I want to share some ideas and helpful resources I shared with one of my insurance brokerage clients in our weekly sales team newsletter.
You’ve been working from home for about four months now. It’s taken some time to adjust. Of course, if you have children, you have to adjust all over again now that they are out of school.
I’ve been working remotely for some time before all of this. We have an office, but I love working on the go. Whether traveling or exploring the city, working from places other than my desk usually helps break the feeling of being on a hamster wheel.
Here are some additional tips if you feel like you’re getting into a funk with working from home.
Morning Routine.
Discipline is going to be the most significant factor in exceeding your work from home expectations. Staring the day with a solid routine will help progress you through the day – arguably more important than breakfast, depending on how Hangry you get.
One thing that helped me a lot with my morning routine was going for a walk when I would usually be commuting, even in the rain. Getting outside and moving will do wonders!
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Work Space.
It’s not your office desk, but that can be a good thing. You should create a routine spot for work when you need to get it done, but you shouldn’t feel tethered to that chair.
Create one spot for when you need to focus or use multiple screens.
Personalize your desk space. Bring over your plants, add some color, put up a corkboard, find a good spot for your framed picture of the Michael’s.
When you’re done for the day, pack it up. Just like leaving the office at the end of the day, make sure you organize your workspace, so it’s ready to get to work when you come back.
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Create Boundaries.
A huge issue with work from home is being able to turn it off and on. Without having the above two concepts set up, you’ll find there are days it’ll take you forever to get going, and you’ll find the opposite, where you’ll look down at the clock, and it’s almost 9 pm, and you’re still ticking away.
Clarify your work hours. There are ideal times when working from home, especially when there are kids in the mix. Establish your hours and be transparent with teammates and management that depend on you. If you know someone could be reaching out and you won’t be on reach out in Teams, make a channel if you need to.
Set up boundaries. It’s essential to be present in your personal life. Treat the work from home life like regular work and unplug the same amount you would post-commute.
Create rituals or routines. Have your start of the workday ritual and your end of the workday ritual. Both of mine involve beverages. Coffee, emails, and a goal list to start the workday; a Corona, more emails, and following up on my goal list to end the day.
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Get Better at Communicating.
You had a great close-knit office when you were all in person. I hope you haven’t lost that. For us at NYB, we’ve increased our team meetings and made video chat a big part of our routine. So even if I need to meet with someone one-on-one, I’ll make sure I am visible.
Create open channels of communication. Those conversations you used to have out loud in the office helped you and others around you process work concepts with a better understanding than if you looked them up alone. Create servicing questions or personal lines questions Team channels to keep work conversations going with the group.
Coffee Time (even virtual). You can build socializing into your schedules with the team or others outside of your office. This will definitely help cabin fever. With NYB, I’ve had a few friends in the industry come in and talk about what they do during our Friday meetings. It was a good opportunity to add other people into the mix of the small office that can share info we’re all interested in. For example, you could have someone from BNI join a Zoom meeting or a client with an interesting outlook or company.
Hold weekly team meetings. I can’t recommend this enough. We have weekly meetings to talk about our goals for the week, follow up on how we did with last week’s goals, things we learned from work, a highlight of our week, and the biggest drag or time-suck. It helps us understand how we can better expand our individual roles to help the company and others.
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If you need more tips on working from home, reach out to us on Twitter!
