Tips for Working From Home

Ian: [00:00:00] What’s up guys. Today I’m going to be giving you five tips on how to work from home and just some things that’ll maybe help the workflow. So the first tip I’ve got for you is to stay organized. That’s really important. We’re all working from home now. Maybe during the regular work week, we didn’t have time to organize and do stuff like that cause we’re in meetings or whatever.

So now is the perfect time to really work on, categorically, you know, arranging all of your stuff, whether it’s documents, whether it’s just office materials, like pens, pencils, markers, or whether it’s just like setting up an office, which we’re going to get into a little bit later. But, either way, getting organized and trying to keep things in a spot where you know where it’s at.

And that will increase workflow 10 times. Which is why typically we go into an office, but since we can’t do that. It’s important to make our office at home the best thing that we can make it.

The second tip that I have for you guys is to get creative with communication. So if we have to do communication, either with the [00:01:00] boss or if you’re in school and you need to talk to a teacher or professor, one thing that’s really helpful is, you know, a Skype, Zoom. These are all web based solutions to kind of like chat, in a video conference call. So those are some options. And there’s other ones as well. There’s some Google sponsored ones. And some are free, some are pay. You’ll just have to look into those. But those are great options. A lot of times they’re already available, through either your university or school or maybe through your employer even, because of this pandemic.

But if not, there’s definitely options out there. And there’s one that works great for you. So I would definitely do that. Obviously by phone. If you can’t do video conference. And though there’s some different solutions in how to get around not meeting in person. My third tip is invest in sitting, but also standing.

So, with this pandemic happening, we’re going to be working from home for who knows how long. So if you were maybe just trying to figure out something for the short term, like a dining room chair or a stool or whatever kind of chair you had around the [00:02:00] house, that’ll work temporarily. But if this is going to be a long term thing, it might be good to invest in an office chair. There’s tons of different office chairs and different options out there. You could find one that works for you, and I definitely recommend doing that because like I said, we don’t know how long this is going to go. But I also say invest in standing because it’s important to stand a few times a day.

They make these things. It’s like a metal, like, table thing that, like holds, it’s like a tray more than a table. And it holds your computer, your mouse and everything you need and it can lift up and so it has like this extension thing and it can lift up. Now if you can’t afford to purchase like that, you can makeshift something. But even if you just have to leave your computer and everything on a desk and you stand, you can still work for a few minutes, maybe up to an hour to make sure that you’re standing up something throughout the day.

This’ll help your knees if you have bad knees and your back. And this is just really good change of pace as well. If you find yourself getting kind of sleepy, you know, [00:03:00] standing up kind of gets the blood flowing a little bit, take a couple steps to the side, a couple of steps to the other side, but you’re still checking emails and doing whatever you need to do for your work.

So that’s something I recommend investing in as well if you have the money. If not, you can always create something. But yeah, those two things are really important when working from home. My fourth tip kind of relates, so it’s about, separating your workflow from other activities. So if you do other things at home, like maybe you have a side business at home, but you also work, but now you’re forced to work from your day job at home because of this pandemic.

And then you know, maybe you do something else for fun in a chair, you draw or paint or make music or whatever the case may be. You may have other activities that you do in the same kind of space, but you want to try to separate it as much as you can because it just kinda helps our brain the way it works to separate things, and be like okay, right now I’m in this room to do this task. Right now I’m in this other room to do this other task. And it just kind of helps us to separate things, make sure [00:04:00] there’s no overlap, and make sure that we’re not, you know, playing a video game or doing something on work time, which we wouldn’t want to do that.

So if you didn’t have an office set up before this pandemic and you had like to make one up, you know, with what you had, it might be a good thing to invest in an office. If you don’t have like a little desk or maybe you have like a little table, you know you don’t have to spend money, you don’t have it to spend.

So you can just try to create something with what you have, but it’s important to try to create something separate. So, definitely create that space if you can and find a place where you won’t get distraction from maybe kids or you know, if you’re living with anyone or roommates or you know, even a dog or cat or whatever likes. Work in a place that’s peaceful and that you can get your work done and concentrate, but also still be able to do the other things that you need to do as well.

But just try to keep things separate as much as possible. My last tip is kind of an enjoyment factor slash you know, maybe a little healthiness to it, but you definitely want to try to see or go [00:05:00] outside once a day with this pandemic, a lot of us are in the house and maybe we’re working from home.

Also doing fun things at home. Like we’re basically all just stuck in the house. So if we can’t go to a nearby park or something because it’s shut down, you know,  and if there’s not like a trail available or something like that, maybe you can just open a window. Right. And let some rays shine in and try to get a lot of daylight, as much as you can because you know, who knows, the next time we’re going to be able to just go out and engage with each other outside.

So it’s good to kind of get that light, that natural light, and get a chance to see the nature, smell the springtime. I really think that stuff can aid the mental health aspect of it, but also can aid your work day. And provides you with a little bit at ease knowing you could still engage with outside, without being outside is kind of like the social distance way to enjoy the outdoors. Okay. Those are the tips that I have for you today for Kentucky SPIN, and I appreciate all of you guys tuning in. Until next time, peace [00:06:00] out.