Working from Home with Fewer Problems

You’re taking your work home, not vice versa. It could be a life choice, or something forced by the pandemic. In either case, you should find the right compromises with all the people living with you, including children, family, and housemates.

Have an alternative place for important meetings and tasks

If working from home is a life choice, you should plan for an alternative when staying at home is not feasible. If the schools are closed for vacation and your children are home, do you have that important meeting in the morning? Do you have renovation work at home?

You could go to the office if you live not so far away. You could go to a coworking space, if you know one, but you have to reserve your place days in advance.

You could go to a public library if you don’t have to be on a call all the time. You could go to a hotel; most of them allow you to book a room for the day, with room service, or you can book a conference room for a lower price. You could go to a friend’s office if they can book a room for you.

There are many other places where you can go, but there will be times when you can’t stay at home and need to go somewhere else. Plan for it!

Have a clear set of rules, schedule times for kids and house duties

If your kids are used to spending time with you during the day, they’ll search for you. If your housemates need your help, they’ll search for you. Sometimes working from home can be difficult if you don’t define a clear set of rules.

You should set explicit boundaries, and find ways to signal that you’re busy and cannot be interrupted, perhaps with a sign on the door, or a light outside of it. Tell your kids and housemates to respect the sign, and that you’ll spend time with them later—and then do as you promised.

Always schedule time with them, especially during full days of work, and then enjoy that time dedicated to them. You’ll be more productive and focused if you know that you’ll spend time with them when planned.

Note: During the breaks that you spend with your children, always remember to check if they have all they need (water, lunch, snacks) and that they have something to do for the next hour(s). In this way you minimize the chances of being interrupted.

Don’t be afraid of interruptions

It could happen that children or other housemates interrupt you during conference calls or, even worse, live events. Of course, you should remember to lock your door, turn on the “red light” if available, or stick a poster with “do not disturb” on the door, but, if you have problems at home—crying children, a partner needing help—you can apologize, solve the problem, and come back.

Sometimes it’s the express courier delivering the package you were expecting another day; sometimes it’s the postman with bills and fines. People will understand the situation, especially if your office is still closed, or if the situation mandates that you stay at home.

If the situation is recurring, you should go to your “safe place” that you planned for in one of the previous sections.

Note: Once during a full-day virtual course, I heard my wife calling me because the house was under a small storm, and she needed help with our child and all the things in the garden she was trying to recover. A fifteen-minute break saved both the family and the course.

There is another category of housemates that cannot understand signs, red lights, schedules, and everything else: your pets! When you’re interrupted by them, you should behave exactly as you would with small children.

Figure 36: Even a Scottish MP was photobombed by his cat during a virtual meeting (source: Global News). If you want to see the cat’s face, you can take a look on Twitter.

Sync your schedule with other people

Multiple people doing calls in the same room are a recipe for a disaster. Even someone cleaning the room nearby can be really disturbing. There are activities that can be postponed and other activities that are fixed. Try to sync with all the involved people, have a common schedule for “do not disturb” time, understand their needs, and explain yours. Sometimes the only solution is the alternative place that you defined at the beginning of the chapter, if available.

Note: I did some calls in my parked car away from home while waiting for neighbors to chop wood. If you know their noisy hours, you can at least try to adapt your schedule. Working from home sometimes requires compromises.

Beware of digital assistants

Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri, Google Assistant, and their hardware counterparts are part of many families around the globe. You probably have at least one of them in your home office or in a nearby room.

Many companies are starting to mandate the removal of them, or at least turning off the microphone of digital assistants during important meetings because of the possibility of eavesdropping. Check with your company to see if you’re required to do so.

If your digital assistant also has a webcam, consider using the built-in switch to cover it, or even better, use a webcam cover as explained in Chapter 2.

Declutter your desktop to avoid sharing unwanted content

We discussed in Chapter 2 hiding desktop icons, changing the wallpaper, and so on. Another trick is to close all the applications that are not needed during the presentation, so when you’re switching between open apps, you won’t show unwanted content.

If you’re recording or taking a picture of your physical desktop, remember to remove all the sticky notes with passwords and other sensitive information. YouTube is full of videos showing usernames and passwords stickied on the border of the monitor.

Note: This might seem to be an unnecessary tip. How can you possibly share information online without knowing? It’s easier than you think, especially in this “share everything” era. One time I published a picture of my work environment without noticing that I had my payroll open in full-screen with all my personal details.

Create routines

For some people, having a routine is easy also when working from home. You wake up, prepare yourself, prepare the child (or the children), and you get them to school. For other people, waking up can be very difficult. And when they wake up, they need some time to be productive. Some need time to be able to speak with somebody else.

There are people that wake up very early, do their meditation, exercises, journaling, and then start working, or wake up the family and start their morning routine. I know people that forget to eat when they’re working from home, and others that eat at every break.

The end of the working day can be problematic for some people, while others have easy reminders that work is over, with people demanding their attention.

In any case, it’s important to have defined routines, to dress normally, and leave the pajamas behind, even when you’re lonely at home and you have no video calls. Eat normally, get some rest, and have a clear separation between work and personal time.

Schedule time be outside

Staying at home all the time is nerve-racking; therefore, many people like to schedule time to eat outside (even when restaurants are closed, I order take away and eat in a park, or in the car if necessary). Doing regular exercises, or simply walking, is essential for your wellbeing. I tend to do some mentorship sessions, virtual coffees, and other informal meetings while walking around the neighborhood.

Don’t replace commute time with work time

The time that you’ve gained is an important resource for you. During the pandemic, a lot of people felt exhausted because they worked many more hours during the day, just because they started working early and stopped late, since they didn’t have to commute.

Use that extra time for you, for your family, for your exercises, for your personal development, for a side project, or for talking with a friend or relative. Don’t walk into the trap of working more. You can do it for a few days, even for weeks—but in the end you’ll pay the price.

Have a meeting-free day once a week

Try to reserve at least one day per week without meetings. You can do it if you plan for it in advance. You can use that day to do focused activities that you cannot do on normal days. You can also schedule longer breaks during that day and take it easy to recharge and be more productive afterward.

Ask for help

Many companies provide anonymous support for employees in difficult times. If that support is not available, there are many other ways to get help: from dedicated phone numbers, professionals, and friends.

Even if work is going well, and your health is good, you can feel strange. That sense of emptiness is called languishing. You’re not burned out or depressed, but you don’t feel good either. Being able to name your feelings is important. The next time that people ask how you are, you can tell them that you’re languishing. Or you can say “it’s complicated,” and it’s okay, because our times are complicated.

If you feel that you’re not okay, even if you still have energy and you’re doing your job every day, try to reserve some time only for you. Focus on your objectives, starting from the small ones so you can easily “score some points.” And don’t hesitate to ask for help!

If you think people are exaggerating those feelings, you’re lucky you don’t feel them too—because many people suffered during those days of forced work from home and lockdown, with many implications:

• Introverts probably joked about their feelings and habits at the beginning of lockdown, but then they struggled more than extroverts. This lesson should be taken into account when planning to work from home constantly.
• Many people felt alone and admitted to crying for the first time in years. Don’t be afraid to ask colleagues to spend some time with you, even virtually, or seek other kinds of help.

A lot of people avoid professional help when talking about mental health; there’s a huge stigma associated with it. There is a great TED talk called “There’s no shame in taking care of your mental health” that you should listen to.