Working from home: tips from a virtual workplace

Working from home is becoming the new normal with the spread of Covid-19. Communities, families and small businesses are struggling with the effects of this pandemic. It occurred to us that there are lots of ways we could be helping others through this difficult time.

Here at Pristine Cleaning, working from home is something that we are quite familiar with, as our admin team all work remotely.
So our ears pricked up when we started hearing the discussion about the challenges of working from home. While there is no perfect recipe for everyone, here are some of the ways that our team work remotely.

Before you even start, add some structure to your day or your week. Make sure that ‘home life’ and ‘work life’ can co-exist without one taking over the other. Adele in our admin team has this to say about her work from home routine:

“Start your day just like you would if you were going to a physical office. Use the time you would spend on commuting to get as much household chores etc completed. Set yourself a time to start work and stick to it. The biggest hurdle when working from home is the constant temptation to get household tasks done at the same time. This helps to mitigate that urge to go put a load of washing on!”

For me personally, what has really worked is to use ‘timeblocking’ to make sure that I schedule in all my work, home and social events/tasks effectively and nothing slips between the cracks. Each week, Jay and I sit down with our weekly planners to ‘block’ out time for that week. We plan how much time we will spend on each task. It could be a 3 hour time block of payroll, or a 2 hour timeblock of jiu jitsu class. No two days are the same, so using this method we can be fluid about when certain things get done. (We can totally see why Elon Musk does this too, as does Bill Gates and Cal Newport, author of Deep Work). One week, we might do gardening on a Saturday morning, but another week it could be a Monday afternoon. Timeblocking means we find time for everything. During a ‘timeblock’, we can focus on the task at hand, knowing that everything else will have its time.

Danielle, our experienced virtual assistant, knows that It’s not a good idea to work from the couch. “Separate your working space from your living space,” she suggests. “I avoid working in my bedroom, dining room or any other areas where I spend ‘down time’. If you don’t have an office, a spare bedroom is a great place to set up a work space!”

Adele agrees, saying “If you don’t have a separate study, try to at least have a set area which is for your work only. Spreading work out across the dining room table tends to become frustrating when it needs to be cleared away each night. When you finish work for the day, try to tidy your work space, so that it’s all ready for the next day. Remember; if you are saving time from commuting, you can spare 5 minutes to organise your desk.” So true… *runs over and tidies desk*

It’s easy to overlook the mental challenges of working from home. Accounting for these challenges in advance is a good idea. As Adele suggests, “Set yourself goals, and reward yourself. For example, if you set yourself a goal to work from 6am-11am with out being distracted, reward yourself with a walk to the local coffee shop, an at home work out, or spending ½ an hour in the garden. Working from home does have its benefits, and setting yourself goals throughout the day can really help to keep your work on track.”

Having other people around may also have the added benefit of keeping you accountable for your productivity. Obviously if you’re in quarantine your colleagues aren’t going to be there with you, but there are countless ways that you can connect and collaborate online. You can send an accountability buddy your to do list in the morning and then give each other an update in the afternoon to let them know how you’ve done.

“Although working from home seems like a dream come true, in reality it can be a very lonely existence. You probably won’t be catching up with friends in person during this time of social distancing. But you can schedule phone calls instead of writing emails, have running Whatsapp chats so that you feel connected to your colleagues, or even ask your spouse/partner/parent/friend to give you a call on your lunch break for a chat,” writes Adele.

This point really resonates with Jay and I too. We regularly call each other up during the day to see how the other is going, and we don’t always make the chat about work. When you can’t see your colleagues, it’s harder to tell if they’re feeling upset, anxious, tired etc. Making the effort to check in with people is always important, but even more so when working in isolation. That said, constantly checking Instagram isn’t the ‘checking in’ that we mean (nice try :P). As Danielle advises, “if possible, turn off social media notifications on both your phone and desktop as they can be very distracting.”

It’s easy to feel like the more time you clock the more productive you’ll be (seems logical right?). It’s not actually true. When working from home it’s easy to feel guilty about breaks from work because of the ever present threat of procrastinating. But working continuously isn’t the most productive way to go.
It’s recommended that you take a break at least every hour and do something non-work related. This will refresh you, clear your head and give you a new perspective on things. You’ll be more productive than if you just try to slog it out. Or, go one step further with the Pomodoro method.
To avoid tricking yourself that procrastination is a break and breaks are procrastination, schedule breaks into your day ahead of time using the time blocking method. “I try to schedule my breaks around the same time each day. A routine prevents me from taking unnecessary breaks or spending too long in front of the computer,” Says Danielle. “Make sure you dedicate some of your break time to exercise or stretch throughout the day and don’t forget to get some fresh air!” This can will help you enjoy your day more.

Different people have different personality types, preferences and work better under different circumstances.
If you’re introverted, there’s a good chance that you work well in silence and interruptions really disrupt your flow. If you’re more extroverted, having someone to bounce off of might keep you energised and on task. You might benefit from the stimulation of having some background noise in the form of music or white noise.

Some people are reward driven and some people are outcome driven. You might need the pressure of a deadline to get you motivated. For others, if there’s too much stress you might not be able to do your best work. Set up your workstation, schedule and rewards to best suit your own idiosyncrasies and preferences.  If you always start your day with a coffee or some other morning ritual, try to keep that up as it will let your brain know that it’s time for work.

Know what works best for you. Don’t assume there’s a right way to work and you have to stick to that. Everyone is different and people are likely to be more effective in their own best circumstances.

Ok ok we know that all of this is well and good until kids are added to the mix, so we felt that only Adele would be qualified to add the extra tips below, as this is often her reality during school holidays. Take it away Adele..

“If you can, get up early and get your most urgent work done before the kids are up, or at least before the morning rush to get ready begins. If you have kids that are at school, it is easier to try and get all work done in the hours that they aren’t home. However, with kids at home full time it’s a much harder juggle.”

“Letting kids use ipads/screen time first thing in the morning tends to be a recipe for disaster. Generally they will stay on them for far too long because I feel like I’m getting so much work done, and then it will be an absolute mission to take them away. The best routine I have found is to get up early and do one hour or so while they are sleeping/eating breakfast. Then, make a conscious effort to spend a few hours with them in the morning, engaged in an activity or getting them to run around as much as possible. By lunch time, I will let them watch a movie or allow a bit of screen time so that I am able to complete another few hours of work.”

“While many parents would be reluctant to send their children to their grandparent’s houses right now, do not discount the help they can provide from a distance. Set up a video chat with a grandparent and ask them to read a story to your kids. Then, ask them questions about what they learnt, or even help them with school work or play games like simon says or 20 questions. Most kids are a lot more obliging when a grandparent asks them to do something vs their own parents, and it may give you an hour to make phone calls or answer emails at least.“

“Create pretend work for your kids to do. Sometimes I will ask my kids to “help me” whether it’s adding up some numbers, sorting out pens and pencils, stapling paper together or typing on the computer. This one doesn’t often work for long, but can be great when you need to take a phone call and your 5 year old wants to talk to you all day long!”

Were these tips helpful to you?  Let us know by adding a comment below if you have any other suggestions we should add to this list. Of course, once this pandemic situation is under control, many people will still find reason to work remotely. If social distancing isn’t a requirement, consider using a co-working space to have a proxy work environment. It can be really rewarding to bounce ideas off other remote workers, even from other industries.

Who knows, some of you might even make the transition to working from home permanently. We’d be curious to find out 🙂