I just spent a few minutes looking through my draft posts for inspiration to restart blogging.
I came across the oldest draft in my queue, dated November 11, 2009.
The post read as follows:
I’ve worked from home for 6 of the past 8 years in a variety of workspaces. Initially I worked in my parents basement, I briefly worked in my mother-in-law’s dinning room and for the past 2 years I’ve worked in the common space of a 2 bedroom apartment, with a toddler. Over this period I’ve maintained a 35 – 50 hour work week and managed to stay sane (and reasonably productive). Now that I’ve had my own dedicated works space for a couple of weeks I’ve had some time to reflect on a few of the ways I’ve been able to make it work.
- Good Employer
- Keep A ToDo List
- Don’t Answer The Phone
- Set “Business Hours”
- Don’t Follow Them
- Be Distracted
Reflecting on this now that we’ve all been covidworkingfromhome for the past 18 months (or is it 32?) and have just started a permanent remote positions, I’d say that list of advice still rings true.
1. Good Employer
Simply put: you need an employer who trusts you to work from home. One who understand that things might come up throughout the day and doesn’t have a problem with that.
If you’re having trouble finding an employer like this in 2021, imagine how rare it was 12 years ago.
During COVID, even bad employers didn’t have a choice but to begrudgingly let their employees work from home. Good employers will differentiate themselves from by ones by allowing their employees to continue working from home into 2022 and beyond.
2. Keep a To Do List
What I really meant by this was “be organized and focused.”
I still prefer physical to do lists. I like crossing things off with a pen and crumpling up the list at the end of the day.
Organizational tools and apps have really matured and keeping a physical to do list is not really necessary.
Don’t forget to include personal/home things on your to do list. Writing everything down is a great way to keep yourself from getting distracted.
3. Don’t Answer the Phone
“The phone” is much less of a thing in 2021.
Better advice would be “don’t read text messages, or non-work DMs”.
4. Set “Business Hours”
Over my years working from home this has come to be the main key to success.
Setting business hours adds the structure that I need to stay focused. It also sets expectations with my family. They’ll know not to interrupt or distract me between 8 – 5 unless it’s urgent.
Having an office door that you can closes helps, but it’s really not as crucial in my experience.
5. Don’t Follow Them & 6. Be Distracted
These two rules are really the same thing “allow yourself to be distracted.”
I’ve found that giving myself permission to break the rules has been the key to staying “sane.”
Take a long lunch, grab a coffee, go to the store.
Just don’t stray too far, too often.
In 2021, I would only add two additional pieces of advice to this list.
7. Wear Pants
Get dressed for work.
I’ve found that it really puts me in the mindset to get to work.
This has been a rule I’ve always followed, I don’t know why I didn’t add it to my original list.
8. Have an Amazing Partner (or I guess, live alone?)
I couldn’t have made it this far without an understanding wife.