offline.
I clearly didn't realise how much importance it had on the overall workflow given I classified it as a travel specific behaviour. But now it became clear it does impact work. So I'm now making sure about 25% of my 'workday' (whatever that even means today) will be spent in a room that isn't my home office and that isn’t with a computer. Back to writing thoughts on paper first and even though it means I have to type those out later, I still feel more productive when I write. Reading on paper versus on the screen even though it obviously means more paper being wasted (sorry for that) but makes me focus again better on what I'm reading.
That limited time slot in a different room (or on the terrace) with just a pen, paper and a bit of music in the back makes a whole lot of difference on my total workday.
That video could have been a call
Every call, every meeting, every brainstorm or workshop, every visit to friends, every call for help, … every single conversation seemed to have turned into a video call. And although I am known as someone who likes to push new technology into our behaviour and this is a big part of that, all those conversations shouldn't have been video calls.
I would suggest you look at each call or meeting in your agenda and not only wonder if you should be in it, but ask yourself whether it could be a phone call instead for instance. Which means you could again get away from the computer screen and take a little walk while you take the call.
Organise around unfocused moments
A nice side effect of the video calls, online document collaboration, Teams & Slack conversations, … is how organised we all have become. We're clearer in how we name files and how they're shared because other people join us working on them. Video call meetings start on time and almost never run over as if all of a sudden we can be respectful of agendas.
Feels great at the start, but hides a problem. We need the chaos, those small organic unfocused moments in between. And they're mostly gone, at least for me they are. So I'm bringing those moments back. I’ve started scheduling conversations, some time to talk with friends & colleagues and I ask people to agree on two things: (1) the conversation cannot be about COVID-19 or anything related to it, (2) each person brings one topic to the conversation that they want to talk about, something fairly random. Those talks light up my day.
Organising for unstructured moments & conversations sounds counter intuitive, but it is making a big difference for me.
Make the room bigger
We’re all confined to our room, apartment, house, … and it’s clear that is starting to daunt on us. And it’s not only the physical space that we’re confined to, we also talk to the same (most likely small) group of people pretty much all the time. And we’re probably more reminiscent of the things we cannot do anymore than that we dream about fun things, holidays, adventures etc.
That’s exactly why I’m trying to make that space — both physical as well as mental — bigger. And while I’m lucky I can still go out for a bike ride, it’s still not enough (and I know many aren’t allowed to even do that right now). So not only am I trying to bike as much as I can, I’m reaching out to friends living abroad for a talk. I’m looking more than usual at past holiday pictures. We’re scheduling out a roadtrip in Norway (which we really don’t know when we’ll take it), … anything that feels like it makes ‘the room bigger’. That makes me feel a bit less imprisoned.
Anyway. I just wanted to share these as they made a difference for me and I know we’re all trying things to keep us sane during these strange times. Let me know if any of these worked for you as well or whether you have other tips to share. I’m definitely interested.
Stay safe everyone!
