Tips For Working From Home

Now that everyone else has to work from home let me share my tips from 5 happy years of this way of life:

Get some exercise! Measure your steps and make sure you do a healthy amount every day. Super important. With no incidental walking your fitness can really drop.

Music! Music is crucial for me and maybe for you too. I bought a spotify subscription after a few months, just to get rid of the ads. You need a lot of playlists to fill up a week. Different music is needed at different times of day, and for different moods. Monday mornings and friday afternoons are two extreme opposites, and there many variations in between.

Look after your eyes! Home office is smaller than work office. Make sure your eyes get to look into the middle distance often. If you stare at just monitor/close walls all day, eyes never relax and you go blind! So stare out the window while you're day dreaming.

Plan B. You may need to be prepared in case your home internet connection goes down. (This happened to me yesterday, after a garbage truck took out the NBN for my whole neighborhood.) Make sure you can tether your laptop to your phone, or that you can work fully offline if needed.

The duck. Without a colleague to talk to you may find yourself talking to a rubber duck, explaining all your technical problems. This is a great technique and has been shown to work. Don't let your boss find out though or they'll fire you and keep the duck.

Headset. You'll need a good headset for remote meetings.

Diet. Don't let high sugar foods enter the house. It's the only way to avoid the temptation and deadly snaccidents.

Environment. Do whatever you can to create a dedicated workspace. It will help you separate work from home and improve your focus. This way too, you can finally get the home office just the way you want it.

Keyboard, Mouse, Monitor(s). Maybe your setup isn't perfect, but where possible, don't just work directly on your laptop. Use a real keyboard. I think wireless is a waste of time with keyboards, you hardly move it, just used a wired one! And I'm not one of those fetishists who spends all their time and money on them, though I don't wish to shame those who are, well not too much. More monitors are always better, but you may not have the space, the funds, or the opportunity to get that in place right now. I don't have strong opinions on mice either, but with a real keyboard you will also need a real mouse.

Habits. The whole experience hinges on your ability to construct your own habits that create a good life. You can't rely on following the momentum of those around you. You're free to build up or destroy the structure of your day. It doesn't take will power, it just takes sensible routines.

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