Across the country, workers who have never had the option to work from home are going remote. With that new shift, people everywhere are trying to find their new normal (and thank goodness — social distancing is critical right now). At Atrómitos, we’re all virtual, all the time (except when we’re working on-site with our partners). Here are some of our team’s favorite tips and tools to consider if you’re finding out that working virtually is a whole new world that comes with its own challenges.
Real-talk: it’s no vacation, and staying productive can be hard.
Figure out and stick with your routine, including when you shut off for the day.
Just because you’re not physically traveling to the office doesn’t mean that you should skip your normal workday routine. Set an alarm, take a shower, and get dressed. It can help get you in the right mindset to start working and be productive.
But just as important to getting in the right mindset, just like you would arrive at a particular time and leave the office after a day of work, set a start time, and, sometimes, more importantly, an end time for your workday. Being in your home without the natural points of arriving for and departing work can sometimes mean that you’re getting online early and logging off late. It’s an easy way to get burnt out quickly if you aren’t careful. Hold yourself accountable to your set schedule by sharing your online hours with your colleagues– and respect the boundaries set by those that you work with by only scheduling meetings and emailing during agreed-upon work times. When the day is over, turn off or put away your electronic devices (really).
Some tools that you might find helpful:
- Here are instructions on setting your availability on your Google calendar and on an Outlook calendar
- Did you know you can schedule emails to send ahead of time using a program with your accounts like Polymail or Boomerang for Gmail?
- If you use Slack, we highly suggest using this tool to schedule slack messages for later when you’re sending messages before or after working hours.
Create a protected workspace — and leave it from time to time.
Look, there are days where it’s very tempting to do our work from bed or the couch in front of the TV. But trust people who have been doing this for a while: set up a station. If you don’t have a desk, use your kitchen table. If you don’t have a kitchen table, use a corner of your bedroom. Find an area with limited traffic flow, if possible. Ideally, you can confine your workspace to one, specific area in your home so you can concentrate.
Forbes suggests setting “water-tight physical boundaries around your designated workspace that is off-limits for housemates. Treat it as if it’s five miles across town, and ask house members to consider it as such (e.g., no interruptions from another room when you’re working unless it’s an emergency).
Just as important as creating a workspace in your home is getting out of it and standing up from time to time. Without your commute, without going to grab lunch or coffee, you’re probably finding yourself sitting down way more than is healthy. Go for a walk at lunchtime. Schedule a “walking” call with a colleague for an afternoon meeting where you both agree to go for separate walks around your neighborhoods while you have a phone meeting (this only works if you don’t need to take notes, trust us!).
Some tools you might find helpful:
- Creating a workspace when you’ve got not space
- Here’s an adjustable standing or sitting desk for less than $50
Stay connected with your colleagues and over-communicate (on video if you can!).
If you’ve always worked in an office, you may not realize just how much time you actually spend chatting with colleagues throughout the day informally. From stopping by someone’s desk to check on the status of a project to chitchatting while getting coffee in the kitchen, working at home can feel isolating for everyone sometimes. As you adjust to working virtually, make an extra effort to check in with colleagues, especially those you supervise through set project meetings or one-on-one check-ins — and if possible, use video instead of the phone for an experience that’s closer to being together in the office. Use icebreakers to start meetings and share productivity tips as everyone adjusts to teleworking (what productivity tool do you use to stay organized at home?). And if you’re not already on Slack, a giant organizational channel-based chatroom, now might be the perfect time to consider it.
You might also find during this time that people need more frequent updates to ease concerns that projects or daily work have fallen off track. Consider keeping and sharing details project to-do lists and status updates via email daily or twice a week — and if your organization is financially able, consider investing in productivity tools that let workers collaborate and stay on track on projects and timelines.
For workplaces that are really missing the social element, you can schedule team-wide video lunches or a 30-minute “water cooler” video meeting just to chat about what’s new and on your mind.
Some tools you might find helpful:
- Slack (a giant organizational chatroom organized into team or project channels)
- Zoom.us for video and web conferencing (you can also use Google Hangouts!)
- Airtable for collaborative project planning, tracking, and timelines
- The Management Center’s Sample Agenda for one-on-one check-in meetings
- Some of the internet’s best meeting icebreakers
It’s OK to take a break, but fight the urge to multitask.
We get it — most of us are working moms, and when you work from home it’s easy to get distracted by things like laundry or to think you can get overly ambitious and start cooking a 6-course Thanksgiving dinner at 1 pm. But trust us, it’s easier than you’d expect to get distracted. Just like we warned you in the first teleworking tip above to set clear start and end times for work, don’t let chores distract you from being productive. That means just like you would if you were at the office, prep meals ahead of time, avoid turning on the TV (even if it’s just background noise!), and leave the laundry for before or after work.
Pro-tip from our team: if you know you want to take a few breaks throughout the day to fold a load of laundry or get dinner into the crockpot, start working an hour earlier and schedule two 30-minute chore blocks throughout your day.
Some tools you might find helpful:
If you have kids, be ready to be the BBC guy. And, start planning for it.
What BBC guy? This BBC guy.
Look. In many places around the country right now, schools are closed and kids are home. This is new territory for us too. Be honest with your employer about the situation that you’re in. And be understanding that with the coronavirus pandemic, lots of your colleagues are facing uncharted waters with their kid situation, too.
First, if you can, get help. With social distancing, this may or may not be something that you feel comfortable doing — but if you have a family member nearby or a trusted babysitter who is practicing healthy social-distancing as well, this is the most advisable option to get the most work done. If you co-parent, you and your partner can also take turns keeping the kids entertained and working (be upfront about this with your employer so that they understand how you’re managing and planning for parenting while teleworking during coronavirus).
If your employer will allow for it, consider mixing up your hours (many organizations are being more lenient around flex hours during COVID-19). Many of us have gone through periods, especially with young children, toddlers, and babies where we worked early or later, while our children were asleep.
And when all else fails, big lego sets have been known to take hours and Frozen 2 was just added to Disney+ (truly, the place where really do come true).
Some tools you might find helpful:
We know that this is challenging — trust us, working from home is challenging on the best day without nonstop news coverage and anxiety about a global pandemic. Do your best — we’re all operating in a totally new world right now, and sometimes that means building the plane while flying it.