Stay in the Zone, Even at Home
COVID-19 has forced a significant number of us to work from home. For many of us, this may be the first time working outside of the office for an extended period of time, and it can be tough to manage our responsibilities in a different environment.
At AFLV, our team is 100% remote. I started my role eight months ago, which means I have just gotten into the swing of what works best for me. Here are my top tips!
Set boundaries
Physical: If possible, try to designate a room or area in your home as a work zone. I live in a one-bedroom apartment, and some rules I set for myself include no laptop in my bedroom or on the couch. It helps me keep the bedroom as a place to sleep and the couch as a place to chill.
Interpersonal: This one is TOUGH, especially with most schools closed and kiddos at home. But when the others in your household acknowledge you are working, it’s easier for you to stay focused.
Create a Routine
Stick to your typical office schedule if that’s what your employer has instructed. If you have the flexibility to set your own hours, now’s your chance to set a schedule that works for you. This is a great opportunity to honor your body and work around your circadian rhythms for sleep patterns, hunger cues and peak productivity.
But it’s easy to fall into a trap of being on all… the… time… when your home and your office are one in the same. Creating your schedule helps create a mental separation between work and home, even if you’re at home the whole time.
This is not vacation
This may be some of the toughest work that we do in our careers. We all know the word is overused, but this is unprecedented. We’re working hard from home to keep our members safe, AND we’re responsible for communicating to an audience who is craving information about what’s going on, especially for our housed chapters.
People are relying on us to do whatever we can so that we are prepared to continue on as normal when this is over. Ensuring that you maintain your productivity now will make the transition back to in-office easier.
Put on real clothes
Many people imagine the work-from-home life to be full of pajamas and slippers. While that can be fun for a minute, I promise you that romping around in pajamas feels gross around noon.
No one is saying go full business casual: there should be one tiny perk. But putting on some fresh athleisure or jeans will make you feel great.
Intentionally Connect
When your whole team is remote, the upside is you don’t have to have office FOMO or worry there’s info sharing you’re excluded from. But it can be hard to build community when it doesn’t naturally happen with proximity.
We have a rule at AFLV: anything longer than five minutes should be a video chat. For us, it’s the equivalent of walking down the hall and popping your head in. We’re very intentional with seeing, hearing and connecting to build our camaraderie and get the full context of an idea.
If your workload has legitimately decreased…
Learn a new skill
Our Facebook group always has posts looking for vendors/freelancers with certain skills. Try to learn these yourself. Even if you don’t take on large-scale projects, you have a new skill to create more types of small-scale content. It pays off.
Make your own GIFs, experiment with video editing or try your hand at audio recording while the stakes are low. My best advice as a self-taught professional is to find a project you want to create, and then go to tutorials to figure out what you’re trying to do. It’s a lot easier than just trying to jump into software with no clear outcome.
Or,
Organize your files
Admit it: everyone on your team is not using the same naming convention or following the same system for folders and files. Use this time to organize everything, and. set up a defined system for saving. For myself, in a previous gig this was a “rainy day project,” and for some, the rainy day may have arrived.
