STRUGGLING WITH WORKING FROM HOME?

The structure around "leaving home/rest place" to "enter work/occupation"  has fallen apart and that can come with some anxiety.

Hello,

Working from home is possibly an adjustment for many. For some, this is a blessing - the commute to work is gone and that means a little bit more rest. For others. this is a curse - the structure around "leaving home/rest place" to "enter work/occupation"  has fallen apart and that can come with some anxiety.

Both of these things are valid.

Flexibility almost reflexively comes with the burden of sharper discipline. For the best work at home experience, I suggest the following:

1. Designate a set workspace. Even if it is just a table and chair isolated from the rest of the house, setting up and assigning these spaces as "work zones" will give them a purpose centered around productivity.

2. Use the time you would have been commuting to minimise potential distractions that could pop up during the course of your day. This could be as simple as replying to all your Whatsapp messages and cleaning up the kitchen. But it could also be as complicated as, if you have any, ensuring that your housemates and or children also have things to occupy their time.

3. Respect your billable hours. Most offices clock off at 5pm, this is the other half of your relationship with your desk - you get to go home and tomorrow's problems are tomorrow's problems. If your work is fairly intensive and depends on your constant engagement it could lead to you blurring the line between what is work time and what is home time because they PHYSICALLY operate in the same boundaries. Clock out emotionally and say the work for today is done. Not doing this can lead to awful sleep cycles and the cascading burden of having no routine and ultimately counter-productivity. A time table helps, use your phone alarm, go grab an hour lunch, stretch.

4. Can this call be an email? Does this email require my immediate attention? Is my input required or is this a notice/announcement? Navigating all these things can be tiresome, but asking yourself these questions can help assign urgency and therefore better use of your time.

5. Eat with a structure, not with boredom.

6. Call someone, anyone, in your free time. Human contact is good. The advent of the internet means that the distance between you and the people you care about is an app away.

7. Exercise, even a small 10-20min warm-up to get your body awake and blood flowing around your system.

8. Keep safe, Corona has taken lives.

I hope any of this helps any first-time work-from-homers or anyone already in the practice that needs a refresher course. Master yourself, master your space, master your work, master your goals, master your future.

Bill Masuku Comic Book Artist & Writer Portfolio: billmasuku.com Books: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/18777142.Bill_Masuku Image by Candice Cupido