Your Working From Home Checklist!
Working from home can be both invigorating and infuriating. I’ve met people who’ve felt hugely isolated working from home and I’ve also met people who can’t get enough of the freedom to manage their own time and work flow.
If you’re about to take the leap to start working flexibly or are looking for ways to make your home office more productive, here’s a checklist of things to consider.
Create weekly reflection time
Every week set aside 30-60 minutes to explore how effectively your working from home routine is going. What’s working? What are you finding challenging? Having this time will help you to continually reflect on and experiment with new ideas that will help to make your working from home routine more effective and fun.
Design switch on and off routines
Create a morning and evening routine that allows you to switch on and off for work. Rolling out of bed and straight to your desk can quickly start to feel like a recipe for disaster. Try to infuse your day with some structure, movement, connection and fun. Go for a walk. Meditate. Find a local coffee shop where you can go to talk to other locals. Make time to play and move at lunch. One of my personal favourites is having a working from home outfit that you put on when it is time to work, and take off when you’re done working for the day. This isn’t just helpful to you, it can also share with your partner or housemate that you are still switched on and working hard.
Connect daily with your community
It is easy to underestimate the importance of your work in contributing to your sense of belonging and community. Working from home can pretty quickly lead to you never actually seeing anyone from your work community unless you take active steps to keep in touch. Stay connected with your tribe even when you’re working from home by finding the space and time to meet up weekly, even if it is over a video call.
Consciously create boundaries with your technology
When you start working from home all of your regular boundaries between work and home disappear. A notable part of this is that your devices can start to infiltrate all elements of your life. You’ll be having lunch at your computer, taking work calls while out on your daily run. Try not to let this get out of control. Be conscious and deliberate with how your tech has infiltrated your home and set clear boundaries. When, where and how often is tech allowed in your life and where possible have some tech detox time every week where phones and devices are put away.
5. Talk about your routine with your partner, family or housemates
When you’re living with others your shift to working from home can impact everyone. Sit down and have an honest conversation. Set some ground rules so that you know what the others expect from the change and let them voice some of the concerns they may have (work all over the dining table or meetings in the living area). A conversation like this is likely to help you to find a solution that suits everyone.
6. Know your default reaction to being lost in thought or bored
When I’m bored or trying to think through an idea I often go by default to the fridge or reach for a tea. I realised this about 3 months into working from home when I had been snacking all day and had just run out of tea bags (only days after buying new ones). I realised that I needed a new default thinking routine. Instead of going to the kitchen I decided that I would walk around the block every time I found myself walking to the fridge. It was a great way to clear my mind and it also helped me to minimise my unnecessary snacking – a win-win.
7. Create a work space & try not to take over the house
Work papers all over the kitchen table and products all over the living room floor. Before you take the leap to work from home spend some time thinking about how you are going to set up your work space. Can you create an area that is specifically for your work and limit the spread of your work stuff around the house? Getting this balance right can be an important way to keep some boundaries between where in the house you work and where in the house you play or sleep. This can really help for when you need to switch off in the evenings or on the weekends.
This is just the tip of the iceberg of things worth considering when designing your working from home routine. Have you had breakthroughs with your routine that you would like to share? Get in touch and we will share them with our online community!