As a专职自由职业者，我在家工作了将近五年。直到最近，远程作品一直在谈论未来of work—but not yet a tangible reality for many. Withrecent global eventsshifting the way we live and work, a surge of people are suddenly working from home for the very first time. I see this shift being met with varying degrees of trepidation and uncertainty. I understand fearing the unknown, but with a little preparation, you might learn to love remote work—or at least see the silver lining in it. Here’s what helped me settle into working from home:
Dress for How You Work
Conventional remote work advice tells you to shower and get dressed as if you were leaving for the day. I, personally, do not subscribe to that idea. I’m my most creative when I first wake up. Besides a quick pit stop in the kitchen for a cup of coffee, I head straight to my workspace (more on setting that up below), PJs and all. I get straight to writing the blog post or article I’m working on, taking full advantage of the creative flow I have at that time of day.
现在，这并不是说我整天都留下睡衣。通常我会休息一下，然后去健身房。或者，我需要为下午的视频通话做准备。在我醒来的时候，要上班打扮。根据如何以及何时工作来准备一天。换句话说，做最适合您的事情。
Be Camera-Ready
Whether this is your first week曾经working from home, or you’re trying out a new flexible work schedule, you might not be used totalking to colleagues via video。作为自由职业者，我通过Zoom或其他视频聊天服务定期与客户进行定期会议。有时我不确定另一端的人是否会打开视频，但是如果他们在我们的电话期间想要一些面对面的时间，我永远都不想做准备。另外，通过视频聊天是维持一些社交互动的好方法，尤其是在社会疏远时期。
Find Your Routine
One of the greatest gifts of remote work is time. No commute means sleeping in, pushing that早上锻炼会议back an hour (or going during lunch!), and getting some laundry done in between calls. But not everyone thrives in an unstructured work environment. If that’s true for you, try to keep the routine you had when you commuted to the office. Wake up and go to bed at the same time. Stick to your 6 AM spin class. Start and, most importantly, end the work day when you typically would, too. Working from home naturally blurs the lines between work and home. If I had a home office, I’d close the door at the end of the day. But since I work from my dining room table, I shut the lights off in that space to signal I’m done for the day. Finding a similar end-of-day routine will help you move from work mode to home mode, too.
设置工作空间
当您评估房屋时，决定要在哪里开设商店，首先要考虑的是您可以舒适地坐在哪里延长时间。正如一个朋友所说：坐在一个露背的厨房凳子上会变老，真实的fast. If you don’t have a desk, but you have a dining room table, consider making the investment in a desk chair you can wheel in and out of sight, as needed.
Keep everything you need to do your work—laptop, notebooks, pens, etc.—nearby and organized. Don’t waste time or energy searching for where you left your notes from yesterday’s meeting. If you don’t have a dedicated desk to work from, it can help to have a basket to keep your tools in one place, especially if you need to clear the space at the end of each day.
最后，一定要选择一个专业的光线空间，其背景是您将与您进行视频聊天的人提供的背景。理想情况下，您的工作空间还将附近有一个插座。您不希望您的笔记本电脑在整个房间内只能使用充电器开始死亡。
Leave After-Hours Activities for After Hours
While it might be tempting to blur the lines a bit, maintain the boundaries of your workday in order to stay productive. Sure, no one would know if you turned on the TV while you worked, but are you able to stay focused on your work just the same?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of background noise—I ask Sirito play everything from Beethoven to Post Malone to fill the silence—but loud TV shows are more likely to suck you in than help you get your presentation finished. Save the after-hours activities for when you’d normally get home from work. Doing so helps you establish when you’re done for the day, which maintains healthy boundaries和给您一些期待的东西。
接受分心是不可避免的
Undoubtedly, we’d all thrive in a remote work world if we had a dedicated office in our homes, but that’s not always feasible. Many of us don’t have the square footage to set up a dedicated work desk, nevermind a room with a door. Add to that partners,kids, pets, Amazon deliveries, and the like—yes, you’re bound to get distracted.
To start, set boundaries and expectations with your spouse, partner, or roommate. Let them know when and where you plan to work so you can work around each other. Try to stick to those boundaries, too, especially if he or she also works from home. For example, limit the ad hoc chit chat by planning to catch up during your lunch break.
我们同时也要记住,传统的办公环境ronment is full of distractions: coworkers popping by to catch up; Slack notifications;会议关于会议。Distractions are a part of your workday anyway, so don’t get too bogged down worrying about the new ones you’ll face working from home. If you manage to be productive in an open floor plan, you can do it with a few furry pals begging for your attention at home, too.
Take Breaks
A big part of staying focused is remembering to take breaks. Take a coffee break, a lunch break,a gym break, or even a power nap. Recharging is key to remote work. However, remembering to take a break won’t be dictated by a colleague pinging you to grab lunch. Getting up from your computer every 20 minutes or so to combat the negative effects of sitting is a good habit to get into anyway, regardless of whether you’re at the office or home. Set reminders to break for lunch, if you need them. An app like站起来！is helpful for remembering to take a break from sitting. You can also squeeze in aquick meditation session with Calmif you don’t feel like venturing far but need a mental break.
Remote work will challenge you to create boundaries that weren’t needed before, but it also allows you to design a workday that works for you. Once you’ve established your new routine, I hope that you’ll see remote work as not just the future of work, but the future of how you’ll work, too.
