6 Ways to Win Working From Home
Perhaps by now you’re a whole season into your fave Netflix show, you’ve finished a jar of Pic’s Peanut Butter and you’re going a little mad coz you haven’t talked to a real human in 4 long days…
Yes in the current climate people are being sent home from work which needs to happen to slow the spread of COVID-19. However, in the midst of this many are discovering that perhaps this whole working from home thing isn’t so glamorous. In fact, it’s pretty challenging.
I left corporate structure 3 years ago, and I’ll be honest the first year working from home was a blur. But our greatest challenges are our greatest opportunities (am I right?!) so leaving the world of a designated cubicle, deadlines, lunch breaks, and coffee dates meant I was suddenly forced to learn how to create new structures that I am so excited to share this with you (remoter worker and digital nomad right huuur)!
Firstly, us humans are complex beings, we seek freedom but we don’t necessarily do well with tooooo much of it. We need rituals, routines, structures and boundaries in place to win the day. Consistency creates certainty in a time like this too.
So let’s bring a little structure back to your daily life shall we?
6 Ways to Win Working from Home:
Maintain a Consistent Morning Ritual
Plan Your Productive Day
Have a Clear Designated Workspace
Used Focused Deep Work Sessions
Take Conscious Breaks
Setup Virtual Coffee Dates
Let’s explore these in a little more depth so you can implement them right away...
1. Maintain a consistent morning ritual
Sure the first week is fun, staying up late, sleeping in, laying around in ya activewear and PJs but it gets old pretty quickly. One day the plumber knocked on our door at 12pm and I was still in my dressing gown, so embarrassed in the moment I knew something had to change....
What’s your current morning ritual?
If you can keep it consistent, that’s great! Or perhaps been complaining you don’t have time for a morning ritual, well now is your chance to create it!
With this consistency is key, so:
still get up at a similar/same time each day
have a shower and get ready for the day (granted this one is seemingly simple, but profoundly impactful)
create an activation ritual - a 15-minute heartset, mindset, soulset process to mark a clear line in the sand to say “my formal day starts now”. Feel free to try our guided visualisations, journal on 5 things you’re grateful for (perspective is key during challenging times), have a quick boogie to your fave tune and pour yourself a cuppa and get stuck in with the next step.
2. Plan your productive day
“Either you run the day or the day runs you” said someone smart who knew a lot about productivity. There’s nothing worse than getting to the end of a day and feeling flat because you haven’t really done anything, you know the feeling right?
Yea let’s not have that happen, so usually, we are dictated by deadlines, colleagues waiting for work from us and bosses telling us the daily priorities. But there’s not going to be so much accountability now so you’re going to need to create some structure for yourself.
Each morning (after your morning ritual of course) take 10 minutes to map out your day.
3. Have a clear, designated workspace
We are environmentally cued animals, meaning our habits are often cued by our environments (James Clear is the go-to man on this research!). Meaning that if you try to work from the couch you’ll be cued to watch TV, if you try to work from bed, you’ll be cued to nap/chill/read a book.
When you work from home your environments get blended, it’s crucial to create some distinctions for your brain. If you don’t you risk a) doing really average work or b) feeling like you should be non-stop working.
To really master this game it’s time to find a space and set it up as your Designated Workspace. Clear it, clean it, put a couple of pictures or post-its up and make sure you use this as your ‘work mode on’ space only. See Pinterest for inspiration.
Top Tip: Note you don’t have health and safety doing a workspace assessment for you so please make sure it’s conducive to your posture. I use Happy Lappy stand (after needing too much Chiropractic care).
4. Use focused deep work session
So now there’s no noisy colleagues or office distractions you should get heaps of work done right?? Mmmm your Netflix account and Social Media platforms may say otherwise.
With little accountability, it’s time to take conscious leadership over this and commit to at least 1-2 Deep Work Sessions a day (your life is about to change forever).
This is where you completely switch off all distractions, technology, phone on aeroplane mode etc, put a timer on for 60-90 mins and just fully drop in on one task (give yourself a cheeky treat at the end too).
5. Take conscious breaks
(read me twice!)
Rest, reset, rest, reset.
At work, you’re naturally cued to have breaks, go out for a coffee, schedule a team meeting, take lunch, attend a training session - you picking up what I’m putting down me? But working alone means it’s super easy to be completely consumed with your head in your phone or laptop and there aren’t many people around to pull you out of the vortex so it’s time to integrate conscious breaks (keyword being conscious).
Ideas for conscious breaks:
Go for a walk around the block
Put some music on and wash the dishes/doing the laundry
Read for 30 minutes
Meditate for 10 mins
Throw on some Yoga with Adrienne session (youtube)
6. Schedule virtual coffee dates
Perhaps my introverts are celebrating that all catch ups just got cancelled. But humans crave connection, it’s crucial for maintaining our mental health.
So yes, it’s different to go digital but it’s also really rad. We just set up a group of 5 gals all across the globe and we are doing bi-weekly check-in calls (agenda and all!) - it’s one of my fave times of the week!
Setup your Zoom account and schedule some consistent virtual coffee dates. You can thank me later.
Look, some of these things are common sense but not common practice.
Freedom comes from discipline, these times will be testing but those that will succeed are those who can bring structure, leadership and discipline amidst the chaos.
This may just be the most amazing opportunity in your life to reset your habits, create a balanced and productive daily life. Make the most of it.
Wishing you well, stay grounded, stay focused and know this too shall pass.
