Some tips for working from home. From someone who works from home all the time.

So, we’ve had 4 weeks of lockdown and lots of us are now working from home. Me? I work from home all of the time. We have a studio at home that we do most of our work from. Clients don’t really visit us (I go and see them) so we are used to working in isolation.

As we enter week 5 I thought I’d share some of my (light hearted) tips for home working!

1. Get dressed! You never know when you’ll receive a What’s App video call! It’s also good for your self esteem. Dress every day as though you are going to an important meeting or to your place of work. You’ll feel better for it.

• Have a routine. This helps a lot. Start at the same time. Have a regular finish time. Take breaks for food, drinks and – importantly – exercise. Having a regular break helps with stress levels and also enables us to refocus and reset between tasks.

• Set some space aside as your workspace. We are lucky enough to have built a bespoke room. Not everyone has that. One of our friends simply likes to move around the house and work where he feels like it on that particular day. Another has an ironing board as their ‘standing desk’. Which they love..! But really the best thing is to have space that is yours to work at – if you can.

• It’s OK to have an off day. The situation that we are living through is stressful and doesn’t feel ‘normal’. You will have days where you aren’t as productive as you’d like. Where you ‘get nothing done’. That’s ok. It’s normal. If you’re honest with yourself, are you productive every day when working from an office? I have non productive days, I’m fine with that. It just gets a bit stressful when it stretches to a week. Like last week. Anyway, enough about that..!

• It’s ok to get distracted! Especially if your children are home from school – mine are. Take a look at the news, get distracted by Youtube. Attempt to help your kids do their maths. Or science. Or geography. Attempt being the correct term!

• Keep reminding yourself how lucky you are. Things could be worse. If you are lucky enough to be working from home, chances are you aren’t a coal miner like my Grandfather was. Eight to ten hours a day underground in dusty coal tunnels. That was hard work. And most key workers don’t have this opportunity to work from home… Hospital workers – doctors, nurses, cleaners, cooks, laboratory staff. Care home workers. Supermarket workers. Farmers. Factory workers. Train drivers. Delivery drivers. You get my drift?

And remember to log out of applications like Zoom. These bits of technology are relatively new to some of us – just simply closing the browser window doesn’t’ mean you’ve logged out – the application could remain open, leaving you at risk of malware or hackers.

That’s it. Welcome to my world of working from home. Make the most of it.