I’ve been a ‘Work-from-Home-r’ for roughly eight years. In that time, apart from a few spells here and there, it’s always been a periodic or very semi-regular thing; mostly around one day a fortnight. My usual reasons for doing so are to make it easier to fit more in to my week; the negated travel time means I can feel productive from first thing in the morning, and the extra time allows me to fit in a health checkup, parcel pickup, or whatever other ‘life’ matters might be pending. Another big bonus is that I usually find a big boost of creativity can occur from jarring one’s self into a different environment now and then - probably the only thing I liked about the hotdesking / ‘active’ working environments adopted by some of the bigger companies in Perth during the 2010s.
Now, with COVID-19 causing due concern among large gatherings of people, the WFH setup looks like it’ll be a slightly more permanent one - at least for a little while. So how to stop one’s home ending up like our workplace, and breeding the same kind of ‘sameness’ that can lead to a mental logjam? There’ll also be the risk of gradually losing some of the rigour, professionalism, and time management that comes with the workplace. I’m not talking waking up and working half-naked here; just the idea of losing the routine of ticking off to-do items with a coffee in the morning, or doing the prep work for the back-to-back meetings you know you’ve got coming up. Luckily, past experiences working from home have taught me a few tricks I’ll be able to use to hopefully stay fresh and focussed in the months ahead.
Have a damn good chair
If there’s one thing your workplace shouldn’t be skimping on, it’s the thing you sit in for the majority of your day. If you’re in a job like mine that requires a lot of ‘thought’ work as well as a lot of typing and writing, you need something that not only gives you good postural support for long periods, but also allows you the freedom to stretch back and think - or just lean back, take a break, and relax. If you’re working from home for a decent stretch of time, trust me when I say that the couch will feel very uncomfortable after a while. You want something that keeps you ‘in the zone’, providing as much support and comfort as your regular office chair.
Separate the personal and professional
It’s awfully tempting to repurpose that beefy home computer you have to act as a superior replacement for your work laptop. Don’t. Putting aside issues of security and ethics for a moment, I find not setting up a DMZ between your work laptop/virtual machine/remote desktop and your personal machines makes you far less productive. Yeah, we’ve all got phones with notifications and messages and whatnot (DND mode is great, btw) but we cam put those on silent, or put them face down on our desks. Doing this on a personal computer with all your favourite browser tabs, plugins, games, etc. can be a real distraction from focusing in on the stuff that matters in your day job. By all means, switch on over and clear your head for an hour or so in the middle of the day, but don’t try to jump between setting up next week’s Coronavirus stay-at-home party on Facebook with replying to Mike from accounting’s increasingly agitated demands for a summary of last quarter’s earnings.
Pets are cute and cuddly, but only if they behave
Right now, I’m typing this with my dog sleeping on my lap. It’s great. He’s warm, providing companionship, the occasional snore or yawn, and it’s a really nice feeling. Six hours ago, he was a total demon, barking at the people gardening next door. If you’ve got pets in the house and they’re not used to you working there, it can be pretty challenging. If they’re the sort that will sit still for you, lying on your lap or on the floor beside your chair, that’s great. If they’re super energetic, you may need to work out an arrangement with your family (or your backyard) to take care of them while you get some stuff done. But don’t abandon the idea of socialising with them completely - getting out and playing with your furry companion is a really good way of breaking up the monotony of your day.
For god’s sake, take a break
One trap that is super easy to fall into when working from home is getting up at 7, having breakfast, jumping straight into work, and then working through until 12 hours later and realising it’s dinner time. You laugh, but without people around you getting up and leaving for lunch or their homes, your mind can get out of sync with what’s happening around you. I’ll generally look to take about three breaks over the course of the day working from home, and their lengths of time can vary. One of them I’ll usually spend eating lunch, another I might go for a walk around the block, and another I might spend out the back with the dog to get some fresh air and do something that’s not code, conversations, or documentation. Of all these tips, I really do think that this is the one that makes the most difference. Moving out of the room you’re in, and moving out of the headspace you’d created for yourself, is a great way to reset and come back refreshed for your next block of work. We know working all day in front of a screen is no good for ourselves; so why should we do it in our own homes?
In any case, that’s how I tend to go about things. Whether it gets me through what might be 3-6 months of “social distancing” is another matter; but at least I’m going in armed with some things that have worked for me in the past.