We have been thinking for some time about sharing our 10 tips to learn how to work from home, to help you avoid making certain typical and common mistakes people do when they begin to home office, which make the experience not as rewarding as it could be.
Since our journey at Happyforce began, we decided that we would build our company in a distributed way, without offices, making our work 100% remote. In fact, one of our mottos for constructing (building our culture) the culture is the following:
Happyforce should allow you to work in any place you want in the world
It seems that working from home or working remotely could be easy, that we don’t understand why more companies don’t implement it, but it is necessary to be consistent, resilient and very convinced that this is the way you want to work.
Having said all this, we want to share our 10 tips to learn how to home office.
Home office basics
Set schedules
It is important that you differentiate work activities from household chores and the precise breaks you need to take from each of these. Would you do any household chores in the middle of the morning if you were in an office? Surely it would be complicated, therefore, while in home office mode do not do it either.
We recommend you not to have any water bottles on your desk. One of the reasons is that it will force you to get up to drink water. This way, you will not have the feeling of being sitting all day without stopping, and you get to take that necessary break.
Sports / Activity
Some of the options we suggest you are the following:
- Take advantage of the breaks to move around: climb some stairs, do some push-ups or squats, stretch…
- Have a remote trainer or go to the gym 30 minutes every day. It seems like a short time, but take the routine and keep increasing it.
- Apps: There are applications that allow you to exercise at home and stay fit.
Children / Family
Do you remember the video that went viral where a little girl appeared while her father was in an interview?
It’s not bad that children appear briefly in video calls and say hello. IF its happens, take it naturally and don’t despair. I can tell you, the people on the other side, they take it easy enough and are very understanding.
Mindset
Several tips that will help you separate working from home than just being at home, and that although you may find them cliché or simple, maintaining this routine helps you give the necessary space to work and home:
- Take a shower if you think it’s necessary. If it is with cold water, better 😉
- Change your clothes, get dressed and don’t keep the clothes you’ve been wearing at home or the ones that you’ve slept in.
- Start the day with music after breakfast and start in ON mode.
Learning: Take advantage of changing locations during the day depending on the activity. It helps you to refresh your mind and body
Set-Up Basics
Interruptions
You need a place where you can talk comfortably, privately and without interruptions.
Internet connection
Make sure you have enough bandwidth, especially when you have to hold video conferences, and where you need the connection to be stable. If you have difficulties, locate a place where you can connect by cable.
Noise cancelling microphone
Have a quality headset available that supports noise cancelling in order to maintain a quality video conference.
Videoconferences
Connect 5 minutes before the meeting
This allows us to start meetings on time, ensure that we have no connection problems and above all, get familiar with the video conferencing tool.
Turn on the camera
It is important that all the people who are going to participate in the meeting put the camera on. Can you imagine a face-to-face meeting and some people turning their backs on you? That’s the same feeling when a person doesn’t turn their camera on in meetings.
Use mute
An important tip to keep in mind is to use mute or silence when you are not speaking in order to avoid any interference or disturbance of your peers.
Learning: Leave 5 minutes between meetings. It is very easy to link one meeting to another and not disconnect.
Complement this article by knowing the tips for not millennials
You can view our webinars about remote working at the following link.
Have a look at the rest our webinars about working from home through this link
