Thu. Mar 28th, 2024

From today’s Los Angeles Times:

I love working from home.

I learned this week that this is apparently a controversial stance. The unfolding coronavirus crisis is forcing many of us to work from home in an effort to help stop the spread. Not everyone greeted the news with a cheer. And that’s how I learned there are some people who claim to enjoy putting on work clothes and packing a sad desk lunch and battling morning traffic. Not me.

I’ve had jobs where I worked from home full-time, and jobs — like the one I have now — where I normally work from home every once in a while. I don’t want to brag, but I’m pretty good at it.

A lot of the “how to work from home” guides popping up this week seem to assume no one has ever pulled out their laptop to check their work email from home before. I trust you know the basics. So here are some tips to work from home more efficiently, stay connected with your colleagues, and maybe even enjoy yourself a little bit.

1. Sleep later.

How long is your commute? And how long is your pre-office morning routine — selecting an outfit, doing your hair, figuring out what you’ll eat that day and deciding whether to pack a gym bag? Add that time up, and then set your morning alarm back by that amount of time.

2. Set up your desk.

Whatever space you’re going to be working from at home, clean it. Normally, my desk at home has a bunch of bills I need to file, a few bottles of nail polish, a couple of books, some mail and a handful of old newspapers. If you are like me, mend your wicked ways. Make your home desk (or kitchen table) feel like your work desk. Have everything there that you’d have at work: a phone charger, a box of tissues, a water bottle, a mug, pens and paper.

3. Be ready for prime time.

Teleconferencing and video calls are not the future. They are the present. Save your office’s dial-in number to your phone’s favorites so you’re ready to jump on a call at a moment’s notice.

Read the complete article here.

By Editor