There has been a working-from-home theory long before social distancing became an absolute necessity. This theory suggests that we should have already done this to some extent from the beginning. Not for the reasons we're doing it now, but because it's actually more efficient .
It's a tough time
for everyone because we're all going without the things we need. We need to be able
to see and hug our families. We need to socialize with our friends. We need to get it
out of our homes and see more people. We need to be around other
people. At some point, life obviously becomes harder to enjoy without these things,
and we all struggle with it. But if you lump "office
life" with these things, it's probably because you've been conditioned to believe
that you need them.
Of course, there are
situations where close physical proximity is crucial to accomplish something
as a team or company. In a few industries, these situations are common.
In others, they come up several times a month. In many others, they are actually
very rare, but companies will manufacture the necessary attendance at meetings
or supplies and equipment left in the office.
I can only speak for
myself as someone who has spent part of my career in various office environments
and the rest as an independent contractor determining my own schedule and
workspace. I'll put it in pretty dramatic terms:I believe the
reasons why desktop environments are the set standards in most
driven by corporate control and fear. Think about the last time you were
the first person to leave the office on a given work day. Could you feel
eyeballs staring at your door? Does it sound healthy to you when you
Think about it?
Office environments
naturally set up hierarchies similar to school environments where your peers
are like your classmates and anyone above you is like a teacher or principal;
figures of authority with bigger offices and better parking spaces. Close physical
proximity allows managers to keep a watchful eye on their people, but
also makes this follow-up more necessary than it is and makes their work
seem more important than 'he is.
This doesn't mean that the manager you came to see as a legitimate friend is a bad person or is specifically trying to exploit you. These systems have been in place for a long time and fear-based motivation grows organically. It is generally assumed that tasks will be completed more efficiently if people are in a space where they are not allowed to do anything else, but evidence suggests otherwise. In 2017, a two-year Stanford study of working from home versus office environments that incorporated a company of 16,000 employees was completed and the results did not suggest a compromise. Data indicates a much higher degree of efficiency when employees work from home, not to mention a savings of $2,000 per employee for the employer in a reduced office space.
Maybe your employer
sees this as an opportunity to strike a more reasonable compromise than five
days a week at the office. Or maybe you disagree with the general premise
I presented. But either way, you'll have to adjust your mindset
for now. So it's worth investigating what you can take advantage of
now that no one is watching you work.
Your
tasks and your schedule are now connected.
Healthy relationships
require compromise and trial and error. Maybe you work the most efficiently
9 a.m. to 5 p.m., or maybe you just think that's all you've ever
knew. If you've been walking into an office for years, individual tasks can
start to blur into one big "work" category. Strip away the idea of being
“In Sync” and you see a task for what it is:something you need to
do by a certain date.
You're supposed to be
creative in carrying out a task, so why not be creative in how you
get it done? Maybe you'll find you're coming up with a new
perspective if you walk away from a project every 45 minutes. You might find
sometimes you get hours of momentum if you chip something late at
night. And this is going to sound crazy, but if you stay late working on
something you can sleep the next morning (!).
Tasks take time
away from your personal life one way or another. Try to be the one who decides
what hours it takes you. If you meet deadlines with good work,
no one will be there to tell you no.
Mental
health doesn't have to take a back seat.
Ultimately, it is you
who can understand what is good for your mental health, and now is the time to
understand that. Your work can now be planned around the conclusions you come to. Maybe it's something small, like having a cup of coffee and a snack at 2
p.m. everyday. Maybe you enjoy working outdoors. Maybe you enjoy reading in the
middle of the day. If you can do it without falling behind, do it
as much as possible.
Imagine turning on some
speakers and playing your favorite album in the office? You can do it now.
Would a videoconference or phone call with a therapist each week be
Good for you? You can do it in the middle of the day. We might owe our
employers work, but they don't decide what's good for us.
No
commuting means accumulated time.
Working from home can be hard to get used to. I understand that. Maybe
you have children in the house who distract you in the morning. It might just be
difficult to adjust to a new work environment. So when you sit down at your desk or
workspace and realize you've let 45 minutes go by without making any progress
anything, I would ask you not to be so hard on yourself -same. For some of you, you
still be in traffic on your way to the office if you were to enter.
A lack of travel saves you money. The hours return to your day. It reduces your stress. Studies have shown that continuous highway or subway noises occur at a volume that our ears were not designed for and have long term effects on our health.
If your home was
useful for you to decompress, then don't just walk straight from your desk
to your couch when you finish work for the day. A 10-20 minute walk
your neighborhood to take your mind off work goes a long way in establishing
some balance in your life.
Your
my colleagues are not gone.
Of course, it's still
important to be able to periodically see the people you work with, and
hopefully this will become feasible again in the near future, but until then, we
still have the resources available to keep in touch. Zoom and Skype meetings
can start to feel as routine as regular meetings, but on a one-to-one basis,
your colleagues are only a phone call away. You are both trying to accomplish
your specific tasks and might be able to help each other.
I have a manager/editor I
would normally see about twice a week. When there is a possibility of
a misunderstanding in the past month, we just called each other, and
I noticed that it was particularly informal. We tend to spend the first five
minutes catching up and joking, the next five minutes
problematically, and we always end things on a high note.
Part of your manager's job was to keep an eye on you and motivate you to work. It's been taken away from them, so just by asking questions or asking for quick phone calls, you give them a sense of relief that you're staying motivated. I also don't need to tell you that calling and checking in on your peers or finding out if there's anything you can do to help with their workload is a welcome gift during these times. P>
