All over the world people are being asked to work from home…
Yet how many of us have had to do so for extended periods of time? As a case in point, are you reading this now while sitting at the office? Or, worse – while sitting at home, when you should be working? If so, this guide is for you! I also have experienced this challenge, but have had the opportunity to refine my work procedures while conducting business at home for the last 20 years. So – if you are working from home today, or plan to do so in the future, I hope these tools will help you maximize your enjoyment and impact while away from the office. The following sections I hope will give you clarity of purpose, the proper mindset to work alone, a set of practical tools to work alone, and finally, a method to evaluate how well you are doing at coping with this change.
Preparing the heart and mind to work alone
To be free to operate independently is a privilege. For most people over the course of history, employers or overseers would not or could not trust those they watched to “work hard”. As a result, work was “managed”, typically under brutal forms of motivation. Of course, there were notable exceptions to this. In the New Testament we find Jesus using a story of three servants who are given large sums of money, “Talents”. All are given rather large, but different sums of money (roughly, 1-3 years’ wages), and told to use the money for the masters’ benefit. Two of them do so, realizing a gain, while the third, buries the money. When the master returns, the two who have profited are rewarded with further authority. The third returns the original sum, saying, “Master I know you are a hard man, taking what you did not earn, reaping what you did not sow, and so I was afraid and hid the money, so here is your Talent back.” But the master replies, “You know I was a hard man? At least you could have put the money in the bank and earned interest!”. The servant is then fired. This to me is a fascinating story. It tells us so much about how life was 2,000 years ago, and what we can basically see is that not much has changed today. Leaders of companies may be tough people, oftentimes we will find ourselves questioning the morality or fairness of the decisions they make. Some wrestle with a love of money so intense that they will allow others to be hurt, so that they can gain further wealth. At the same time, we can see that those of us who use resources wisely are given further trust – and can we not see this principle applies today? If we at our work prove ourselves capable and responsible with the freedom and authority we are granted, most of the time, we will be offered greater freedom and authority. Now of course this is not 100% of the time – when it isn’t, I’d suggest the management is not doing well – as this principle is a simple, effective and fair one for any organization. So – whether by promotion, a change in work policy, a change in life situation, or even a global pandemic, here we find ourselves with this new authority – the authority to do what we want, when we want, and with no one watching over us. So what will you do with this new authority over yourself? The question itself is defined by one word: Integrity
In the Marine Corps, one of the principles drilled into our heads was that integrity is what you do when your drill instructor isn’t there. Similarly for us, integrity is what we will do at home when our management, more importantly our team isn’t there to motivate us and keep an eye on us. So these stories convey operational principles and the question of our own personal morality. We all must ask ourselves if what we are doing is the Right Thing. So, here are some thoughts to keep handy while working, or in case you find yourself browsing facebook during work time:
- YOUR COMPETITOR IS WORKING HARDER THAN YOU RIGHT NOW If you don’t work hard, keep in mInd the people who you compete with. They are likely also at home – and if they are working harder than you, at some point this energy difference will result in your company losing it’s position, resulting in you losing your employment. This is harsh, but I think we can all agree rather obvious.
- DISCIPLINE PROVIDES OPPORTUNITY AND POWER If you do work hard, you can realize the personal joy and pride of knowing you did well for yourself, your team, all on your own – further, you can grasp the power of your discipline, knowing that you can work on your own in any other job! This opens up a massive new world of employment opportunities – as there are quite a few people who simply cannot discipline themeselves! So you are more capable, a better team member, more employable, and ultimately, have greater freedom as a result of your discipline and efforts.
- YOU ARE NOT A THIEF – SO DON’T STEAL. If you are being paid to work, and are not working, you are stealing. Not only from your employer, but from those members of your group who ARE working hard while you don’t. You may not consider the owners or management worthy of your integrity, but we should all consider our peers as deserving of our best. Get after it.
Practical tools for working at home
Prepare yourself
For the next few months – keep your regular work routine as much as you possibly can. Get up and dress in your work clothes. Do whatever you need to be presentable and prepared for your job. Eat breakfast as you normally would at the same time. All of these activities will help mentally set the stage to understand that “We are now working”. I know it seems wasteful – but the mind needs this routine, especially when so many changes are all around us. Bear in mind, your work commute now takes 3 seconds, and traffic is always light!
