WFH or WTF?
How’s working from home going so far? What are you learning about yourself? For the parents of school aged children reading this, you are also lucky enough to be tasked with home schooling for that extra layer of Fun with a capital F! Working from home (WFH) has opened up a wonderful world of opportunities and watch-outs for us as we navigate this ‘new normal’ we are experiencing thanks to COVID-19. Here are five areas of opportunity to keep in mind to optimise your working from home experience.
- Wellbeing: It is number one for a reason. ‘Put the oxygen mask on ourselves before we put it on others’ is key to ensure we show up as we intend to in the many roles we play in life, be it parent, partner or team member. These roles are now blending in a ‘mash-up’ of a day filled with tasks without the usual compartmentalisation the old way of working provided. Daily commuting is gone for now…How are you spending that time? Wellbeing is a catch-all word for our health; physical, mental and emotional health. Planning and prioritising how you will spend time on you each day and executing that plan will help you manage your energy and regulate your emotions to handle the velocity of stimulus WFH can send your way!
- Priorities: Where does one start? The washing basket or the inbox? The fridge or cleaning up the old files on the laptop? Setting an intention for each day will help you be purposeful in your endeavours as you embark on each day working from home. This intention will give your brain a degree of certainty, and that’s what it craves. Clarifying your intention and your key ‘jobs to do’ for each day based on that intention provides you with a semblance of structure, which allows you the freedom to enjoy each day knowing that your effort to makes a difference. In a world where our usual routines have been thrown to the wind, what habits and rituals do you need for you to ensure you are putting ‘first things first’!?
- Learning: This unique time we are living in is hopefully affording us time back…for us! We have been so used to the frantic pace of life that results in us delaying areas we will get to ‘when we have more time’. Now is the perfect time to invest in our ongoing growth and development.
- Connection: Without the usual social structures in place like enjoying the mid-morning coffee break with colleagues or a drink after work with a friend, how are you connecting? Thanks to technology, we can see and hear people via our smartphones and laptops but how are you connecting with your key people at a deeper level. Consider the ‘walking meeting’ – two feet and a heartbeat with no agenda. You and an important person or people to you, either personally or professionally, can connect about how you are embracing this change in life and help each other by talking it over.
- Reflection: I’ve chosen this as the last area as it encompasses the areas outlined above, whilst also giving us the opportunity to gain a fresh perspective and insight by reflecting from a ‘fly on the wall’ view. Seeing ourselves from that view allows us to objectively identify what we are doing well and what areas we need to give some more effort. Reflection is observing ourselves from another view vs. rumination which is re-living the experience and the the emotion attached to it, which is not as helpful. This gives us a greater opportunity to access the brain state required for an insight. An insight being that ‘AHA’ moment that connects the dots on a complex problem we have not been able to solve up until that ‘Eureka’ moment. The four things required for a brain-state for insight are 1. a quiet brain, 2. not focussed directly on the problem, 3. we need to be inward looking, 4. we need to be more in a reward state overall. Dedicating some time to reflect will help you unlock growth via insights.