A blessing and a curse.
As many of us are facing the prospect of working from home, I thought I'd write briefly about my experience with it. Generally, my home has always been my preferred office space, primarily due to the calm and amount of thoughtfulness I can put into my work while not under the stress of an office environment. I'm sure many employees and yourself are feeling the same way, but there are problems to address that some are struggling to get used to. The primary issue tends to be productivity, which while not the most important thing in my opinion (I prioritise my own and my colleague's mental health), it is still essential to the operation of your company or business, so I'm going to share some tips to feel more empowered with your work.
When I first started working from home this last year it was a real adjustment for me. Not only was it hard to know how to maintain a focus, but also what to prioritise and when. Priorities shouldn't be an issue if you are comfortable with your work, but some of you may have experienced a massive shift in "office" politics and workflow, which has thrown those priorities into question. Changing responsibilities may have also affected you due to changes to teams and resources.
Ask yourself: What needs doing?
As with all things in my life, I find the best way to combat both of the above issues is to break up your work into a series of lists. ToDo lists are nothing new in the productivity space, but it is the prioritisation that you can attach to this that is most important. I have spoken at length in other articles about the new project management styles we have recently employed as a company and that work has improved my view on all aspect of work planning.
My first suggestion is to write out everything you have to do exhaustively, and if you miss something you can always add it later. Just be careful not to let this list overwhelm you, as it only serves as a guide and is not meant to intimidate you in any way. Next prioritise these based on their essentialness. I used to, and still do occasionally use three levels of priority on a daily basis when setting my daily tasks, and the same applies to all other areas of your work. These sections are Must do, Should do and Could do.
Breaking down your work in this way allows you to do a number of things. Firstly, looking at your Could dos, ask yourself if they are really necessary. Most of the time, these are just things that distract you from the core of your work. It could just be that they aren't essential now, but will be later, so feel free to trim your list accordingly with care, and re-prioritise when necessary. With that out of the way, you now have a clear set of lists to pull from every day to try and complete.
I tend to pull three tasks from my Must do, two from my Should do and one from my Could do. This system still affords me space to work on the small niggling tasks on my list, while prioritising what matters. It's great in my opinion for keeping on track, and is simple enough you can do it anywhere in any format, although I find a dedicated notebook to be the most helpful so I can have it on me at all times and have the satisfaction of physically ticking things off. This may seem minor but plays on our psychology. Most people like checking boxes it turns out.
Ask yourself: Where are you doing this?
I'm sure it's no secret that your environment really does affect how you feel. Imagine two scenarios. One where you are in a room full of your favourite gadgets, or food, or whatever your most prominent vice is, and one where you are surrounded by nothing but books related to your work, whatever that may be. What do you think is more likely to get you to complete work-related tasks? The answer is obvious (I hope!), and I think of my environment as a bit like a scale of how likely I am to WANT to do work. Now, look around you. Where does your workspace fall on this scale? How much of your environment is leisure, and how much work-related? If you are struggling with too many distractions, maybe a change of room is in order, or even a change in what you have in your space?
The next element of your environment is your comfort level in relation to your furniture. Again, you can see this as a scale, with comfort being on one end and discomfort being on the other. I actually find you want to be somewhere in the middle. You don't want to hate work or be distracted by a bad back, but at the same time, you don't want to have the option of dozing off. A good desk and chair are much better than a bed in this respect, but allow yourself the freedom to work in bed if it works for you. This advice is by no means absolute, and what works for one person might not for another. This is mainly just my experience, and this is coming from someone who hates formality in the workplace (for better or worse).
Lastly is something that might seem a bit silly or even controversial to some, but I'm going to talk about the way you dress. One thing I hated while working in a call centre is that we were forced to wear suits, but I can see where management was coming from. They thought that by increasing formality, productivity would also increase, but that wasn't the type of work culture we were in. We were trying to be friendly with our customers, and that amount of stress and formality didn't encourage staff to behave as such. It made us tense at times, and at home, what is the point of being out of the office if you cant relax every now and then. Again, for me, too much comfort can make me lazy, so find that balance for yourself, just like with your surroundings.
In quarantine, I found that I haven't been quite myself, despite working from home before, and one day I decided to dress up in my nicest outfit. I did this for no reason other than I was getting bored and fancied a change, but it did wonders for my productivity and helped me feel a bit more like my usual self. This was in part because I had become too comfortable. Tired all the time, wanting nothing more than to stay in bed on my phone. Of course, my clothing isn't the reason for this, but it certainly helps give you a boost if you need it!
The future of working from home and employer/employee relations.
Now I could write in detail about more topics relating to productivity at home, but this focus on tasks and environments will get you most of the way to working effectively in your new space. I did want to talk a little about one last thing though before I go, but it doesn't apply to everyone, so if you arent working within a company with others, feel free to stop here (but might still be an interesting read and thank you for reading so far).
For those that are working within teams, particularly with management structures, employees and employers NEED to respect each other and the freedoms and change in lifestyle that the home brings. It is not and never should be anyone's job to micromanage how people are working (so long as they are doing it to the required standard). It should NOT and should never be your place to control how an employee conducts themselves privately outside of your building, and you will get pushback if you try to do so. It will build a sense of resentment among your staff if you try this, and that's something I can assure you.
Respect and trust your workforce and treat them like people, but on the flip-side employees also have a responsibility to their employer to treat their work seriously. Yes, you are and should free to conduct yourself how you please, but you still have responsibilities. You are still getting paid, and still, need to find ways to adapt to your new space. It isn't always easy, and everyone needs to understand that but don't think of this as a holiday. I don't think some people understand how lucky they are to still have their jobs while also having newfound freedoms at home, so don't take that for granted. If you do, there is a chance that you won't have that job for long, and believe me, there is currently a huge list of people who aren't employed ready and waiting to replace you.
This is a difficult and uncertain time, but we all have a responsibility to make this work for everyone, and it's about cooperating, not demonising each other and throwing blame around. Take responsibility for yourselves and helping those you work with, and hopefully, with time we can make working from home more accepted in the larger society. I believe working from home is the future of "office" work, and if we can prove that this form of employment is still effective it benefits everyone, so don't give this experience a bad reputation. And to bosses, think of the savings if you don't need a large office space or subsidise travel! There really is an economic argument to this, but it takes shifting the paradigm of current work culture in a rather large way, and I think this is the time to do it.
I hope you've gained something from this, and empathise with my perspectives on employee and employer responsibilities. As always, have a nice week, and I hope to have you back again soon. I am currently investigating the effects of dopamine on productivity, so check in again in the near future for that article.