Working at home: a primer.

With the Coronavirus shutdown of movement in the world, and as more and more of us are asked to work from home, at some level it may seem a godsend–you don’t have to drive into work, you have greater control over how to spend your time.

But working at home is really not for the faint of heart.

So I thought I’d give some advise–as someone who primarily has worked from home most of my life as a software developer–on how to thrive working at home as the days give into weeks and the weeks potentially into months.

The problem is this: going to work, as much as most of us love to complain about it, gives us structure. It gives us social time–and we are social creatures. It gives us a sense of order to the otherwise meaningless stream of days: a place to go, something to do, people to be around and to either spend time in idle chit-chat or plot against.

And we lose all of this while working at home.

When we work at home, it’s easy to become unrooted from the world. Our sense of order gets challenged, and the sense of isolation can easily lead to cabin fever. It is, ironically enough, why many people who retire–who actually have the money to stop working for the rest of their lives–either get a volunteer job or get a part-time job somewhere. Not for the money–but for the sense of order, the purpose, having a place to go and people to be around. (And this fact–that many people work because they want to work for the social interaction and not for the money, is reflected in Bureau of Labor Statistics surveys.)

So here are my hints on how to survive–and even thrive–while working in isolation while staring at the same four damned walls day in, day out.

Establish an area of your home: a separate bedroom, a corner of your living room, somewhere which is your “office.” This allows you to establish a separate “space” where you work. Ideally it’s a separate part of your house which you can then close off and walk away–so you can clearly establish times when you are “working”, and times when you are “not working.”

Establish a routine. Yes, you don’t have to do the commute, but still: set an alarm and get up at the same time each day. There is actually good research that shows getting up at the same time each day helps with sleep patterns and helps with your mental sanity. Get up, do your normal morning routine as if you’re going to work. For me that’s taking a shower, then fixing a cup of coffee in a travel mug–even though I don’t commute. It’s spending a few minutes reading the Internet–or posting articles like this.

Remind yourself what day of the week it is. You may want to hang a calendar for this purpose, or set the clock on your computer’s desktop to show the day of the week. Weirdly working at home it becomes very easy to loose track of the day of the week–and that contributes to cabin fever and a sense of isolation and drifting in the world.

Create a calendar of things you need to do. Most of us do this already; keep up the practice. For those of us whose jobs are less calendar-driven–such as software development, where (aside from a daily stand-up) your schedule looks the same, it reminds you of what day of the week it is.

If your company doesn’t already do this, have your group establish a “daily call.” It shouldn’t be longer than 30 minutes, and should go around giving everyone a chance to speak. In these stressful times, having the ability to just share the fact that we’re all in it together is highly important. If your company doesn’t do a “daily standup,” suggest one.

Don’t be afraid to reach out to co-workers just for idle chit-chat via video, or don’t be afraid to use corporate internal social media to keep touch with your co-workers’ lives. What seems like wasteful idle chit-chat time is actually a very important element of a corporate culture: knowing the people you work with both allows you to go to them more readily if you have a problem and you need their help, and it helps with corporate cohesion. This means if your company doesn’t have a virtual “water cooler” you need to set one up–even if it’s just on Slack or Discord.

Get out of the damned house! For me, this one is extremely important. Thanks to social distancing rules you can’t just go and hang out at a coffee shop–which have recognized the social aspect of working at home and make money selling coffee to people who want to see something other than the four walls of their house. (It’s why Starbucks advertises their WiFi as much as their coffee.) But you can go to the park, go walking around the neighborhood, go exercise or find a park bench or get in the car and drive to the lake or to the beach for an hour.

This should become part of your daily routine. For myself, I spend an hour bike riding in the late morning. For others it could be packing a lunch and taking it to the local park.

But consider this a top priority: make getting outside part of your daily routine, part of your daily schedule. Sunshine helps with vitamin D production, and vitamin D helps with immune response health. Plus the change of scenery helps with mental health.

Do not work weekends. This goes back to establishing daily routines to maintain a sense of order, and to reminding yourself what day of the week it is. Do not allow the company you work for to infringe on your own personal time by setting hard limits with yourself (and with your boss if needed), and that includes not working on those days which you would normally have off.

This is, of course, not an inclusive list. I’m sure there are other things that can be added here.

But so long as you establish physical and time boundaries, establish a routine, reach out and talk to others on a regular basis, engage in idle chit-chat with others you work with, and get out of the house on a daily basis–even if it’s just to sit on a park bench to eat lunch–you will make it through what can potentially seem like an extremely isolating experience.

And you may even come to enjoy it.