Five Practical Tips: Working from Home

Struggling with the temporary transition to working from home? As co-founder of Aventine Consulting, I have worked as a consultant to big pharma from an established home office for more than a decade now and can offer some helpful advice from time-tested experience. Like many of us here at Aventine, I have long-ago battled and overcome the typical pitfalls for home-based professionals and made a successful career from within the walls of my secured, home-based office space. As our world is increasingly impacted by COVID-19, I thought sharing practical tips for how to successfully navigate working at home, even during these trying times, may help!

Tip #1: Dedicate yourself to a set work schedule to separate work from life.

It’s easy to fall into the pitfall of working ALL.THE.TIME (the “Workin’ Dogs”), or, on the flip side, working so sporadically throughout the day that there’s a lack of continuity to your efforts (the “Cover-All-Bases-at-Once Folks”).

• For the Workin’ Dogs, the temptation to check your inbox constantly or to finish one more task before closing your laptop is hard to break. For your own mental health (and the happiness of the loved ones around you), be adherent to work/life-time boundaries. In most cases, what you set down at the end of your workday will be patiently waiting for you the next morning. In doing so, you’ll have a refreshed perspective on its content and, often, a better way forward.
• For the Cover-All-Bases-At-Once Folks, choose the work time that is best for you, even if those hours differ from your old, in-office routines. Try to focus on work alone for that singular chunk of work time. Mute your text “dings” and close the door to your working space. If you have small children at home during this time, work out a schedule with your partner so that you both have uninterrupted time for work, and let your family know when you’re online for work. This will take some training, but gentle reminders will eventually be effective. In my family, the signal that I am working, and not to be interrupted, is a closed office door. Your work and your life will benefit from this segregation by cutting out all time lost from chaotically shifting gears between the multitude of demands for your attention.

Tip #2: Be true to yourself on how you need to communicate.

Some people are extroverts, and some not so much. If you are an extrovert and feel like the walls of your home office are closing in to suffocate you, then you may want to reach out via phone rather than email for necessary information from clients and colleagues. At Aventine we joke about colleagues being “email people” vs “phone-call people”, yet this is genuinely worth respecting. Know yourself. If you’re a phone-call person, then do it – just make sure it’s primarily to get a work task accomplished vs water cooler conversation.

Tip #3: Be creative about your optimal physical working environment.

Some people need quality silence to work (looking at you, Holly) and other’s thoughts flourish with some background noise (hi there, Self). Pay attention to where you get your best thinking done and think outside the box. If the bay window in your attic offers you the best focus, then bring your work to that space. If the background noise of coffee shops or shared office spaces used to bring your best focus, then figure out how to simulate that with talk radio or music in the background. If you need fresh air, then bundle up or lather on sunscreen, depending on your latitude, to make that happen. Changing your working venue during the day, like moving from your desk to your breakfast nook to your couch, can also help refresh your focus. In these unprecedented times, with kids home from school and in need of support, I recognize that working parents need to compromise a bit in terms of space and sanity. Let the working space you choose in your home, whether traditional or not, bolster your work effort in ways it can.

Tip #4: Give yourself some latitude to settle into a work-from-home routine.

It has taken years for me to reach my peak in efficiency and productivity in working from home. This definitely did not happen overnight. Chances are, if you’ve been asked to take your job from an office to your home during this outbreak, then you’re already a self-motivated achiever in your professional life. Give yourself some latitude to adjust to doing your job at home, especially under unusual and stressful worldly circumstances. Ask anyone who has successfully transitioned to a home-based office job and they’ll tell you that, while they thought it was going to be a piece of cake to ditch the commute and work from home, it’s actually far more challenging than you would think in terms of self-discipline and immediate professional resource access. Don’t beat yourself up over the missteps that may happen as you figure it out. You’re an achiever after all – you just need a little time to find your footing and start running again.

Tip #5: Assume good intent and don’t be shy to reach out to clarify

Tone is tricky over email and texts, especially for those more accustomed to face-to-face conversations. The innocently written word can carry implications and assumptions that can be inferred in many different ways. It’s an artform to make sure your email is received in the manner intended. It’s easy to sound sharp, when you are just busy, or seem crabby, when you are simply explaining your point of view. If you’re taken aback by an email, before you grumble and let it fester, take a breath and reach out to the person who sent it to you. Or better yet, pick up the phone. Often times, you’ll find no mal intent was behind the note, and you can move on without giving it another thought.

Other questions about how I handle the home-office environment? Please ask and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can…once I’m off the clock.