Working at Home During the Coronavirus Crisis

If you’re like many Americans, you’re probably working from home for the next couple of weeks. Many businesses are shuttering their doors – including several retail businesses – so that workers can practice social distancing to slow the spread of the Coronavirus. If you’re not used to working from home, it can be quite the adjustment. If you have kids at home, it can be quite a challenge. The good news is, we’re all in this together and will get through it together.

If you’re not accustomed to working at home, it can be a huge change from working in an office atmosphere. Aside from having no co-workers to socialize and collaborate with face to face, you’ve also got all kinds of new distractions. The following tips will help make the transition a little easier.

Working at Home During the Coronavirus Crisis

Establish a Routine

As quickly as possible establish a routine you can stick with for the next few weeks. Try to make the routine similar to the one you had while working outside of the house. If you got up at 6am continue to get up at 6am. Because you won’t have a commute you’ll finish your day sooner and can do some of the things you’ve always wanted to do but never had the time to do.

Get Dressed

It might seem like the best part of working from home is working in your PJs, but it’s not. You’ll be less productive if you stay in your jammies and distractions will be harder to resist. Shower and get dressed. You don’t have to wear a suit to your home office, but put on something a little less comfortable than sweats.

Tech

Depending on what kind of work you do you may or may not have a work laptop. If you do, you’re halfway there. If not you’ll need to figure out how to connect to the tools you need on the office server if you need access to it. If all you need is a connection to the internet – to do research or email clients, it will be easy enough to just use the technology you have at home.

Connecting

You’ll need access to the internet to work from home – again, depending on what it is you do, you may only need a phone. However, odds are you’ll need to use a computer and have it connected to the internet. Many internet companies are boosting internet speeds because so many kids will be home schooling it for the near future and because many adults will be working from home. There will likely still be some outages and slow downs so be prepared for those contingencies.

Avoid Distractions

This is probably the most difficult part of working from home – all the distractions. There’s laundry that is piling up, and then you can’t just let it sit in the dryer, it needs to be folded. If there kids are home they’re going to create distraction after distraction. It’s not worth pulling your hair out each time you get disturbed. Give yourself a break and accept that the environment you’re working in right now is going to be probably less productive than the one at the office.

Cut Yourself Some Slack

Be kind while you’re getting used to this new situation. It’s okay if you get frustrated, and it’s okay if you don’t accomplish all that you usually do in a day at the office. It takes some time to get used to new routines and this is one we’ve never encountered before. Breathe, do your best to relax and be prepared to walk away from your desk rather than put unneeded pressure on yourself to force productivity.

Give it Time

It takes time to adjust to any new situation and this is a situation we’ve never experienced before. If it takes you a day or two to adjust to Daylight Saving Time it’s probably going to take a little longer to adjust to this change. Don’t worry, long we’ll all be back in the office and the kids will be back in school.