What I've Learned from Working At Home

We're currently living through the biggest work from home experiment in the world. Across the globe, people from all industries and lines of business are working remotely in an effort to minimize the spread of COVID-19.

I have been working remotely since March 13, so I'm now ten weeks into my personal work from home experiment. As part of this "new normal" that we're all living in, I've had to adapt and adjust my work style and my mentality to accommodate remote life.

Here's what I've learned from working from home:

Create a routine.

If you had told me a month ago that I would be advocating for setting a routine, I would have laughed in your face. Being a naturally restless person, I tend to get bored easily and am always looking for ways to change things up. These past few months of working from home have taught me the importance of having a semblance of a routine. I'm not recommending you have your life planned out to the minute (unless that works for you) but I do recommend having a general plan for the day.

Right now, my routine looks a little something like this:

• Wake up
• Walk Pancake (my adorable, two-year-old mini Goldendoodle)
• Make coffee (aka: lifeblood)
• Create a daily to-do list
• Tackle one to three items on the to-do list
• Make lunch
• Walk Pancake
• Do a 15-minute yoga flow
• Tackle another one to three items on the to-do list
• Walk Pancake

Of course, this isn’t a hard and fast schedule that I follow down to the tee -inevitably something will pop up that I've not planned for - but it does help me organize my day and manage my week. I still balk at the idea of a routine, but in this period of uncertainty, knowing what to expect out of my daily schedule has been helpful for me.

Set a work schedule.

Setting a work schedule naturally follows creating a routine. In the first week or two of working from home, I noticed that I was working harder and longer than I was at the office. After speaking with several of my co-workers, I found that they were in the same boat. The conclusion I came to was since we didn’t have our normal commutes to segment our workdays, we weren’t maintaining a typical work schedule.

For myself, since I wasn’t having to battle 45-minutes + of traffic on I-4 (also known as my personal hell), I was incorporating that time into my workday. As a result, I was putting in 10+ hours into work each day and not taking time to establish work/life boundaries. Since recognizing this, I’ve designated strict working hours for myself - just like I would at the office - where I would put in 8 hours each day. If I needed to work a little longer on a particular day, I've made sure to flex that time out later in the week. Implementing this type of work schedule had helped prevent my work life from bleeding into my personal life.

Designate a specific space as your work area.

Another way I’ve kept my work life from bleeding into my personal life is by creating a specific space that I work from. My boyfriend and I are both working from home right now, so we’ve each created our own designated workspace. I’ve taken over our dining room table and he’s occupying our spare bedroom. Creating our own workspaces has helped us step away from work at the end of the day, just like leaving an office.

Take mental breaks.

We all (hopefully) know that our mental health should be our priority, always. However, especially during times of crisis, it’s important to take time to check-in on yourself and gauge how your mental health is doing. Whether it’s going on a long walk, practicing meditation or yoga, journaling, painting, or some other form of creative outlet it’s important to take mental breaks. Working from home places us in a unique situation, in which we are able to work for hours uninterrupted, but that also means hours of uninterrupted screen time and mental strain. Be kind to yourself during this time and if your brain is telling you that you need a break, take one.

Pace yourself.

There’s been a lot of focus on maintaining your productivity while working from home, which is all well and good, but if you find that your productivity has slipped during this time, don’t beat yourself up over it. We are in a global health crisis. We are all being impacted, both professionally and personally, and that is going to take a toll. I’m not saying that you should just give up and not put effort towards your work, but if you’re not as productive as usual, remember what we’re going through is not “normal” and it’s not fair to expect “normal” results. Once again, and I cannot say this enough, BE KIND TO YOURSELF.

A lot of meetings can be emails.

This is simultaneously a bit of a joke and a bit serious. Since we’ve moved remote, it seems like only the most necessary of meetings have been left on the calendar and the rest have either been canceled or turned into an email. Maybe a benefit of this craziness is that we’ll come back to fewer meetings on our calendars and more attempts to communicate effectively through email. Here’s to hoping! ;)

*Since writing this post, I've been laid off from my job as a result of COVID. It's been a challenge for me as I've always found identity in my career. I'm working on some freelance projects and trying to pick up contract work and these statements still ring true and I stand by them. I hope this is helpful for someone.*