How to be location-agnostic - our working from home synopsis
As the Coronavirus poses more and more of a threat to the global community’s health, Australians have become the next in line to shut shop on businesses and send as many workers away to work from home. This initiative reflects a sparked effort to control the spread of the virus, with health organisations giving clear instruction that the best way to do this is to minimise human contact as much as possible.
Resulting has been a widespread array of articles and thought pieces on how to stay productive and focused when working from home; in other words, how to be location-agnostic. We’ve broken down some of the top discussion points in this analysis, and given some of our own teams’ opinions about how they get into the zone.
Top tips on working from home
We’d firstly like to appreciate how lucky we are in the services and knowledge based industry to be able to complete our work from home. As the world adjusts to this outbreak, it has given many businesses an opportunity to experiment with how they conduct work, which may lead to new efficiencies and potentially better work life balances in the future. However, for many which require the physical interaction and servicing of people, this isn’t possible, and we ask readers who haven’t been impacted by this crisis to remember to support those businesses in whatever ways they can.
1. Staying collaborative and agreeing actionable items
Many workplaces rely on the physical collaboration of teams through interactive presentations, mind-mapping and brainstorming in groups. Although we are blessed with useful tools like Slack, they are limited in their abilities to provide the benefits of being physically present with your colleagues.
That’s why its important to create clear expectations for attendance of video calls, and the actions that need to be taken following their completion. At White Box, Principal Consultant Louis prepares and shares a document of news and work to be completed with the team, and then hosts a Zoom meeting where we discuss and action those items for the coming week and month. In this way, we all know who is actioning what, and how that ties in with the grand scheme of our projects.
2. Don’t confuse your work with your life
Working from home means a 30 second commute or less to your chosen desk for the day, but it’s important to separate your work life from your actual life. For some, this might be plugging in your headphones to signal to your family members that you’re in work mode, clearing your desk of all non-work related items, or even writing down the times you’ll be working, breaking and thinking to give yourself a structure for the day. The team here generally agree that showering, getting dressed and (if you can) some form of exercise are a great way to signal the start of a working day.
3. Output focus, not time sheets
Similar to the last point, working from home is different than working in the office. Less distractions can often mean more output in less time, but a reliance on others’ inputs and feedback can slow the process down. Make sure to schedule times for individual work, collaboration and question asking, and of course as many rest breaks as needed to clear the head and pump up the energy levels. This will allow you to stay productive throughout the day, whilst letting your colleagues do the same.
At White Box, Junior Analyst Sai loves working at night but makes sure he’s up in the morning to check team notifications in case there is any work he needs to get done for the team immediately.
4. Get comfortable, but not too comfortable
For some, working from home is great. You might save an hour or two in total from the dreaded commute and have more time to spend with loved ones, not to mention unlimited access to your own fridge! On the contrary though, others may find it more difficult to separate their work from their home life, venting frustrations towards their partners or housemates.
In these situations, it’s important to clearly communicate these issues with your boss or colleagues. This should allow for the development of temporary work arounds to your most pressing issues. And remember, it’s important not to get too comfortable with the current changes; as circumstances change I’m sure many of us will be longing to get back to the office banter, catch up with their colleagues and renew confidences in new and ongoing clients. The team at White Box are definitely keen to be back in the new office as soon as we can!
Do you have any work from home rituals or top tips to share? We’d love to know them! Share with the White Box community on LinkedIn.
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