Navigating Your Transition to a Full Time Work from Home Life during COVID-19

In the last few weeks, many of us were suddenly thrust into work from home situations with no definitive end date. And while many of us may have worked off site periodically, this is a new dimension, with our homes being our workplaces for the foreseeable future, and for many, sharing space with family members. As the few weeks unfolded, I’ve tapped into my network to ask them about their tips and tricks to help make working from home easier:

1) Set a start and end time. While your commute may only be steps instead of a drive, plan to treat your work day as if you went to, and left the office. It’s easy to keep going when your digital devices are ever present and you haven’t left your own four walls all day. When it’s time to shut down, “leave” your office for the evening.

2) Adapt your meeting times to reflect the new reality. Now that walking down the hall to discuss something with a co-worker isn’t an option, you may find yourself in more back to back meetings. To combat this, plan to end meetings with a few minutes buffer to allow time to reset between meetings, or take a bio break. For example, keep 30-minute meetings to 25 minutes, and hour meetings to 45-50 minutes.

3) If you find yourself at home with family, find ways to signal when you can’t be interrupted. My former colleague Edie created these great door signs so that family members can signal to each other when they are on a Zoom with coworkers or classmates. This allows each family member to focus when they are on camera, and can “open” the door when they are available again.

4) Make technology adjustments if needed. On a conference call this week, someone mentioned buying the Google Wifi Router, which allows him to repeat signal throughout his house without degradation and prioritize internet traffic by device (read: parents work devices get priority over kids devices) to ensure that important video calls can be made without issue. For me, a small clip on ring light helped improve my appearance on video calls (reducing the shadows from overhead lighting).

5) Find comfortable headphones. Now that video calls may make up a larger portion of your day, consider what will be comfortable for hours on end, and provide good sound quality (both listening and speaking). I recently swapped out my headset and it felt so much better when faced with hours of use. Choose if you want to use wireless or a wired headset (there are pros and cons to both).

6) Move your body. In the office, even though you sit a lot, you likely are walking around the office to meet with colleagues, or walk to a bathroom or kitchen. The footprint of your home is likely smaller and you may find your meetings more back to back. Consider taking standing breaks (especially when not on video, or invest in a standing desk). Stretch or do some quick exercises when you have a break between calls; your body will thank you.

7) Identify ways to mark the transitions in your day. Without a commute, it may seem like the transition from home to work and vice versa doesn’t really happen. What rituals can you add to break up the phases of your day? Can you listen to your normal morning podcast before starting work, or exercise after shutting down?

8) Practice grace with others, and yourself. One of the silver linings of this situation is that everyone is going through this adaptation at once. Remember to be kind to others (whether it’s background noise, or unexpected interruptions), and most of all, be kind to yourself. Everyone (including YOU) is doing the best they can.

What has helped you ease your transition to working from home? What could benefit someone else?