It’s been nearly six months since many companies told employees to go home and start working remotely because of the pandemic.
In Gingerhead, we’ve been championing home working since 2016, as well as rethinking the concept of a 9-5 working day, understanding that remote work doesn’t mean less productivity, and that more meetings aren’t always the answer to a problem.
It helped us adapt quickly to the early days of lockdown. Even with new work colleagues at home with us.
Reflecting on recent months, it has been challenging, but also unifying. We’ve all giggled our way through moments of children / cats / dogs popping up on zoom and teams calls, given presentations in our slippers and baked enough banana loaf to never want to see another.
As the schools go back this month, I know that many parents are balancing worries about the pandemic, with a desperate need to have a semi-normal working day. Many are also embracing home working for the long term, so we thought we’d share a couple of lessons that we’ve picked up along the way:
- Schedule everything, especially time for deep work (report writing, design, research), or you might find each day quickly disappears into the top 20 emails in your inbox.
- Bring empathy and understanding, we’re all facing unprecedented challenges that are affecting everyone uniquely.
- Consider yourself lucky if you have a home office. Work somewhere with plenty of light, a comfortable chair and (if possible) away from a distracting pile of clothes to wash or dishes to clean.
- Listen to music and get outside each day, it helps with focus and your wellbeing.
- Create a ritual celebration that helps you know that it is the end of your working day.
- Set one thing on your ‘to do’ list that you must achieve each day…then set yourself a deadline of the end of the week.
- Check in with your colleagues and your clients. Laugh your way through the worst of times. It helps.
- Throw the colourful home school chart in the bin and stop feeling guilty for not baking cookies every 5 minutes or when you plonk your little ones in front of the TV.
- Try not to eat all of the biscuits or drink all of the alcohol in the cupboards!
And also…you’re not the only one feeling like there aren’t enough hours in the day. A recent study of 12,000 people across Europe and the US found that the time saving from not having to commute is often spent on unproductive work and unsatisfying leisure activities. Let yourself off a little bit. Find happy moments in every day. We’ve survived the last six months, that is a huge achievement on its own.