How I Mastered Working From Home For 10 Years

I have been working from home for longer than I can now remember. It feels like a lifetime ago when I was told to pack it up and move home. I was with and still connected to an uber progressive company, that stays one step ahead of..well, everyone. They saw the need, to migrate north, change direction and embrace a nomadic lifestyle of virtual connections and physical get together.

When I first moved to working from home permanently, I was shell shocked. Without the hustle and bustle of getting formally dressed in the morning, grabbing a carb fueled bagel, and sitting in the car waiting for my turn, left me with time I did not know what to do with. I found myself super inspired on certain days, putting in 12-hour workdays and accomplishing so much, I ended the days feeling like I had superhuman powers. Other days, I would get lost in laundry, dishes, and daydreaming, that when I finally discovered how I had squandered my time, all-nighters became a norm. Do not get me wrong, I worked, yet I meandered through the days and evenings, more unscheduled than I had ever experienced myself. I moved through the days, taking freedoms I had never taken before. I had more flexibility than I felt I had working in the office.

And it was slowly breaking me.

I took liberties in long lunches, early hikes and naps..lots of naps. While I maintained my utmost of best work and delivered results I was always known for, this newfound world was one I hadn’t remembered for a while. One that was more carefree and unattached. But the work, the work was always there, always on my mind, always to be attended to. It plagued me in a different way than when I went into the office.

I started to find myself thinking of work, all the time. Without realizing it, I was so overly consumed with the constant chatter in my mind of what to do and when it needed to be done, I didn’t realize how much stress I had actually added to my life. However, being masked by the false sense of control I had over my schedule and time, allowed me to live in this weird, under and over committed work from home status.

It really turned into the perfectly, hard lifestyle.

I thought working from home, was the ultimate gift to freedom. I was had been working for 6 years in an office. 7-4, Monday through Friday. I have worked in cubicles, offices, and wide-open floor plans. I drove, I went in, I drank the coffee and got my mail. It was glamorous life filled with key cards and an extension. It was a rhythm that crept up so slowly, I did not even realize it had become my rhythm. One I did not have any control over yet was being paid handsomely.

I literally started in the third bedroom, with a side table desk and a spare bed still set up for our out of town guests. I remember the desk being so small, my computer screen barely fit. It was uncommitted and curated in a way that said, “I may or may not do this forever”.  Looking back, it is a wonder I survived.

I had the drive. I knew working from home successfully could mean, being with my new baby, my stay at home husband and have the ability to integrate my work and life, life and work..in such a way, the time was used the best way possible.

How I was working, was not working. So, I went back to the basics.

Workspace: The core advantage of a workspace is accountability. By being accountable in a physical way, you are forced to arrive on time, start the day and work. People are watching, listening to what you do and how you are doing it. In some ways, it the most mindless way to show up in life. But it gets the job done. Find yourself the most stable workspace you can in the home. I encourage you to find creative places to plant yourself, because, well, now you have the choice. Maybe it is an outdoor office on the deck while the weather is good, a corner of the garage or the shed that never got used. Yet, a permanent space, that feels like the office will help remove any excuses of not sitting down and working every day. Besides a desk or table, ensure that you have the access to technology and the tools you need to succeed. When given time management studies, a group of Thrivent Financial business owners found that 60 minutes a day, on average, were lost just getting up to get supplies or get to tools to function.

Self-Management: The art and science of holding oneself accountable has been studied for years. Many business owners lack a managerial mindset. While this alone plagues anyone’s ability to self-manage, the lack of tools causes anyone that is doing it, to spend more time than necessary. Recreating the onsite model, means creating some structure and boundaries. A consistent schedule will ensure diligence with putting in the hours. Having organization, similar to the office, will help you fall into similar patterns you left. Email response time standards will become a key tool to monitor and manage workflow. Your employees, vendors and constituents need to feel patterns of workflow, which to know surprise, will create their patterns of workflow. Calendars and project management tools will remind you of what to do and when; booking, cancelling, and rescheduling will become easy now that you can see it against true time. Do not be surprised that after this level of organization occurs, you find time to do the things you always dreamed you would do if you ever worked from home.

Meetings: I know what you are probably thinking. You just got away from all those meetings. Yet, remember meetings hold you accountable, they create outputs of tasks and work and they connect you in a disconnected, offsite world. Setting up a schedule that connects you with key individuals is one thing, booking meetings with yourself, takes your awareness of when and how you are going to do everything you are accountable for allows you to create awareness of how much you can truly do..and when. You only have so many hours in a day for work and need so many hours in a day for work. What fills your work schedule and hours? How do you need to schedule with yourself in a day and week that accomplishes your accountabilities? How much time do you have left?

Nowadays, I can be flexible and fluid with my time. Some days are the same, others vary based on personal and professional desires. I feel confident saying yes to last minute invitations, because I know what needs to be rescheduled, what I will have to still do later in the day or week and what the sacrifice is really costing me.

With the uncertainty of pandemics and economies still unknown, the future of productive and consistent workflow, depends on an at home model. What would it be like to live in a world where people had work life integration? Where self-accountability trumped blame. Where morality and culture came from home because we are all at home now. Children experience what their parents really do, and parents become part of their children’s life?

Work and life becoming two parts of a whole, balancing need vs want vs choice.