The word from Washington (and the word from here in Tennessee, too) is that we better get settled in to working from home for a while longer. Even though I’ve been doing quite a bit of working from home over the years, it is an adjustment to be only working from home.
So, I reached out to a couple of my alums who have a lot of personal experience in working from home and working as part of a virtual team.
Key Work Habits
Corey Griggs, whose business helps companies build scalable web and mobile applications and integrates disconnected systems, graduated from our program a decade ago. He recently shared in an article at Medium the four work habits he’s developed from his experience working from home:
- Have a routine
- Keep your space clean
- Focus on client communication
- Stop working at the end of the day
It is a great read, and offers some good, practical insights for bringing these habits to life.
Corey also suggested a few additional hacks to facilitate successfully work from home:
- Stand up for phone calls
- Over-the-ear headphones for focus
- If you can, use a noise cancelling app that removes background noise from video calls
- If you have a client that doesn’t want to see your cat on a Zoom call, show them your name, company, and brand by generating a Zoom virtual background on ScreenBrander
- Keep it clean. If you eat, sleep, and work in the same place, you can’t create a balance. Cleanliness reduces stress when there’s less clutter.
- Stop working. If you don’t take breaks and separate yourself, you’re going to lose productivity for all of your customers. Recharging when at home is harder when you’re in the same room where you work.
- Exercise. I have used the 100 push-ups app and 100 sit-ups app for some quick, efficient exercises
- If you get distracted easily using something like the Crispbot app can help
Virtual Teams Done Right
Chris Tompkins, Director of Sales for Rustici Software, graduated from our MBA program in 2009. Although Rustici is headquartered in Nashville, Chris works remotely from his home in Seattle.
Since the outbreak of coronavirus, the entire Rustici team now works virtually. Here are tips Chris shared with me about virtual teams:
- Work from the Cloud: “We’re already paperless and serverless,” says Chris. “All agreements, invoices, POs, etc, are in digital pdf, all systems are ‘in the cloud’ including email and internal tools. We have nothing in the building that requires someone to be in the office.” Fortunately, this is not something Rustici put together just to deal with the coronavirus. They have been working toward this approach for several years. “I’m proud that our whole company is back to fully-functional speed, within a week of a massive change'” adds Chris. “Nearly every Rustician feels like we might actually be getting more done day-to-day, myself included.”
- Single Best Tool Award: Slack. “It’s a place to meet internally, have open-door rooms, converse on a topic, work as a team, and more,” Chris explains. “If there’s one tool I’d point at, as our key to success right now, it’s slack. I don’t know how businesses operate without it.”
- Video On By Default: “We’ve all got cameras, turn them on by default. Remove the post it, flip the little cover over, put effort into your back-drop,” Chris advises. “We’re all performing at work, the video camera provides a stage. Turn it on, keep it on, even if the other side does not.”
- Create Fun Spaces: “We all need to goof-off and bond,” says Chris. “Everyone does it, so I like to create places for us to burn work time together. At least the team is getting some value out of the downtime we all need, if we’re sharing that down time with one another. A successful team needs to create ways to ‘waste time’ and bond. We’ve created slack channels for The Pets of Rustici, car talk, ‘ping-pong-room,’ and even a standing team video chat running where people can pop-in as they want. Just because we’re all working remotely does not mean we’re alone, we’re actively working on ways to make sure the human relationship continues to grow, not just our remote productivity.”
- The Biggest Challenge: “Scheduled conversations,” Chris admits. “We’re noticing that we haven’t solved for the casual drop in. The open video room is one attempt, but Leadership has noticed that the additional step to ‘schedule a call’ means we’re not just walking office to office to organically catch-up, then casually dive into work. Without this pop-in approach, it makes every interaction feel way more intentional and formal than someone sticking their head into an office, when it looks like someone is free-enough to chat. Since we can’t visibly really know if someone is heads-down, the way our office doors signal in the building, it’s likely reducing the total number of interactions within the company.”
I thoroughly enjoyed all of the helpful tips from this post! How funny that we used to wish for nothing more than to work from our beds, but I don’t think many of us were planning on it for being forced to work from home for such a long period of time. It certainly has been a change of pace, specifically for me as a student, transitioning to online learning was quite different. In my home we have three students at “school” all day as well as one working adult. We found that the best solution for us to focus was for everyone to have their own space in the house that is a designated working space away from everything else. I think it is this kind of separation between “work and home” that will keep us, as well as others, functioning during this quarantine.
Because most students are falling into an unhealthy routine of waking up at noon, I think these key habits are essential to creating a productive environment for students of all ages and business owners. Just a few days ago, my mom implemented those exact four work habits in our home by making sure everyone was up at 10 am latest, working in a clean room or office space, focusing on one subject at a time, and all working stops at 5 pm. Additionally, we all have sets of headphones that we use when doing group calls or listening to music. These “hacks” to successfully work from home has enabled my family of six to coexist in a house without difficulty concentrating on our studies and accomplishing our everyday goals.
