“My home is my job” and “Home is where your office is” – these proverbs sound logical in the context of 2020 – the year that locked us home. Actually, wherefrom do you read this text? The more we stay behind the walls of our apartment, the more we open the doors. And Zoom, Google Meet, and Skype become the hospitality spot.
Instead of just sitting on your chair, you have the chance to make your business corner synonymous with comfort. If you had to comply with the general rules and corporate decisions on what the office should look like, now the only determinants are your energy and imagination.
How to make your home office a cozy place?
We recommend you a few practical tips to organize yourself and awaken your business motivation, even there where you usually wash dishes or watch a football game.
If you still don’t have one, buy a comfortable chair, a gymnastic ball, a pouffe, a rocking chair with adjustable height. In case you need to sit longer, allow your body to work at rest. It will minimize the risk of stiffness, and mental activity will flow smoothly and focused.
- Make your office in a corner or a place with natural light and situated near a window. Your eyes will be more perceptive.
- Put a note board on the wall next to you. The digital world allows you to plan your day also in an online notebook, but inspiring thoughts or tasks that stand out are more prominent when handwritten.
- As long as you do not have allergies, put a flower pot around. This symbol of life will remind you that it is good to be a caring person. And sometimes you’ll have to do a step or two to water it.
- Care for good eyesight behind you, especially if you have online video calls. Some programs, such as Microsoft Teams, permit you to choose what your interlocutors see behind you.
- Unless you have a compelling and “heavy” video meeting ahead of you, wear comfortable clothes.
- Set the room temperature for awaking the mind. If a person was cold in the shared office space and another was always running to open the window because of “this unbearable heat”, the current ruler of the air conditioning remote control or the heating faucet is you.
- Put nearby the books you need.
- Cleanliness is a sign of self-respect. “Wash the hands” of your laptop by disinfecting it regularly.
- Work in a good mood – put a funny photo, a funny collage, or a favorite joke on the notes board. Perform your duties with the ease of a cheerful person. Humor releases hormones of happiness.
- Take a break. Movement is good for blood circulation and for preserving the balance between body and soul. Do some short exercises – follow us and we will soon offer you the most suitable ones.
*b Provide peace of mind and personal space – with a note on the door or a verbal agreement, introduce the rule that your loved ones will not disturb your work process from home. To demonstrate to yourself how important your place is, give it a name. Call it “The Hot Zone” or “Editor’s Place,” and why not “The Boiling Point” or “Office Voltage.
Beyond our technical guidelines, attitudes about the home office also help to make it comfortable. Your idea of where you earn your pay is the most significant factor for the above tips to work. It is possible that you are among the veterans in the “home office” area, and the listed rules are part of your usual schedule. Then you know that the real challenge is to stay committed to the company, even miles away from the get-together spot. That’s why some companies now offer psychological advice about working from home, and they organize online video parties in strange clothes, with a drink, and a topic for more casual conversations Fridays afternoon.
Today we do need more than yesterday to be true leaders because it is on us to show discipline and “re-charge the batteries”. It is our responsibility to “kick ourselves” if we fall asleep. Our teamwork ability is being questioned on two different fronts – through the virtual communication with our business partners and by adjusting the at-home-situation with a possible life partner and children involved. Besides, we were used to solving a simple case with two steps to a colleague and a short discussion about it. But today there is a video call, tons of mails, we chat on each possible social network and seem to make the communication much more complex.
Workplaces schedules require also ongoing information to each one involved in physical dealing with mails, signs-off and else.
Of course, managers have a crucial role in coordinating the whole process. They need to be flexible. For hierarchically structured and subordinated companies work from home probably turned into chaos. However, for the others who strive to be a step ahead – the ones with lean management and direct horizontal peer-to-peer relations, the situation is rather favorable, and technology turns to be their best friend. In business as in nature, there is an analogy of natural selection and the most capable, most adjustable, and most combinatorial are the ones that survive.
If you are one of the people who feel office nostalgia and even the heavy traffic on the way to the office doesn’t bother you – the expectations are that these business spaces are unlikely to disappear. However, the almost-normal return to them is so far with no date specified. Until then, from your home or the park bench, remember that even being bested in one specific place, you’re still mobile. Your physical presence “here” is equal to many spaces “there”. You are the space you occupy.