Prepare your “office”
My first office was a piece of junk computer stand 4 feet from our kitchen in a one bedroom apartment (pictured above). From that little cove I covered a sales territory encompassing all of northern California for 2 years. In that time I attained a salesperson of the year award from Molecular Devices. But I MADE THE SPACE for my office, and when I was sitting there, even when the wife was watching tv 5 feet away, I was “at work” during business hours. Because so many of us find ourselves without preparation today, you might make your office be the kitchen table or even a folding table for now. But – wherever it is it should be away from the living room if possible, and in a place where there are the least possible distractions. In front of a window? Close it if it’s distracting. You can open it after you rebuild the routine. In a noisy location? Amazon prime a headset. But make the space, and remember that while you are there, you are “away at work”, away from the responsibilities of the home, away from the XBOX, away from the kitchen. Those things don’t exist, because you aren’t there – you are at the office!
Prepare your schedule
As you are now your own boss at home, you will probably find it hard to stay motivated, as until there is a deadline, do I really have to do this now? Yes you do! Using our calendar, block out time for each project as you need. Make sure to include a 15 minute break every so often, as well as your lunch break. This is helpful as when the desire to check Instagram hits – it’s better to have an alternative – e.g. “Well I only have 2 hours to finish this data entry project, so if I hit instagram right now I won’t have time for the job”, instead of “Hey let’s go see what’s up on instagram, there isn’t anything pressing at work right now…”. The difference in mental position is amazing.
Prepare your family
Kids and the spouse may find it tough to understand why they can’t pester you while at home. This is very important to draw a line while working. If they are interrupting you while at work in the house, they are literally taking food from their own mouths (is your competitor allowing such distraction? No? Then you are losing right now!!!). Your work is important, and they must honor your endeavour. This simply takes training and repetition to realize for them, but give it a few days and they will see your clothes, you sitting at the office, and soon realize, “Mom is working right now, I can’t bother her”. Now – I should note that one of the greatest joys for me is allowing my boys into my work life. I’ve had them help with many work projects, learning along the way. Over the years we have developed a system where they will visit the office to tell me stories about school, ask questions on things etc. But at first – the barrier must be established for your benefiet as well as theirs. If you allow distractions now, they won’t respect your requests later for peace and quiet. Further, what are you telling them about the value of your work? So have the family meetings as many times as are needed, and keep up the barrier for the short term. In a few months you can experiment with opening that up – but this is a tough change for you – so minimize the number of fronts you need to be fighting on at the same time!
Prepare your management
Any time we are suddenly gone from the office, management can have trouble. People in leadership positions can have greater fear, greater uncertainty, than those in operational positions. So as bad as things may be for you with this change, it’s worse for them! Further, while you are struggling with how to cope with the change, they are doing the same, but also struggling with how to handle the managerial/directive changes needed to keep things going. In this time of chaos, you can be the stable anchor. This requires some creative thinking, good communication and diligent follow through.
- Get the tools you need. This is critical. If you do assembly work, check out or record the tools needed from the office and take them home. If you need a soldering iron, buy one. If you need to have supplies shipped to you or you need to have a monday pickup / friday drop-off, talk with management and set it up. Ultimately there is a way to do your work anywhere – it might not be optimal, but it is possible. Be creative and solve these problems for your management, so they can worry about others and not you. .
- During online meetings, write down the tasks you are supposed to accomplish, and then review them with the team or leader at the end of the meeting.
- Share your online “self-schedule” with your management – this can be a great way to help them allocate resources. It’s much better to have a conversation where you say, “Hey I am trying to maximize my work in this situation, so I’ve cooked up a work schedule for myself. Please take a second to look at it and let me know if you want anything changed.”. If they see this, and have half a brain, the reaction will be “Wow, his employee is good to go – and I’m lucky they are so self reliant!”
- If you are running out of things to do at home, spend some time thinking up new things you can do to help the team. Brainstorm with management – This is quite important because ultimately, if you do run out of things to do, why should the company keep paying you? With enough creative thinking and hard work, you should never end up with nothing to do.
Conclusion
I have set a rather strong tone on this subject. I have done so because initially, it takes a heap of effort to think differently about your work. But what also needs to be understood is the amazing freedom, efficiency and joy of working in isolation. How long is your commute? 30 minutes? You now have 5 hours back in your life, 5 hours. That’s almost a work day! What can you do with 5 new hours in your life? Learn a new skill? Spend more time with your family? This new time is a gift, and the only loss is the auto company and gas station! Learning to work this way makes you exponentially more powerful and employable. If an employer can see that you are capable of working like this – will they really question you when you ask for greater autonomy? Further, when you do meet in person, your meeting time will be more valued, and you will find greater joy in sharing time with colleagues. The richness of doing work together will be realized as now, it will be rare.
As with all things in life – today can be a chance for us to shrink from what we are called to do, or to rise to the challenge, and grow as a result. But having tools helps in our growth. I hope some of these tools help you in learning to adapt to this new work environment you may find yourself in. Good luck! – Austin