Work nine to five. Anyway. Yes! Working from home, which is what so many people are doing at the moment and some people aren’t used to it. I have worked from home off and on a lot over the years. I don’t work from home every day, but I do work from home a lot of the time and I love it. I love my home office space. So, given the current climate, a lot more companies are suggesting people work from home; they’re encouraging it. Everybody’s saying, “If you can, do it. Avoid going out, stay at home. Keep your cooties to yourself, people.” Yeah, now we can all go, “I don’t got cooties.” So, I just wanted to give you some of my tips for working from home because we missed Q and A Sunday. On Sunday… What did I do? Oh, I was in Adelaide. It’s all a bit of a blur.
I wanted to give you my tips to working from home. Remember, working from home’s actually all about what makes it work for you, so whilst I’ll give you these tips, I’m not telling you what to do. You need to actually do it trial and error, figure out what works for you. Okay?
So, my number one tip for working from home is by having… book-ending your day and having a morning routine and an end of the day routine. Because we have that when we go into an office space. You might not even know it’s a routine, but it is a routine: you get off the train; you grab your coffee; you pop in; you talk to three people as you put your stuff down; you log on, you check your email; you do a couple of things. It’s a routine, so it’s important to do a routine when you’re working from home – really, really important.
And again, at the end of the day, it’s important to bookend it; so end your day by looking at your day, by setting your tasks for your next day, et cetera, and leaving the space. So, morning routine, afternoon routine, really, really, really helps. Tip number one.
Tip number two: get dressed. Now, it was hard for me to write this one because sometimes I can be lazy as whatever with this and not get dressed. But the days I do get dressed and put on a face and put on makeup, et cetera, I feel better. So, I’m actually going to work on that one a bit more myself. So no more no makeup lives? Ah! But I’m so glad I’ve done it because now I don’t care about doing live without makeup on, but I think especially now, because we are all working more from home and not getting out to see clients as much, not getting out into other spaces as much, that getting dressed, feeling great about yourself, it helps with your confidence; it helps with everything, so get dressed.
Men, that doesn’t mean you need for a three-piece suit sitting at your desk, and ladies, it doesn’t mean you’ve got to wear heels sitting at your desk. But put on some lippy, put on a frock. And for you guys, especially, put on lippy, put on a frock. No, but just put on a nice shirt and your jeans, or your pants, or whatever, but make an effort of some kind to get dressed because it puts you in the zone.
Number three: do not get stuck into your house to do list when you’re working from home. Your house to do list is to be done before you work, after you work, and on a weekend. You can be a little bit strategic in that if you know you’re having a lunch break, you could hang your washing out, like that kind of thing. But don’t go, “Oh, I’ll just do that. Well, I’ll just do that. Oh, I’ll just do that because that needs to get done.” No. Do not do that. Doing that… trust me, I’ve done it… eats into your day. And then, you still got work left to do at the end of the day, so then that eats into your home time. If you know what I mean? So don’t do it. Compartmentalize.
Number four: eat well and drink water. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a crap water drinker, so I have an alarm that goes off on my phone. You are not a camel, drink water. Slush, slush, all those kinds of things. Drink water for better skin. I have to make myself drink more water. Eating well? Now’s not the time to go to the fridge every five minutes just for another slice of cheese or a biggie, have the same kind of meal breaks. If you normally have… pardon me… fruit when you have coffee, go for that. If you normally have lunch at one o’clock, have your lunch at one o’clock. Do that. And if you’ve meal prepped, it actually makes it easier because then you’re no distracted going, “Oh, I’m just going to make myself this and then I’ll clean the kitchen and then it’ll be done.” No, don’t do that. Pretend you’re going to the office. Seriously, pretend. It’s like playtime for grownups.
Next one, tip number five: take breaks. This is a good one. A good thing to do when you’re taking a break, and I do this quite often, is actually time to pop on your AirPods or your headphones, or whatever you use, and while you’re walking, have one of those meetings that you haven’t possibly had while you would normally be in an office, so take that walking break. Now’s the time, yep, we can walk the dog; but take that physically, get out of your space, take a break. Because most of the time the office you’d be getting up to talk to people or you’d be getting out to walk to the shops, to get your lunch, or the train, or something like that. So make sure you are remaining active throughout the day.
