#RemoteWorking from Home: The New Normal – Podcast Transcription
In today’s podcast, I provide a few tips to help you adjust to working from home. By providing you with a framework to adjust to your new environment, you’ll be able to get a better handle on things and hopefully be more productive. These are unprecedented times we’re living in. And with that comes uncertainty. Many of you now are being asked to work from your personal space, which you may or may not embrace easily. You may be surprised to know that this is more of a psychological adjustment than a physical one. Why? Because psychologically, humans are hard wired to our environments. We work in a commercial building, and we live at home. When those two environments change or clash, we can have difficulty adjusting just the same as it is when we move to a new city.
As a remote support agency owner who has worked from home for the past 16 years, here’s my perspective:
Everything will be okay.
The situation we find ourselves in is only temporary.
Remember that you’re used to going to and working in another place or office building every day, and conducting your personal life from your home. Now you’re being asked to merge the two physical spaces into one.
Your work day is the same, only your environment has changed. Imagine if you and your family were told to leave your home and live in an office building for a length of time, the mind shift would be the same. You would have to adapt to your surroundings quickly and improvise just as you’re doing now.
Remote work/working from home has been trending for some time. Some people love it. Other people have tried it and dislike it on an epic scale. Working remotely is not for everyone. So don’t beat yourself up about it if you can’t handle it. In the pandemic situation that we find ourselves however, you will have to make the best of it.
Realize that after some time working from home, you may ask your boss to work this way forever. Or you may run screaming from your house on the first day back to work, because you can’t get to your office fast enough.
For your temporary office setup, try using a designated space, preferably a room with a door on it, perhaps a guest bedroom.
If you don’t have a desk, your employer should provide one. A simple folding table would also work.
Keep to your usual routine including your morning routine break times lunchtime, and your regular working hours. That means no doing laundry or watching TV during the day. It also means that you can still go out for a walk at lunchtime. Only this time around your neighborhood instead.
No bathrobes, please! Dress for work as you normally would. If you get up, dress up and show up, it will help your brain realize that this is another work day, just in a different place.
Your employer should provide you with all the same tools that you usually have at work to do your work from home, including hardware, like a laptop, software applications, telecom internet.
Missing human interaction? Jump on Zoom or GoToMeeting or other online video conferencing solution (paid for your employer by of course), login and have coffee break or lunch with your people or leave the application open while you do your work. You will be able to hear other humans tapping on their keyboards shuffling papers, or they may even interrupt you just like at the office. It’s not the same as interacting in person, but it’s pretty close.
Keep in touch with your manager often. Tell them what you need, if you’re struggling, how you’re feeling what your day is like. Remember, this is not your natural working habitat and you need to let people know what’s going on for you.
Look at what’s in your head. By this I mean writing down with pen and paper your tasks for the day. Doing this will help you keep on track for the day and it also doubles as a checklist. And you will also dump what’s rolling around in your brain and allow you to look at it providing clarity and mental focus for the day’s tasks.
In closing, I’d like to thank you so much for listening. I hope this information was helpful and I look forward to providing more. I’m Barbara Best CEO of Virtual Works Inc.
There’s a couple of action steps you can do:
- Please feel free to leave me comments or feedback on this platform.
- You can always drop me a line if you’d like to be considered for a future podcast at info@virtualworks.ca.
- You can also visit us online at www.virtualworks.ca.
- And you can always find us on LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/virtualworks
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