6 Tips for Success When Working From Home

As we sit here housebound during the global pandemic crisis that is COVID-19, up to our necks in home schooling and working from home, we’ve put together some tips to help calm the chaos at your place.

At Heliconia we regularly work from home so it’s nothing new to us, and we are just so grateful to be able to continue doing what we do for now. Our heart absolutely goes out to those who have had a sudden and devastating handbrake slammed on their working lives and livelihoods.

For those who are able to continue working from home, if you’re anything like us you’re trying to work while having the most bizarre of circumstances unfolding simultaneously. Running a business while having our entire families here within the same four walls all at the same time most definitely is new to us. Suddenly scrambling to find sufficient technology and dedicated desk surfaces all the while attempting to limit visits to the fridge is already proving to be an interesting challenge!

If your business has had to quickly switch to remote, or if your job is now WFH until further notice, or if you’ve found yourself as a home-teacher overnight, some of these ideas from our own homes to yours might help you get set up for success, pronto.

Identify the space

Identify and allocate clear work zones for yourself and everyone in the household who needs one, each with a good dose of natural light if possible. There may be some furniture shuffling required! Stand back at the entrance of a room and reimagine it in a different layout that will fit a trestle table or desk. Measure up and sketch it out to see if there’s a fresh arrangement that can produce a work surface.

Encourage a clean desk policy for each space - at the end of the day ensure that pencils / laptop / worksheets / documents are tidied up, popped onto a dedicated shelf, into a box or in a corner of the study, ready for tomorrow.

Make the space your own and somewhere you’re happy to be - pop up a favourite photo on the wall with Blu Tack, gather some greenery from the garden and place them in a vase, burn a scented candle with an uplifting aroma.

Clear the clutter

Did your kitchen bench just become your child’s desk and your business HQ? Did your bedhead just become the backdrop of all your corporate Zoom meetings? Gah!

A cluttered space will very quickly lead to a cluttered mind, and that’s the last thing we need right now! Calmness will be key to getting through the next uncertain phase, so before even attempting to work, spend as long as it takes getting everything into order. Loose ends sorted and filed or packed away; Surfaces dusted and wiped; Non-essential items boxed up and put to one corner for the next little while; Cushions plumped, floors swept. Spend the time that you would have spent commuting to work or dropping the kids to school each day and commit it to keeping the workspace clean, sanitised and inspiring.

Keep work and home separate

It would be nice to say to adopt business hours and just close the door on the home office when those hours are done. But in reality, it’s now all about finding balance - for exercise, for family time, for work and, for many, home schooling. Being flexible is one of the wonderful byproducts of this whole arrangement, and being kind to ourselves should be too. Packing away work when it’s done for the day will help you switch off when it’s time to do so. Resisting the temptation to do the all-day-tracksuit will also help - dress for success when it’s time to focus and bring your A-game, and then change into more comfy attire when the work of the day is done. Accept that the hours might be broken, spread out and fluid.

Connect with humans - many times a day!

Platforms such as Zoom, FaceTime and WhatsApp Video are brilliant ways to conduct business remotely - AND stay sane with social interaction with friends and family. Set yourself up with an account and practice first with a friend to iron out any glitches with internet speed, messy backdrops or microphone issues. Join some online forums suitable for businesses like yours or set up a Facebook group for your work colleagues to connect more casually. Keep that water cooler alive and well! Share some humour, spread some kindness, keep each other going.

Manage distractions

It’s hard to try and avoid the relentless cycle of news and social media at the moment, but try we must! It’s also hard to avoid the fridge! The kids at home present their own obvious distractions as well.

We find that allocating set blocks of time without the phone within reach is the best way to get productivity levels back under control - even if those blocks of time are somewhat small.

While flexibility is key, a loose schedule for the day - for meals, for uninterrupted work, exercise and so on will help you feel like you’ve got this sorted. And be realistic about what can actually be achieved under the conditions you’re in.

Tweak it

This is not ‘normal’ and it’s never going to be perfect, and that’s ok! If something’s not working in your attempts to work at home, tweak the approach and try again tomorrow.

Stay safe! xx