Tip number six, for me, is set a timer. Because another thing we can do, because there’s not outside distractions that we have in an office, sometimes we can get so laser-focused with what we’re doing that five hours has gone past and we’re brain dead, so set yourself a timer. Whether you use a Pomodoro Technique or any other time management technique, whether you want a half an hour, or an hour, whatever, set a timer. Good one. And there’s a gazillion apps for that, a gazillion.
Number seven: set a schedule. Or six, sorry, stick to your schedule or your to do list, whichever way you do it. If you need to get X, Y, and Z done today, get X, Y, and Z done today. Because you’re at home sometimes you can tend to get a little more distracted, go, “I’ll just start that other project.” No. Do the stuff that actually needs to get done, so stick to your schedule. As I said, I put my to do list, these days, on my calendar. I do it that way. Some of you might have a piece of paper with the stuff you got to get done. Some of you might be using Trello, or a sign, or some other to do list managementy system. So, whatever works for you, but make sure you stick to it just because you’re at home.
Turn off distractions. I find working with music is good for me. I can’t work listening to a podcast. That’s me. Other people don’t like music, they like podcasts. But especially at the moment, turn off news alerts, social media, email alerts, any of that kind of stuff. You’re here to work. You might be sitting at home, but you’re actually here to work, so turn off all of those distractions.
I don’t have any notifications on my phone or my computer apart from messages from… because my daughter’s my emergency person, so she comes through, but yeah, no notifications. I have to physically go in and check things – only want to do it.
Number nine: exercise. Because you’re at home and you’re not moving as much getting to trains or buses, or however it is you used to commute, get your ass moving. Now, I’ve actually put a hold on my gym membership at the moment. They’re breeding grounds at the best of times. Yeah, I don’t really don’t want to be in there at the moment, so I will be doing a lot more walking and I’m looking at a couple of different apps to do some more exercise at home. So I’m just going to move those gym classes that were in my calendar over to my schedule, working from… fully, moreso now.
But a good thing, an idea I heard, was that if you normally commute to work and now you’re working from home, that time that you used to commute, exercise in that time. So, join an online boot camp or go for a run, turn into Victoria Beckham and have your desk, maybe a computer laptop on a treadmill. Why do I have to do the movements? That’s so [dicky 00:08:42]. I got a treadmill, heavy laptop, and yeah, I want to see. If you do it, I want it in heels and I want a photo. So that’s number nine.
And number ten… This is easy for me because I have a beautiful office at home. Well, I think it’s beautiful. But it’s really important if you’re working from home… I had spoke to someone today and they were like, “Oh, my back hurts because I’m sitting in this uncomfortable dining room chair.” Make sure you have a dedicated work space and that your family or flatmates know the rules around that dedicated workspace. So, that’s important because it’s… does your head in, if you got everything over the dining room table and you got to move it off, on, off, on, off, on, off – will soon drive you crazy. So, even getting a little desk.
If you don’t have an office like this, get a little desk that you’ve got in a corner somewhere and that’s your workspace, so when you go sit at that desk, you’re going to work. It’s like going to an office. It’s actually almost a trigger, so you sit down at that desk, that space, you’re at work. So there you go. They’re my ten tips for working from home. I love working from home. So, as long as your internet speed’s okay, it’s tops on real banana peel. Have a great night guys. Stay safe. There are so many… I just lost the word…
The change.org petitions going around at the moment like closing the bloody casinos, thank you very much. Supporting the arts; the [A Offshore 00:10:23] should not to be going ahead this weekend. There’s a gazillion others. Get involved. You might not be able to be going many places at the moment, but you can become a bit more of a keyboard warrior for good, not for bad. Don’t get narky and spread shit, but do some stuff for good, especially for the arts. My heart’s bleeding for people in arts at the moment. It’s just awful. Maybe they’ll all go and get jobs at casinos. Grumpy pants, Sam, put your grumpy pants off. Have a great night and I will see you tomorrow, and let me know how you’re going working from home. Bye.