I have seen an abundance of advice lately on working from home and wanted to share what has worked for me. Let's acknowledge that working from home during a national crisis is a much more complicated endeavor than just working remotely at sparse frequency. For many of us, living through the coronavirus outbreak, it is working from home under duress.
The most significant challenge that arises from remote work is blurring of the lines between work and personal life, as the structure in your day. It can be tempting to forgo your well-developed habits and roll out of bed right before a meeting starts, work from your bed or couch, but doing so can impact your productivity and blur the lines between work and your personal life. It may be that you unexpectedly find yourself sharing working space with a partner (and children and pets) and need to find the new normal.
So what can you do to ensure you are working from home and not "homing from work" these days?
How to Preserve a semblance of normalcy while working from home for an extended period of time?
Set boundaries around your schedule. Establish "quiet hours" for deep, uninterrupted work (work with your team on this to ensure you are not disrupting established processes by doing so). If you find yourself working late into the evening, schedule non-working activities, such as time with family, pets, work-out time, reading time, right on your calendar, and keep the personal commitments. If you are working from home with your spouse and kids - reach out to your manager to see if an alternate work schedule could work for you (help preserve your and your spouse's sanity).
Set boundaries around your physical workspace. If possible, limit yourself to one (or two) "working space." It can help to get you into work mode when you are in your working space and ensure your non-working areas will remain safe from the stresses of work.
How to ensure a high(-ish) level of productivity?
There are a few things you can do to help keep your teams focused during times of uncertainty. Create new structures that help them carve out their boundaries. Here are some examples:
Over-communicate. Make a point of over-communicating (daily check-ins, weekly calls, a shared e-working space, etc.). Regardless of the method, work with your team on what works best and stick to it (iterate as needed). Over-communicating provides visibility into the work you are doing (so you get the credit you deserve). It also serves as an accountability measure and helps you stay on track.
Create and facilitate daily virtual check-ins with your team - it will help to keep you and your team connected. Keep in mind this isn't a meeting to update on project progress, but rather an equivalent of a water cooler chat. Recommendation: duration: 10 mins | Open to the whole team | Potential topics: finding out how folks are doing, use this forum to set an intention for the day
Virtual meetings - as much as possible, have your video on - you are less likely to multitask while others are looking directly at your video, and you get to see your colleagues (and sometimes their pets...bonus!). As everyone's calendars begin to fill up, create time for breaks between meetings. Recommendations: start meetings 5 mins later and end meetings 5 mins earlier than you usually would (ex. 10:05 - 10:55); keep the video on (if possible)
Keep social with co-workers. During a difficult time for all, check on those (virtually) around you, be a good virtual citizen, it will help keep your working relationships thriving. Recommendations: set up a Virtual Happy Hour for the team, encourage everyone to reach out to someone at least once a day
Leading (unplanned) transition to remote work
As a leader, you need to ensure that you connect your people with the right tools to set them up for success. That may mean that your teams are finding themselves in need of new working guidelines, whether it be meeting structures, templates for sharing information, or guidance on which tools to use and how to communicate. Here are some tips on how to make this work:
Keep it simple. Fewer tools mean fewer potential silos. Set guidelines on how your teams should be communicating and collaborating or review the current set of instructions.
Measure impact. Identify a set of critical measures to understand the impact of the new work reality, so you can reset expectations on critical deliverables as needed.
Learn. Now that your teams are remote, use this as an opportunity to learn which of the new habits you and your groups are forming should stay once most of us are back in the office. Observe, iterate, and improve.
Offer help. This is a tough time in our working lives, and we all need kindness and understanding. Ask if others need help, and ask for help if you need it. Lead by example.
Show gratitude. Send thank-you notes, recognize others for their contributions - it's a great way to make others (and yourself) happy.
Recap
Setting boundaries (space and time) will help preserve the feeling of work/life balance
Staying connected to your team will help you stay motivated and productive
Leading people through a crisis is difficult, keep it simple, focus on people and the most critical work
Thank you for reading this. I hope it helps you and your teams. And last, but not least, I hope you are doing well (remember to put the oxygen mask on yourself first, before you help others).