“Be careful what you wish for, it may be granted after all”, goes the age-old adage.
How many times have we wished to get a respite from commuting long distances to office, running away from traffic jams, spending more time with family and literally praying and wishing if we could work from home? And just like that, suddenly, without much warning, everyone is pushed into this situation. I say ‘pushed’ because neither employees nor employers were prepared for this serendipitous WFH.
Work From Home will be effective when we are able to separate ‘Work’ from ‘Home’.
Except IT and other few organizations on selective basis, no other industry had experienced such massive WFH. The situation of working from home is not something most of us are well-versed with, and that is why, if it is not managed properly could pose a lot of unforeseen challenges. For instance, bringing children to the office would divide the attention between managing work and children; completing a project report at home during the weekend, would compromise on quality time with family.
The strange thing is, whether we like it or not, the office and personal space have become one and it is left to us to create a balance so that there is a healthy amount of time spent with family as well as being equally energetic about office work.
Some things that will mitigate the challenges and creates a balance while Working from Home:
I am master of my own schedule
Well, not really. Unless you follow a strict schedule of work hours, there is going to be an overlap of personal and professional life which will leave you chaotic. Your work timing should sync with your office schedule. Otherwise, you would either end up spreading the work all over the day or procrastinate. Both scenarios are detrimental to productivity and do not help in maintaining balance.
Barriers and boundaries are necessary
Physical barrier, geographically keeps work and office space away from each other. In WFH, there is no such barrier and it is precise during WFH, one needs to practice ‘switch on’ and ‘switch off’ so that you keep away the personal paraphernalia while attending to office work and also ensure that your work does not get in way of family time.
The Do-Not-Disturb Rule
Isn’t it wonderful that children or parents, you longed to spend time with, are right in front of you for the whole day. As tempting as it might be, it is important to set the rule of ‘do-not-disturb’ while you are WFH. With the lockdown, it is unlikely that you would have visitors, but even to your family, make it clear that you are unavailable during work time, to attend to anything at home. Unless you are strict with yourself in creating that ‘office’ space, working from home is not going to be effective.
Keep the distractions away
It is easy you may think, to switch between activities and do multi-tasking – answering an email, turning on the washing machine, getting back to the report, answering a doorbell, etc. It is not as easy as it seems. If you allow all this, WFH will leave you all jumbled up, tired and unproductive. A perfect balance is when you keep both worlds apart and not let one get in the way of the other.
Find ways to connect
It is that teamwork, getting together to find solutions or simple camaraderie which sparks effectiveness at work. With the boom in technology, it should be possible to find ways to connect with your team. Other than emails, explore ways to keep the thread of communication active, through Video Conferencing, Skype, Zoon, etc., so that it creates a sense of balance in terms of ‘connectedness’ for the entire team and translates into productive work.
Don’t chuck that To-Do-List
Having clear deliverables with the daily and weekly schedule of To-Do list, keeps you on track. You may have a number of post-it-notes stuck all over your whiteboard at the office, but if you do not carry a list and track your WFH, there is every chance that you may not know where you are heading or how much has been achieved at the end of the day/week.
Improve the distance during ‘Social Distancing’
Social distancing has become an imposed norm, but people long for social interactions like – the walk to the canteen for a cup of coffee with a colleague, having lunch with your team or going to your manager to discuss some work; WFH takes away these simple pleasure of social interactions and working in isolation, all alone can get on the verge of dejection. Reach out to your colleagues and team for a feed-forward or sharing of knowledge or a discussion of the MIS before a written report. This reduces the ‘social distancing’ and adds a dash of zeal during WFH.
White for doctors and black for advocates
Attire brings seriousness to the work. Even if it is working from home, it is not ok to keep your attire casual to the extent that you get too comfortable to work. The clothes that we wear gives confidence, focus, and drive. Being formally dressed sets the tone for the day. So, never undermine the importance of formal attire during WFH.
Keep moving
One of the challenges of WFH is that it restricts mobility. One is sitting for long hours, with limited breaks, which is unhealthy. Ensure that the mornings and evenings are loaded with good physical exercise that keeps you going for the day. Keep moving and don’t lose focus of health amidst work.
With the changing scenario, it is time we adapt ourselves to the new phenomenon of WFH. Going forward, we may see a lot of these and organizations may provision for WFH in their policies. Hence, it is better we learn a new definition of Work-Life Balance in the context of WFH.
Maintaining balance during WFH is all about creating a perfect balance between flexibility and rigidity – understanding that there are going to be a lot of distractions, overlap, challenges, yet being rigid and creating your own rules, to balance the two worlds to perfection.
