As many of you, I have also been working from home for a while. My home office routine started on Friday 13th March. How epic, isn’t it?
Based on the current situation with Corona we have to count on next several months staying at home. Alone, with roommates or families – these times are challenging for all of us.
First months were really difficult to handle as I’m an extrovert and “talky” person. So suddenly my daily meetings with people changed to a „staying at home alone“ for uncertain period of time. “So what now?” I asked myself. Everything has changed and even if we were allowed to work from office according to specific rules, now we lost this opportunity as the 2nd wave has come and its getting worse. We need to adapt to a new “normal” for at least next months and for most of us it means home office. Again.
Therefore Ive being thinking what helped me during the 1st wave not to get crazy being home alone all week long and how to adapt and evolve these hints during upcoming months.
Home & office 2in1
First days of home office I have been working from my bed or couch and kind of enjoyning work in pyjamas. But when time was up and I should close laptop and do something else like watching something on Netflix I had the same feeling as during work-time simply just because of the same spot I was stuck in – my house. My mind just couldnt accept the fact that the house means both – home & office. So it happened I was not able to relax and set my mind for “after work”.
Second issue I was dealing with was the lenght of my work day – I used to work till the evening without realizing that the time is passing by and I need to stop. „So what? Now I am home all day long, so why not to finish everything what is needed even at 8PM.“ No, this isn’t my role. It took me time when I realised that this isn’t helping my mental health at all and I need to find a way how to distinguish “home” time from “office” time.
Here is what I do:
- Set up my alarm for “end” of work every working day – in case I forget to stop working (again). This is also connected with routine & week plan mentioned below.
- Create a place dedicated only for work and separated from place to relax such as a bed or sofa – don’t combine it. I just bought a small table and brought a monitor from the office. So when the time comes, I get up and go, leave my laptop same as I used to do before Corona – leave the work for next day at the office.
- Put blockers for lunch and small breaks between meetings/calls into my calendar – this helps me to have mental breaks and be more focused when jumping from one call to another. The Pomodoro technique 🍅 could help in case you fight with procrastination and you want to manage your time better.
- At the end of each day I check what I managed that day and prepare To Do list for the next day. This is how I got an overview of upcoming days and could plan more precisely my effort and what needed to be done. And when to stop.
Set up a routine & week plan
Someone can say that routine is boring but routine also means to have some predictability and control. In these times when nobody knows how long the pandemic will last and how it affects us I needed to have a feeling that I am able to control and predict at least something. So I did my work-week schedule like:
- wake up and make the bed – always
- enjoy a coffee and breakfast (every day the same), turn on TV and watch IDx channel mainly focused on criminal investigations during breakfast – my way how to wake up
- exercise, running or going for walk (yep, everyday) sometimes in the morning sometimes after work
- call friends & family if personal meeting is not possible
- watch Netflix or read books
- To Do list – I created one directly in mobile and every time something I need or want crosses my mind I just write it down. And in case I have no idea what to do with my free time then I open my To Do list and voila, I have something to do.
New way to socialise
When all this started I was really scared of being locked in the flat alone without possibility to meet with friends. Where there is a will there is a way. Together with colleagues we created a WhatsApp group called “quarantine sucks 😷” where we share everything related to our taste of humor, about small trips (when situation allows us), agree on a next evening call or just share nice moments from our lives.
After first week of home office I created a Teams meeting called “Lunch call” when we just chat and eat our lunch together. Main purpose was to be as social as possible but online. You know, Corona…So this is our place for taking lunch break together where we discuss everything. Well, the first call was on 18th March 2020 and its still ongoing. We had been calling every day till summer when the situation about Corona was better and we could go out and meet each other in person. There were evenings when we were calling 4-5 hours as all of us were home and mainly alone. The Lunch call still remains and we become more like a family than colleagues.
So I started to find more calls like this with friends outside work. And it works. Day after day I saw that even during social distance we still can be close to each other. Yes, it will never be the same like personal meeting, but I needed to get used to my new „normal“ life. (Hopefully, just for upcoming months). Again. I realised these calls were really helpful not only to my mental health but also to others.
And that is what I have learned so far by my own experience and how I was able to handle the time spent at home and alone. Im not trying to give you unsolicited advices or tell you what to do. Maybe it could help or inspire you to do something similarly or differently. And of course! I would be really happy to hear your experiences and get some inspiration.