From being onboarded remotely, to figuring out how to work remotely has been an adjustment - to say the least. With navigating when to work, where to work from and how to just balance it all and create boundaries can be tough.
It’s been a time for change, and here are a few helpful tips and insights which can make this change a little more manageable whether it be your approach to your work day, or how you will be conducting that work:
1. Create a morning routine
It would be so easy to roll out of bed, open up your laptop and say BOOM I’m at work. However, the ideal way to start your day is to keep as much normalcy around your usual routine as possible. Get out of bed (make it up), get a workout in, take a shower and get dressed as you would if you were leaving your house for work. It’s not a good idea to slouch around in your pj’s all day.
Make that first cup of coffee and settle in!
2. Schedule your day
As you are now in your home workspace – it is important to schedule your day properly – including when to stop working and when to take a break. Working to a schedule, be it slotting all meeting in your diary, to allocating dedicated actionable work time, will help with the productivity you get out of your day. You will feel relief and less stress as your day is structured and you are not overwhelmed by the need to complete everything on your to do list at once.
3. Create a workspace
No, your bed is not your new office!
Create a space in your home that replicates, as much as possible, your workspace in your office. A neat desk, a quiet room – if you have the luxury of space! If possible, let this be in a space that allows for fresh air and natural light. Anywhere that you can create a workstation for yourself, that once you take a seat at this desk, you know your day has begun.
Remember to keep a neat and tidy background for when you are on those video calls.
4. End your day
Your office is now anywhere that you are. Remember to switch off at the end of the day – and maintain your regular working hours (if your business is structured that way) to separate the workday from your “home” time. As your office is now at home, you can easily get stuck in to working all the time so set boundaries for yourself. Small example – working from my desk is work time, sitting with my laptop on the couch is personal time.
5. Don’t forget to socialise
One of the biggest aspects that will be missed from working at home is time spent chatting and catching up with your team. Whatever your normal check-ins were – "how was your weekend, how are you doing?" Try as much as possible to keep the communication up through structuring your Zoom calls in the same way to begin sessions.
Everyone is navigating this time very differently so it’s important to reach out to check in on your team to see that they are ok!
6. Get some exercise
Schedule this into your daily routine as well. With the lack of interaction or “gathering around the watering hole” at the office, you could become quite stagnant by sitting at your desk all day. To be productive you have to fuel your brain and body with the energy that it needs to do deep and meaningful work.
Get some sun and drink lots of water!
In the transition to our new reality of working from home, this might be a good time to change the way in which you work as well! Plenty tools and tricks exist to help get the most productivity out of your day.
Try these:
Miro - an online collaborative white board tool. Introduces an element of fun to your brainstorming, planning sessions and meetings in general. Everyone has a say, and is able to join in the discussion both verbally and visually. Anything from sticky notes, images, and text boxes can be used to engage with your team. This tool really allows you feel like you are in the same “room” participating and engaging, other than just staring at each other’s faces on the screen!
Slack – if your company doesn’t already have a chat platform why not introduce Slack? Slack keeps communication streamlined and focused. You are able to create channels where you can share anything from random facts to important details. Or create closed groups to discuss projects directly with your teammates. Slack is a fantastic way to remove the unnecessary emails, or hosting meeting for the sake of a meeting. All comms are kept in a safe place, and if somebody new starts and they are added to the channel, they have access to all prior communication – how amazing! So this information does not get lost when someone leaves and an inbox is closed down.
Trello – is a fantastic online project management too. You can use it to arrange your tasks into cards, lists, tick boxes. Assign projects to team members and monitor your process as you go. It’s a quick and easy method to see what your teammates are working on but also a way to arrange your projects collaboratively. Simple headings like “doing” “to do” and “done” help you move your cards around and visually watch as the project moves along. You’re able to tag your team members who are working together, so everyone knows which parts apply to them.
The greatest thing about all these tools are they are free – paid for versions are available once you reach more advance features of the product.
Change can be very daunting for some, but with a little open mind you will see it turns out to be not that bad. The trick is always to take the positives from a situation and the biggest one for working from home – NO TRAFFIC! How amazing is that?!
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To find out more, we'd love to hear from you:
hello@kaleidoscopesa.co.za