What I have come to realize is, having a space set up faaaaaaar away from my bed is essential for getting any work done. I have long taken for granted “transition time” or walking to and from class, driving to work, and moving from one space to another. It helps my brain prepare for the next task and allows me to create a short to do list of things to immediately get started on. Without this transition, I have such a difficultly beginning work and stopping. So, my biggest task has been creating separation… and on days when this is particularly hard, hopping in my car to drive around for 10 minutes is critical. I think what I have been missing the most is what Chris Tompkins really hones in on, the ability to “drop in.” His thoughts on trying to create open chats and spaces to burn work time together seem to recognize the simple importance of human relationship. The experimental methods to virtually creating this, give me hope.
This article was a great reminder of the importance of having a routine and to create space and balance between our work and our other daily activities! Before staying home, the busyness of life in college sometimes made it hard for students to take care of themselves, get enough sleep, or even take a step back and breathe. Now, we seem to have the opposite issue. At first, I would sleep in so late and start my days late that it would set the tone for the rest of my day. I would not have a set routine, and I was not sure how to prioritize school work, time with my family, time relaxing, doing hobbies, etc. Now, I have realized the importance of starting your day early with a routine and a to-do list, and to make sure your workspace is seperate from the rest of where you spend your time. This allows you to focus on the task at hand, while staying present in your other daily activities. Giving myself breaks to be with family, go on a walk, read, exercise, etc. gives me a sense of focus and balance. These tips given are so helpful for anyone during this new adjustment to daily life!
I think you made many great points throughout this article. It has been a difficult transition to work from home. It has been especially difficult to stay motivated, but your point about keeping your camera on and building yourself a stage creates a lot of accountability which can be hard to find in isolation. I also enjoyed your point about creating a space to goof off in. I think have a flex space like this is especially important to help separate your work and your me time. Having these two confused can lead to some super unproductive moments. I am the kind of person who can work in bed all day and do great but my husband has to be sitting at his desk. I hate sitting at my desk I will actually do less work. SO, making your space work for you is imperative throughout this work from home transition we are all seeing. Great points! Thanks for sharing!
During these interesting and unprecedented times, the script is being re-written and these “hacks” are extremely important for achieving personal organization and productivity goals. I especially liked the points made by Corey Griggs in regard to keeping the blood flowing by 1. standing up for phone calls and 2. his push/sit up app recommendation. The topics mentioned by Chris Tompkins, were also interesting and helpful. I think that the “Fun Spaces” concept is incredible! From personal experience, the value of team building and bonding can’t be overlooked or minimized. Human beings need fun human interaction, not just revolving around the daily work routine, but through different activities, which serve to break-up the sometimes-mundane job-related tasks.
Wow! I wish I had read these about a month ago when quarantine first started. I have been unmotivated in all aspects of my day to day lifestyle since returning home because of not having healthy work habits and this article definitely helped. What stood out to me the most was the points made by Corey Griggs. By creating a healthy routine that I could follow each day I would be more motivated to accomplish my goals and responsibility. A list is always fun to have and checking things off of it might be a fun way to start organizing my school work along with my daily work. I have noticed that keeping my work space clean I feel much better and can start the day on a positive note rather than a lazy and unmotivated one. These are great work habits that I will continue to use in my everyday life.
As my mother always said “Watch your words, they become your actions, Watch your actions they become your habits, Watch your habits they become your character. Habits are so important in determining what type of person you are going to be. Having healthy works habits as you mention are crucial. Being unorganized and having no routines can lead to frustrations and anxiety. I think that this pandemic is good for our growth because it is putting us in an uncomfortable situation. Nobody wants to work for home, have conference calls, do online school, or be away from the world as we know it. However, it shows us that we CAN make it happen no matter what the circumstances are. Yes, it is full of difficulties but the obstacle is the way.
Both Chris and Corey both provide some great advice! The very thing I struggled with most when transitioning from in person to online as a student was where to find that separation between work and personal living. Being confined to my house, it was hard to designate separate areas for work and play, if you will. My mom, also, struggled to adapt when her work set her up to work from home. Boy, could she have used these tips last year! This pandemic has proven that things can change, quite literally, overnight, and we need to always be on our toes and ready to adapt as quick and as well as possible!
When Covid hit my mother, who is a law secretary for Gieco started working from home. At 1st of course they said it was only for a few weeks. Two years later and now the entire department is remote and the offices have been condenced. She still works at home and
when i asked her how she liked it, she said its hard. People are social beings and not being in an office with her coworkers is hard. The hardest part she said is feeling like you never leave work, because you are in the same space. So point 4, to stop working at the end of the day I think is the most important to remember to not get burnt out
Although I have always done homework at home, this past year I have found it difficult to work in the same place that I eat, and sleep. This quote, “Keep it clean. If you eat, sleep, and work in the same place, you can’t create a balance. Cleanliness reduces stress when there’s less clutter,” resonated with me, as a few weeks ago I felt like I couldn’t get anything done because of the mess I had around me.
The tips in this blog I find helpful and insightful because my venture is an alternative working space for the corporate employee. I think that headphones, space to not be distracted, and stopping work at the end of the day were some of the ones I think are most beneficial based on customer discovery. Having a routine is important as well and hopefully because we are out of the peak of the pandemic, alternative working space a few days of the week will be benifical.
Hey Professor, I love your list. Working from home certainly seems to be the future of our world. I think that working from “the cloud” will become extremely important, as being paperless and more eco-friendly certainly seems to be the trend. I love how you addressed challenges as well, acknowledging that change is often difficult, especially in the work place.