Lockdown Sanity Survival Tips!
“This lockdown has made me realize why pets try to run out the house when the front door is open” — Anonymous
With many of us going through the paces of working during a lockdown, it may come across as an easy thing to do at first. However, there are now a lot more “distractions” which we will encounter from our work-from-home environment. To help navigate some of these, I have supplied some helpful tips to assist all of us in getting through the lockdown, with our sanity still intact.
If you are one of the many who are now working remotely for the first time, you may be discovering that it’s not all sunshine, rainbows and sleeping in late like you may have thought at the beginning.
Many people require external factors to condition their focus onto their work. For example, the feeling of being in an actual office building, hearing constant chatter in the background or even the spectacular view from your office window. The most insignificant factor might be the one driving you to accomplish your work goals for that day (apart from the paycheck of course). Therefore, it is important to discover what this factor is and how to use it to help ensure that you stay productive during your time away from the office.
After the first couple of days, you may discover that you are floundering a bit to stay productive. Unless you are one of the lucky few who have the productivity of an automated robot, hindered from humanities simple worldly distractions! But if you are just a normal human like me and wants to prevent yourself from diving into insanity, here are a few pieces of advice I can share with you to stay productive and manage working remotely.
1. Setup a schedule of your own!
Yes, it may seem simple enough to create a schedule, but the hard part is sticking to it. Planning out your day whereby you allocate time for certain tasks will help manage your workload more effectively as well as the mix of personal life while being at home. Friends and family will need to understand that you do not have more free time since you are working from home. To alleviate this, share your schedule with your friends and family so that they know your office hours.
2. Slowly build up your tempo!
Do not try to immediately work along the same tempo as what you did back at the office. Take this time to enjoy working remotely. If you have not already done this, try wearing your pajamas all day. Blast some music in the house while you answer emails. Do some extra chores so that your significant other does not have to do them after coming home from their office job. All in all, do what you can without jeopardizing your professional credibility. However, also ensure that you do not create any unproductive patterns as you assume that working remotely will be only for a short period of time. You will want to be able to separate focus and distraction while being at home.
3. Allocate your time between meetings accordingly!
This is good practice in general but becomes particularly critical when working remotely. Also, never assume that you will be able to get all your work completed between these meetings as you will find it quite easy getting sucked into activities you have at home which you feel that you never truly get to enjoy. Therefore, it is important to constantly be monitoring your habits to ensure that you are not developing the wrong ones.
4. Create your own work environment!
This comes back to the factor which drives us to completing our work goals for the day. If you feel that sitting at a desk makes you more productive, then ensure that when ever you begin working, do so while sitting at a desk and not on the couch or while laying in the bed. By forming your own work environment, this allows you to form some type of separation between work and relaxation as you will be able to spend time elsewhere to relax your mind. For example, if you work while sitting on the couch, you will not be able to truly relax as your mind has been programmed to perform work while sitting on the couch.
5. Keep it social!
It is important to proactively socialize with co-workers and clients. While working remotely, regular engagement with people is exceptionally important. Some of us may find that working remotely is either a blessing or curse when it comes to isolation from other individuals. If you find it to be a blessing, then make sure you set reminders to get in contact with people regularly.
6. Do not stay cooped up!
Use this time while working from home to venture outside of your house and find interesting places whereby you can still conduct your work. Changing your work environment to a completely different setting may give you the productivity boost you need without even realizing it. FYI make sure the place has a reliable internet connection as you don’t want to be that person in the video conference with constant connection issues.
7. Take a break!
I left this point for last as I feel it is the most important. Often at times I have found myself working straight through from starting in the morning, all the way through my lunch hour as I simply did not realize the time or there simply wasn’t any reason for me to stop. It is essential to take breaks, especially from sitting in front of an electronic device for hours. This can come down to what is called cognitive bandwidth depletion. Have you ever noticed how your thought process deteriorates the longer you sit in front of a computer or laptop? Therefore, its important to set reminders to take short interval breaks. Perhaps go outside or simply close your eyes for 5min. This may not seem like much, but your productivity will thank you for it.
These are just some small tips which have managed to help me through my time while working remotely for Alexander Hughes as we have managed to still recruit C level executives and critical experts all while remaining at home during lockdown.
I invite you to set up a virtual meeting and allow Alexander Hughes UK to find you the right C level executive for your organization!
To schedule a virtual meeting, please click on the link below:
Written by:
Alistair Leppens
Executive Assistant to Joanne Macris
