Dear friends, welcome to Ad Astra. I’m delighted to have you here.
This issue, Your Survival Guide to Working From Home, was originally going to be for paid subscribers only (if you recall, paid subscribers get three additional issues each month). I’ve decided to open it up to everyone, just in case it may help someone deal with the challenges of the upcoming weeks a little bit better.
If you’ve ever spoken to an editor or been in one’s shoes, you’ll recognize this dilemma: how do we continue with normal programming in times of crises and major disruptions?
Especially in travel, the community I am part of, every publication worth its salt is asking this question right now. Do we continue to cheer on far-flung locales while travel bans are disrupting our lives? Or do we switch our coverage to COVID-19, because it’s on everyone’s minds?
In my view, there is a fine line between staying true to your publication’s purpose — topics that readers come to you for and expect to find on your pages — and covering something that’s urgently weighing on many people’s minds.
I’m going to try to walk that line today.
And while I am not delving into the topic of this pandemic directly (I am not an expert in pandemics; all I know right now is to wash my hands, stay home, and protect my loved ones who are especially vulnerable), I’d like to cover the topic of working from home.
⬇️ me not working from home last weekend
Chances are, you will be working from home in the foreseeable future.
Well, this is a topic I can contribute lots of insights to — I have been part of the WFH movement for the past four years.
When I first quit my job (read about it here), I was elated to join this movement.
Yes to a laptop in bed!
Yes to conference calls in pajamas!
Yes to the freedom that comes with setting your own hours.
The reality, as is often the case, is not as glamorous as it sounds.
Working from home has its advantages (and yes, I’ve simplified my choice of outfits dramatically over the past four years) but it comes with its own challenges — isolation, lack of structure, guilt, blending of work and life, your household not treating your “office time” as such…
I’ve dealt with all of that and today, I offer you my insights on how to survive when you’re WFH:
Learn to stop feeling guilty about getting more done in less time
I found that since I’ve transitioned from office work to working from home, I am able to accomplish much more in less time.
How is that so?
I haven’t suddenly turned into a superwoman, so here is my explanation: I waste less time.
Consider this: when you’re working from home, all the things that used to take up time in your workday — commute, standing at the coffee line, waiting for meetings to start, small talk — are no longer there.
The only distractions to fight off now are trips to the fridge and browsing your favorite social media platform. Inevitably, you focus more on what needs to get done for the day and you accomplish it faster.
The trick is to stop feeling guilty about it.
Somehow, we believe that we should be working at least eight hours a day (thanks Industrial Revolution!).
That may work well for a job at the conveyer belt, but if you’re engaged in any kind of intellectual work, that won’t do. Our brain simply isn’t set up to work for eight hours straight. (This UK study found that workers, on average, are productive for only about three hours in their eight-hour workday.)
In this week’s NPR interview, journalist Celeste Headlee gives an interesting explanation for where my guilt may be coming from:
“Headlee believes some of America's obsession with work can be traced back to Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation in 16th-century Europe. Ideas about working your way to heaven, Headlee explains, "meant that every idle hour was one in which you were not earning your spot with the divine. ... It was your work that made you a good person. And therefore, obviously, if you're not working all the time, you should feel guilty."
I’m not completely there yet, but I am learning how to stop feeling guilty about not working all the time.
One approach that is helping me: I’ve stopped looking at the hours I spend working each day and instead, I look at the important outcomes. Every morning, I jot down three most important things to accomplish today and I work until they are done.
The rest is my time. (Sometimes, that means I take a nice lunch with a friend and sometimes it means I continue working until I drop. It’s a process.)
Find your optimal hour and be methodical
Related to recognizing your newfound efficiency is learning when your best, most productive time is. I call it your optimal hour.
For me, that time is early in the morning, so I structure my workday accordingly. If I have an article due, I get up extra early and put my writing in before the day’s distractions roll in. (I cover this approach here.)
I’ve learned over the years that my productivity drops sharply in the afternoons, so I do all the important, brain-power-required work in the morning and I reserve the afternoon for emails and tasks that are less taxing.
When you’re working from home, it’s harder to have a structure. That’s why sticking to a schedule that builds on your quirks is important. It helps you feel good about your accomplishments and spend your workdays well.
The other thing to keep in mind is that WFH requires us to be more aware of our physical behavior.
I use an app called Stand Up! that reminds me to stand up once every hour (you can set your own interval).
This approach helps to set up your work in units: work for 45 minutes, rest for 15.
That way, you’re giving your brain an opportunity to take a break after 45 focused minutes and your derriere is not falling off by the end of the day because you’ve been sitting on it for the past ten hours. Speaking from experience..!
Protect your space
I’ve fallen into this trap multiple times: since I am working from home, I can work from anywhere in the house, right?
Wrong: the bed is really not the place for you to be answering emails. Over the years, I’ve found a nook where all my work items are held and I consider this nook to be my office in the house.
Why is that important?
When we work in the office, we are able to leave work at work at the end of the day. Our conference rooms, our desks, and our work laptops stay there (let’s leave our phones out of it for a bit). Our brains start to rest when we exit our office building.
When you work from home, your work and your home are slowly becoming one and the same. And that means your brain never really rests.
That’s why creating strict boundaries between your workspace and the rest of your home is crucial when you WFH. My bedroom, for example, has a strict no-laptop policy and I rest better because of it.
Beyond physical boundaries, consider creating boundaries with your loved ones.
I suspect that Martin Luther has something to do with this behavior as well: sometimes, people don’t consider your work “actual work” because you’re sitting at home all day.
If your loved ones ask you to pick up groceries every once in a while, that’s fine. But if they expect you to be able to do non-work related tasks on the regular, be firm and stand your ground. Working from home is still working and everyone should respect that.
Be kind to yourself
This is probably the most difficult lesson I’ve had to learn… so far. Just like any other change, working from home is an adjustment and it takes time to go through it.
We are not robots (thankfully!) and we can’t just flip a switch and maintain the same output when our environment changes. When a disruption happens, we can’t be expected to continue business as usual.
And right now, it’s definitely not business as usual. If that means you go take a nap in the middle of a workday, so be it. If it means some of your projects fall through the cracks right now, so be it.
Recognize that, admit that you’re only human, and please, be kind to yourself as you’re working from home this spring and perhaps, into the rest of the year.
Onwards — and be safe,
Yulia
P.S. As this week seemed to fall apart particularly quickly, I am starting to think that the phone-free challenge is going to be a necessity for me going forward. I’m definitely continuing with it today and I encourage you to join. For one hour this Sunday, I’m going offline. I’ll report it in the phone-free challenge thread for accountability and share my results with you. You can join the thread here.
Issue #11: Your Survival Guide to WFH