Working from home

 It has now been exactly 7 weeks since I started working from home. In the beginning this went with full energy, but now gradually the energy and the focus on the work is starting to drain.

I’m the only one in here? I’m sure, I’m not.

I regularly hear this among colleagues. Despite the traffic jams, the car ride to and from the office also brought relaxation. You now have to find this relaxation in other ways.

Where I was in Teams meetings all day at the beginning of the Lockdown, I now try to limit that and put more focus time into my agenda. This is not quite 100% successful but the beginning is there.

My children are a bit older now and they don’t find it easy to go to school online, but need little or no supervision with their school work. But colleagues with younger children also have to help their children with school in addition to their work and then it becomes completely difficult to keep combining everything, work, school, entertainment, all in all a tough job. Fortunately, my employer helps and supports these colleagues well.

What have I learned for myself recently:

My day starts every day between 7.30am and 8:00 am, not much different then my normal office hours.
My hourly meetings become 50 minutes and meetings of half an hour 25 minutes, this way you can recover before you go to the next meeting. But try to get away from your screen.

File => Options => Calendar

I make blocks in my calendar:
An hour in the morning to exercise.
An hour at lunchtime for lunch and walking.
30 minutes in the afternoon, away from screen time.

I plan regular coffee moments with my team.
I dress like I normally would go to the office.
And the spontaneous phone calls are not missing in the above.

In addition to the above, together with colleagues (facilitated by my employer), who want to participate, we have 3 Virtual Gym Moments(20 min) and of course the Friday afternoon drink with music, pub quiz or something else in terms of entertainment.

Where I have not found immediately a solution for, how do I end my day? Often after dinner I go back to work, at that moment I have a lot of focus and because of that it often gets quite late. I’m still looking for a good ending of the day, that used to be the moment when you got into the car at a customer site  or office and you drove home. Any suggestions?

Oh yes, and taking a day off to do nothing at all is also wonderful.

Applying the above points gives me more focus and energy in my work. Which points do you apply? I look forward to hearing your response in the comments below.