Reply To: Working from Home: Day 1

[Wayne Dixon]

Hi @phoenix4690 

First off stay safe and remember that this isn’t going to be forever….hopefully.

However, I do think working from home is going to play more of a role in the ‘normal’ work place after covid-19.

Which is a little good that will come out of this.

I can’t really add much to what @theluthier has said.  He’s 100% spot on.

But I will reiterate one key point.  

Noise Cancelling headphones = a must.

In the past year I’ve found it really difficult to be able to do what I need to do at the time I need to do it.  So what I’ve found works best is to have a bunch of different tasks ready to work on.  At the moment that is 2 categories.  Stuff where I need silence for (recording), and stuff that I can do with headphones while a kid is being a kid in the background (almost everything else).

So I try to get things prepared for the specific windows of opportunity I have.  And then pull the trigger when the window opens.  However, often the window of opportunity closes very suddenly or doesn’t open at all (because someone doesn’t want to nap or is sick so can’t go to day care etc).  That is where I have the other tasks to fall back on.

As for you and your wife working from home at the same time with kid(s).  We make a plan and then tag team it.  eg – I’m the morning manager so I’ve got him from wake up to the first nap, then my wife will take him after that until the next nap (or vice versa).  This alternates according to who needs to do what more urgently.

I would recommend that you have ‘work hours’ and ‘non work hours’ when you work from home because it’s dangerous for there never to be a knock off time.  But in a time like this and your situation, it’s really going to be a do what needs to be done whenever you can do it.

I’ve also accepted that some deadlines (either client imposed or self imposed) are going to be missed.  It’s not the end of the world, and if you can see it coming early enough, just let the people know.  They will be more understanding these days rather than the “everything is urgent and needs to be done by 5pm today” which hopefully has been destroyed by covid-19. (we’ll see haha)