#18 Make the Most of Working from Home

Working from home isn't as simple as transplanting your office day to your home office! In this episode, I share insights on what I found most important when transitioning from working in the office to working from home.

You can find more information on similar topics at www.wisewomensworkplace.com!

Transcript

Hi! This is Anita Belitz from the Wise Women’s Workplace Podcast. In today’s episode I am going to focus on what you can do to make the most out of working from home!  

Backstory (Desires internal and external)

When my first son was born, I knew I wanted to be a Career Woman AND SuperMom! But I quickly learned that that is a pretty hard thing to do! When you have a newborn at home, it is so hard to just keep up with your job! And your private life starts creeping into your professional life in all sorts of ways! I was always busy and extremely tired. During the week my husband and I didn’t have much time or energy to devote to home life in addition to taking care of the baby and on weekends we were just trying to catch up with what we couldn’t do during the week. It was a nightmare and we never felt rested. I didn’t really feel like a Career Woman nor a Super Mom at that point!

Well, I thought that if I could just work from home sometimes that it would be a huge help to me in managing my private life. I didn’t really know if my boss would go for it, but as he often worked from home himself, I thought he would at least maybe be open to it. I finally worked up the courage to ask to be able to work from home one day a week on a trial basis. To my surprise and great relief, he actually agreed! And while I wasn’t really sure how working from home was going to turn out, I knew I was going to do my best to make my boss feel like I worked at least as good from home as from the office, if not even better!

And it worked! For nearly 16 years I worked from home at least one day a week. And it really was a huge benefit as when I worked from home it eliminated my travel time to and from work, it allowed me to do loads of wash throughout the day, to use my lunch break to do meal prep or home administration tasks, and it even allowed me to have lunch with my husband occasionally – something that was otherwise nearly impossible! Working from home even brought my stress levels down

But getting used to working from home was pretty challenging at first. From a work perspective, I had to adapt how I managed my work and I had to become self-disciplined in a very different way! I had imagined working from home would allow me to focus more easily than at the office, but I actually did have to be really self-disciplined to not get pulled into taking care of personal business because suddenly my personal life was all around me! And I found out that being organized to work from home is important because you are out of your normal routine and maybe using tools that you aren’t used to. For example, I noticed that sometimes I was avoiding tackling certain team jobs when working from home because it just felt tougher to get them done through email or video calls. This caused me to get behind occasionally. So I had to really adapt the way that I was working to make working from home efficient and effective.

And then there was what others thought about me working from home…  That was a real but somewhat elusive challenge to manage! Because when you work from home you suddenly feel like you have the pressure of showing concretely to colleagues - and maybe even your boss - that you are indeed being productive and not just spending time on personal matters. And I noticed that occasionally when people would call me at home, they would apologize for interrupting me – something that didn’t happen when they called me at the office!  And even my team would send me instant messages asking me if I was online! That never happened otherwise – because they would usually just come to my office! So dealing with other’s perceptions and expectations was something that had to be actively managed!

And juggling my personal home life when working from home was difficult at times. For instance, when my kids were small I had to figure out how to keep them from interrupting me in my home office or to be quiet when I was on a work call. Or, sometimes I would be in an important team call and a delivery person would ring at the door.  And occasionally it was hard to stay focused when there was a lot going on outside of my home office door – either because it was distracting or because – truthfully - I wanted to join in the fun!

So working from home was possible, but I eventually realized I needed a better plan. I started really taking a different approach to how I was working from home. I no longer thought about working from home as just transplanting my same office work to my home office. I realized that I couldn’t simply approach working from home the same way I approached working at the office. I got tactical about how I was going to work from home, which types of work I would and wouldn’t do from home, who I would be in contact with, what I would communicate to people about working from home, and I even had to lay out rules for my family about when I was working from home. And my working from home life was hugely improved  because of this!

So I am going to share a few points that made my work-from-home experience easier:

1) The first point is to : Realize that you have to adapt how you work!

a. (Self-discipline) When you are at the office you have a specific routine – including when you usually speak to people, when you take coffee breaks, when you get up and move around, when you take lunch and when you finish for the day. This is something which you may find useful to replicate at home. If you can set up a daily structure for yourself, you can use the breaks, calls or other appointments as landmarks for how you are going to structure your work.  I did my most concentrated work in the morning and reserved most calls for the afternoon. As I knew I had a harder time being focused then, I used the calls as landmarks. Each hour I would schedule a call on the hour. When I would finish the call, I would work to get some shorter tasks done before the next call. And then I would take a break shortly before the next call to use the restroom, get something to drink, or even change a load of laundry. Use your landmarks to help you be focused and disciplined!

b. (Structure) It’s also important to structure your work in a way which is efficient. For example, I knew I had to be more structured when I would have calls than when I would have to be in an in-person meeting, I used this to my advantage. Have you ever had people that took forever in in-person meetings? I would save them for my work-from-home days. I would call them and say I was working from home and that’s why I was calling. This didn’t ruffle any feathers but it also meant that they usually skipped a lot of the conversational aspect an in-person meeting. Win-win for me for helping me be well-structured and being efficient by getting something done which usually took a lot longer to do in person.

