4 Ways To Effectively WFH During Isolation & Lockdown

Now that we've updated our bios to include "works from home," it's time to figure out how to do it well — especially if your family or roommate is bumping around the house all day.

If you're stressed, exhale. I've got good news: you can absolutely be successful working from home. The trick is to find the balance between not doing enough and overproduction.

For the last 12 years, I've been fine-tuning the art of GSD while balancing a family, household, and my overly busy brain. With years of failure experience logged, I've had more than enough opportunity to adjust and create a system that works. 

Four Non-Negotiable Tips To Successfully Work From Home:

1) SET EXPECTATIONS:
Whether you're working from home with a family/ roommates or not, this is a CRITICAL step.

Think of expectations as the rules for a game. Right now, the game is working from home. If you're going to win, you AND your team need to be clear about the rules (boss, family, or roommates).

Questions to ask yourself:
👉 What do you NEED right now to be successful?
👉 What can your family expect from you, and what do you expect from them?
👉 What does your boss expect from you and you from them?
👉 What do YOU expect from yourself?

Once you're clear on what you expect, communicate the rules with the rest of your team.

Don't assume your family understands your needs or even knows what to do about them. Shelter in place is new for all of us, and if you want to be successful when WFH, conversations must happen immediately. 

2) SET BOUNDARIES: The biggest pitfall of working from home is mixing work-life with homelife. As a veteran of WFH, I call this dance a working lifestyle. You must find a way to move between your personal and professional worlds seamlessly.

There are three types of boundaries you need to set:Physical: Where are you going to work?

Theoretical: What time will you open the laptop, and when will you close it?
Emotional: What will you do to decompress and connect with others?

👉 Designate a place to work: it doesn't have to be a proper home office, the corner of the dining room table will do. Wherever you anchor yourself, remember this is your office. Where you are seated there, you work. That's it.

Hint: Don't work in the same place you relax or sleep.

👉 Know when to go dark: more people are reporting feeling overworked since sheltering in place, and it's no surprise. With your office now a few steps away, it's common to feel the pull to check-in or finish that project.

Set a consistent time to clock in and out. Whatever you do, don't work through your old commute time. If you're now starting earlier, make sure you end sooner.

I cannot stress this enough. Look at the actual hours you used to work and do the same now. Burnout is real and, obviously, counterproductive.

👉 Working lifestyle: now that you work from home, you can mix in personal with professional. Make a short joy list of 3-5 things to reduce your anxiety. From family meals to shooting hoops to using your favorite coffee mug, you can make sheltering in place less stressful by scheduling in fun or fluff — a few minutes sprinkled in throughout your day will make a monumental difference for everyone.

When you worked in an office, you took breaks, so why would you stop now that you're at home? Replace the 15-minute coffee shop trip with reading a book on your porch or, not kidding, in your car.

If you only do ONE thing on my list of five, set boundaries. It's quite possibly the golden ticket to being productive when you work from home. 

3) SCHEDULES AND ROUTINES: I'll go to my grave touting the brilliance of James Clear's Atomic Habits. If you're unfamiliar with his book or have yet to crack the spine of the one you ordered way back in November, now's the time to explore (and check out my Atomic Habits book review).

When I learned how to create new habits and break old ones, I was able to set up schedules and systems that support my work AND personal needs. Atomic Habits is my bible.

Creating supportive systems during shelter-in-place requires knowing the answer to what, when, and where. Example: I will work at 7:30 am at my designated workspace.

Once you know what you're doing and when, create a calendar to print and post — It will keep you accountable and on task.

 4) AFTER ACTION REPORT (AAR): WFH isn't exactly easy, nor is it static. Learning to flexible has been invaluable. What works one day might not work the next.

I perform professional and personal AARs. After every photography session, I review my photos and emotions so I can learn what worked and what didn't. Don't settle. Push to make the next Zoom call, family interaction, or meditation better than before. (I mean really, what else are you going to do? Scroll Reddit or Instagram?)

Reviewing your day and making adjustments will not only help you be more productive tomorrow, but it will also ease your mind at night so you can sleep well.

I know working from home during the uncertainty is trying at best, but you can do this. It's not difficult. It's different.
Once you get used to the change, I'm confident you'll flourish.

P.S. If you're now a WAH parent having to homeschool, be sure to check out 10 Tips To Shelter In Place With Kids. And for the love of sweatpants, read Save Your Sanity While Sheltering In Place.