How to win at Working From Home
BY JON GOLDSTEIN
6 tips for staying productive in your home office.
A
piping hot tumbler of your favorite coffee, accompanying you on the morning commute. The fresh air of a construction site, not a cloud in the sky. Lunch breaks with the team. They sure sound nice right about now, don’t they? Working from home can be tough at times. Like church and state, there’s meant to be a clear separation between your work life and home life. But now, because of COVID-19, all of this has changed. So, how does one succeed at work while housebound? How do you stay focused when every day is like Ground Hog’s Day, but without Bill Murray to keep things interesting? Here are a few tips to help you stay the course.
Dress for success (This doesn’t mean PJ’s) A simple act, but a necessary one, getting dressed is a symbolic gesture that you’re starting the day. Now this doesn’t mean you need to go putting on a tie. Think of it like it’s Casual Friday at your office, except that every day is Friday. That’s how you should dress. Be comfortable but confident that should a video conference happen, you won’t need to speed-button a button down shirt.
Define your time Be sure to set boundaries for when you’re working and when you’re not. Start at 9. End at 5. Start at 8:30. End at 4:30. Do whatever works for you but be consistent with your timetable. Consider keeping your exact office hours the same to ensure a smooth transition once social distancing measures lift and you can return to work. If everyone in your office keeps the same hours, it will remain easy to communicate with the rest of your team throughout the day.
Over-communicate While working remotely, it’s easy for tasks to fall through the cracks if everyone is not regularly communicating with one another. Make a plan with your boss for how often you should check in each day. Come up with a plan for how new projects should get kicked off. And by all means, don’t limit your communications to email and text messages. Try video conferences. Try the oldfashioned method of just picking up a phone and making a call. Phone calls and video meetings can help you actually talk things out instead of volleying emails back and forth, wasting time and 6
I C O NTR A C T O R S . N E T
productivity.
The Pomodoro Technique Did you see what’s trending on Yahoo news? How about that free agency deal on ESPN? Any word from college friends on Facebook messenger? At work, it’s easy to get distracted. And it’s even easier to get distracted while working from home. This is why you should consider a method like the Pomodoro Technique. This time management tool divides your workday into 25-minute segments. Set the timer for 25 minutes and when it goes off take a 3-5 minute break. After completing 4 of these timed cycles, take a longer break. Then start over. By establishing official break periods, you’ll be encouraged to focus on the tasks ahead of you. Because a break is just around the corner.
Stay connected Reply to emails, return calls and answer voicemail messages promptly. When not occupying the same workspace, people become hyper-aware of timing and whether or not they’ve heard back from you. Even if you don’t have all the answers to someone’s email, you can still reply to them confirming receipt of their message and letting them know when you plan on following up. Always keep lines of communication open. The more that is said, the less confusion there will be between members of your team.
Stay social While working from home, it’s easy for a company’s culture to fall by the wayside. Work becomes all about the work, and less about the comradery and teamwork that goes into it. To help keep your company’s culture strong, schedule social events with your colleagues. Throughout the country, businesses are holding virtual happy hours—video calls where everyone gets online just to talk about life without any business agendas. As weeks become months, and as the coronavirus continues to keep us at home, it’s important for us to succeed as remote workers. What we do from afar, every day, is what will keep our businesses afloat. Sources: inc.com | npr.org | themuse.com
