Tips for Working From Home!
2020 has brought a lot of changes and challenges to pretty much every aspect of people’s lives: socializing, career, health/fitness, charity, you name it. One thing I’ve noticed a lot of people struggling with, from friends around my age, to older colleagues, to family members, is the work from home aspect of all this. Now, by no means do I think I’m an expert in this, but I have worked from home at least part time for several different organizations throughout my professional career. In this time, I’ve really developed a system that works for me so that I stay at least as productive as I would be from the office – honestly, a lot of the time I feel more productive when I work from home.
There are several aspects of WFH life that I’ve seen people struggle with: technical aspects (which I am not going to talk about because there are so many tutorials online already), structure and scheduling, and organization and prioritization. The last two are where my system focuses.
So, where to start? Well, I think this all kind of starts with my task list. I use Outlook tasks, although I’ve also used Asana, Todoist, and other software for this – really, it will come down to what is easiest for you to maintain regularly, and how complex your projects are. My projects are rarely dependent on others, so it is easy for me to just break them down in Outlook tasks. I also like having my tasks, calendar, and emails all in one place – otherwise my browser just gets too crazy and I get unnecessarily stressed. 2020 is crazy enough! After each meeting, I review my notes and add items to my task list. If an email comes in with a task/project I can’t get to immediately, I add it to my task list. This helps me make sure nothing falls off the radar, and the deadlines help me prioritize everything!
But what about scheduling? How do I make sure everything gets done on a daily, or weekly, basis? This is where routine comes in handy! I start my work day around the same time every day – sometimes I take breaks midday to go to the gym, or see friends, and work later in the evening, but my start time every day never varies more than half an hour. So, around 7:30am every day I sit down and do what I refer to as a brain dump – I do a quick scan of my inbox, meetings, and task list, and use this to identify my key tasks for the day or week. On Mondays, I take a little longer on this and organize the tasks I have for the whole week so that things don’t just pile up on Friday; if I notice I’ve given myself a lot of items with a Friday deadline, I’ll move a few of them to Wednesday so the week is more even. Each day, I look at what I want to accomplish that day, estimate the time these things will take, and block my time out on my calendar (Google Calendar or Outlook Calendar are my preferred methods). After my morning brain dump, I block out 30 min to 1 hour every day to review my emails and answer any pressing or quick items that may not warrant a “task” on my task list. These two quick items add up to about an hour each day, but really help me to keep my inbox in check and get all of my work done without being overwhelmed. This is also helpful when I get an email from my boss or a colleague asking when I will get to something – because I have a solid plan, which always puts people at ease!
My biggest piece of advice (for most things, if we’re being honest) is to find what works for you! But, if what works for me can work for you, great! If not, I hope it can inspire and help you to find what does - feel free to take bits and pieces of my process, or adapt it to your needs!