So, adapt how you work at home, first through self-discipline and structure.

2) Then, the second point is to: Actively manage others’ perceptions and expectations when you work from home. This goes for both your colleagues and those people in your personal life! It’s likely that you will automatically feel the pressure of producing more when working from home but you will almost certainly here about it from others. I had someone that I worked with that used to make what I would call “hit and run” comments – little playful jabs which were clearly expressing some element of a real feeling that he had. I found the best was to joke it off at the moment and then I made sure to actively manage him during one of my next work-from-home days by scheduling a virtual meeting with him instead of doing an “in-office” meeting so that my working from home became more concrete for him and started to feel more normal. Also, I tried to have some elements of a “work-from-home” routine with some of my colleagues. For instance, with my assistant, I would call her in the morning once I knew she was in and had been able to read her mails. It was a good way for us to structure the day and give a predictability to our schedule. I would also inform her of what I was going to be working on. This was definitely different than what would happen at the office. I liked to give her a heads-up on what I may be asking her for in advance and at the same time it gave some concreteness to what I was doing, in her mind. Also, I wanted to mention that I was very upfront with people that when I was working from home I was often doing project work where I could concentrate as I wouldn’t have walk-ins into my office nor as many calls. I think this also helped people understand better what I was doing. Being honest and upfront about what you are doing is a good way to help people better understand what you are doing when you work from home. And I would stick to the plan. While I often worked during lunch at the office, I didn’t do work-related tasks while at home. I used the time to do my personal things or even take a break, and I let people know I wouldn’t be available during the lunch break. Finding ways to let people feel like work goes on like normal is important in managing their expectations and helping them to understand that you are working well at home and while it is different, it does not make you unattainable!    

3) The third tip is to: Get clear on how you are going to handle your work and private life now that they are in such close quarters!  Think through what makes sense to do from home and what is better kept at the office. I learned it was important to avoid calls with one of my bosses when I worked from home unless he called me. Also, I had to be very clear with my family that when I was working from home that I was actually still working like when I was at the office. This was complicated for my kids to understand when they were little, especially, as they would love to bust into the home office to ask me for things. That can really throw a wrench in your concentration! My kids are big now and understand what working from home means, but when they were small I used a trick which I find was really useful: I had a sign of a traffic officer holding out his hand and blowing a whistle in a clear sign to stop. I hung this on the door and when my kids wanted to come in the office, they understood that they couldn’t go in. Trying to remember was too hard for them when they were small but the sign was easy to understand and was a great reminder no matter how many times they came to the home-office door. And I was very clear about when I would come out of my office (like for a package delivery) and when I wouldn’t – tempting as it was to get the laundry out of the machine, I would wait for my break. It doesn’t take a lot of effort, but getting clear on these things upfront will make the whole thing a lot easier! 

I can assure you that once I implemented these practices that my work-from-home life improved. It turned out I could actually be much more efficient and effective when working from home because the truth is that I did receive fewer calls and I put more pressure on myself to move through my tasks in a more structured and concise way. When I worked from home, I actually really moved quickly through my tasks!

So remember, when you are transitioning to working from home:

1) First, Adapt how you work! Figure out what will make you the most efficient and effective when working from home. Manage your work differently and find out how to be at least as self-disciplined at home as you are in the office!

2) Secondly, Actively manage others’ perceptions and expectations – for both your colleagues and your family! Make sure to be upfront about the situation and let others know how you are working so they know what to expect.

3) Third, Get clear about what private issues will be allowed into your “working from home” bubble. This will keep you more focused on your work and let you get the most benefit for your personal life while respecting your professional life, all the while when working from home.

Working from home can really bring value-added to your work situation, but know that it does require some adjusting. And if you want your employer to feel as good about it as you do, make sure to plan out how you are going to go about making adaptations to how you carry out your work and your interactions with others. Finally, know that your personal life and professional life will be rubbing shoulders, and this will require clear boundary-setting like never before! But in the end, it is all manageable

As always, if you really want a career and life which makes you happy, please be very mindful of what you are doing and take deliberate actions. Make sure you are always looking after yourself, including in your career. And don’t just survive, take steps to thrive!

I look forward to speaking to you again soon. Until next time, may you be healthy, wealthy, and wise!