Working From Home: Tips & Tricks (Part II)

Due to the prevalent pandemic and subsequent measures, many employees are forced to work from home for an extended period. This situation will probably stay around for a little longer, so I wanted to share a few tips and tricks to improve your WFH situation. In the first part of this blog, I introduced a few tips to help you structure your day and your endless to-do lists in times where we are all working from home. This second part deals with some aspects of setting up your home office, virtual communications and, arguably the most important one, relaxation in these stressful times.

Optimize your home office

After optimizing how you structure your day and your tasks, it is also important to optimize your working environment as you will be spending quite some time in there. Ideally, your home office is in a separate room, away from your living room, kitchen and bedroom. This makes it easier for your brain to associate this room with ‘work’ and the other rooms with ‘relaxation’. Thereby, it is easier to enforce these boundaries between time working and time off.

Additionally, this might be the right time to finally invest in your home office. You will probably be spending quite some time at home before the pandemic is over, and even then, many companies are likely to switch to a permanent (part-time) homeworking arrangement. So, it is worthwhile to invest in your home office. The best investments for your ergonomics are a separate monitor, a decent office chair, a laptop stand and maybe even a standing desk.

Think about how you are working

WFH naturally introduces a different way of working, especially when you need to collaborate with each other. The old ways of holding meetings or sharing information may not be as productive in a virtual/remote setting. If you are working with a group on a team project at the office, it is easy to discuss small matters quickly and pass on information in informal manner so that everyone is up to date. However, that natural flow of information may disappear when everyone is working from home. Or on the opposite, it may result in many chat messages that are continuously disturbing everyone from their work. As a solution, you could implement a weekly meeting to simply catch-up with everyone’s work and developments to ensure that everyone stays up to date without being too pervasive throughout the day.

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Next to that, it is also important to consider the way that you are communicating with others: messages can get easily wrongly interpreted but using video and screen-sharing in a meeting improves communication and understanding. This is not to say that every email should be turned into a meeting, but it is important to consider the most appropriate option.

Winding down

Finally, the last tip I want to pass on, is related to the afterwork hours: how to wind down. Many parts of Europe are again facing measures that restrict our normal ways of relaxing and taking time off.

Therefore, a way to incorporate some relaxation while also staying connected with your colleagues, is to organize virtual activities: schedule a virtual coffee break every day or have virtual after-work drinks on a Friday night. It might not be the same as meeting up in real-life, but it still provides a way for you to connect with your co-workers and relax a little during the workweek.

Another great but cliché tip I can give, is to move your body and work out. Physical activity has been proven to be one of the best methods to release stress. This doesn’t mean you have to run a marathon but try and incorporate some movement every day: go for a walk with family or a friend, play soccer with your kids in the garden, find yourself a buddy to move and workout with … Whatever it is that gets you moving, will work.

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I hope the tips proposed in this blog and the previous one provided a little bit of help in these remarkable times. Let’s hope this pandemic is over soon, and in the meantime, stay safe!