Discuss the day together, drink coffee with a colleague and close the door behind you at 5 p.m. The traditional working day is no more. Well, for now. Until April 6, you will have to do it with your own living room and a handful of online tools. Not for you, working from home? With these tips it will work.
Get up like you always do
Sleep in and then climb into your pajamas behind your laptop? Not a good idea. This way you will not get into your work rhythm, and you will continue to associate working from home with a bit of lounging. So just take a shower like you always do, enjoy a breakfast without screens and only then start your working day.
Ergonomically responsible
Not everyone has the luxury of a home office. You may be sitting at the kitchen table just like me. Nevertheless, it is important to create an ergonomically responsible workplace for yourself. Not working on the couch or in bed, but just at the table. If possible, purchase a laptop stand and external mouse and keyboard, so that you can sit upright and do not suffer from neck and shoulders.
Tune in
The fact that the entire office – from sole trader to SME – now works from home does not mean that you can no longer consult. Be efficient, and do not hang on the phone with every laundry. Bundle your questions and schedule one or more call times per day or per week. Also choose the right means of communication for each problem. Sometimes it is more pleasant to discuss something face-to-face, such as during performance appraisals. A video call is a great option for this.
Take breaks
It may sound crazy, but when you work from home you can sometimes tend to work much more than you normally do in the office. You don’t chat with colleagues, coffee and toilet are never far away and the lunch break is usually shorter than in the office. Watch out for that! Breaks are not to be underestimated. If you find it difficult to take a break at home, it is probably best to go outside.
Online tools
Do you still use post-it’s and a whiteboard at the office and do you prefer a live conversation over an email? That must now also be online. Fortunately, there are online tools like Trello, Google Drive, Whereby and Slack. With Trello you can create to-do lists online, Google Drive is key for sharing – and collaborating with documents, Whereby is “the new Skype” and Slack is an online chat program. There are even tools for a shared online whiteboard, such as Mural. Many of the tools are free, but it’s certainly not a bad idea to invest in some good tools.
Activities in 2020
Not all activities are suitable for working from home. Coaching and teaching are simply done face-to-face, cutting one’s hair can only be done physically, and retailers and catering owners are also struggling now … Yet this situation requires a bit of thinking. Can your offline activities really not make way for an online variant? Can that coaching session or training not take place online? And can your store or restaurant not focus on collection and delivery (with 1.5 meters distance)? If your work is (partly) really not suitable to do from home, then it is time to start a new revenue model. Write an e-book, host a webinar, sell your knowledge. Everything to keep things going!
Set limits
Those who work from home will experience that handling a good work / life balance can be a challenge. It is still tempting to flip the laptop over in the evening. Or to start Netflix in the middle of the day. My advice: be a bit strict with yourself. That works both ways. Formulate your tasks well and ensure that they are really completed. Ready? Then the laptop really has to be closed and you can “go home”. It does not change the fact that the bank is only three meters away. Set limits and stick to it, otherwise everything will get mixed up and you will do two things halfway. Make a clear distinction between “working” and “being free”.
Think of it as an exercise
Maybe you have been dreaming of working from abroad for a while? To travel around as a digital nomad? Think of working from home for a few weeks as an exercise. It is the ideal preparation to start working remotely – for example from Thailand or Cape Town. Consider the situation as a test: what is going well and what could be better? What have you not yet mastered, and is it really crucial to work and travel as a digital nomad? As soon as the borders open again, you can start working as a digital nomad.