COVID-19 is disrupting daily life as we know it. We certainly hope you and your loved ones are not impacted by any human loss, but the reality is that we are ALL already negatively affected in some way. Amidst the shock of the virus’ spread and angst over what’s next, we are asked to somehow remain productive at work. Most governments are issuing guidelines or even orders that require employees to stay home, leaving employers to ask employees to work from home. For some companies, this is an easy change to implement, but others have reached out to us recently, scrambling for Cloud Workspace solutions to facilitate this temporary (hopefully) directive.
Whether MyCloudIT might benefit your company’s IT strategy or not, we want to share a few tips we practice ourselves to help new remote workers increase productivity quicker. As a company that promotes flexibility to work from home already, we thought we might have a few useful pointers.
1. Create a dedicated physical space to work from
As early as possible, find a dedicated physical space and set it up to mimic your office space (assuming that’s productive 😊) the best you can. Doing this on short notice is difficult, especially knowing it is temporary, but this space will help you focus more than you realize. Sitting on the couch or in bed are not typically productive spaces. An ideal space is in an isolated room with a door that can be closed to shut out noise or distractions.
If your significant other or roommate will also be home with you, make sure first to discuss work from home expectations to minimize distractions. For example, when do you take lunch? Do you have any important meetings during the day? When do you start and stop your typical workday? The more you can keep it to a routine, the better it will be for everyone.
2. Get up and get dressed
One of the easiest things you can do to maintain a routine is to shower and get dressed like normal. By doing this, you will help trigger the right mindset to work. And while your commute went from XX minutes to zero, make sure to plan on starting your at work routine at the normal time, i.e., 8 am.
If you don’t already, start your day by planning what you’re going to do and what you want to get accomplished that day. By doing this, you can ensure that you will stick to a plan and don’t get side-tracked by any distractions at home. But, don’t forget to give yourself a few breaks in the day. Take a few minutes to play with your pet, interact with family/friends, or go on a short walk near home.
4. Use the phone (or video) instead of chat
While it is easy to use chat or instant message to communicate with colleagues, mix-in phone calls, and/or video calls to those you would normally interact with face-to-face. It isn’t 100% the same, but it does give you more of a personal interaction than just messaging. This is especially encouraged when working at home alone. Changing from frequent human interactions to none overnight can be stressful. Make sure to interact as normally as possible.
But make sure to send a quick message before calling others randomly. In the office, you can walk by to check if someone is busy, but since it’s more difficult to do digitally, just shoot them a quick message to make sure you are not interrupting.
5. Check-in on co-workers
Remember, everyone is in the same boat trying to juggle productivity without losing their minds in complete isolation. We all need a little daily human interaction. Take intentional moments throughout each day to check-in on your colleagues, but keep in mind, everyone works differently. Keep conversations brief, cordial, and respectful of time, but make sure to let them know you care about their well-being personally and professionally.
Hopefully these tips are helpful, feel free to share with your co-workers. If you would like to learn more about how MyCloudIT can deliver cloud/virtual workspaces to your organization to help get through this unprecedented time, here are a few ways to connect:
- If you would prefer to speak with someone, fill out our request a demo form, and in the notes put COVID-19, and we’ll be in touch with you as quickly as possible.
- If you want to check it out self-paced, start by watching a few short demo videos. Just scroll down and look for the videos that begin with “MyCloudIT Short Demo.”
- If you’d like to set up a proof of concept in Microsoft Azure and need assistance, fill out our request a demo form, and in the notes put COVID-19 POC, and we’ll be in touch with you as quickly as possible to create a new deployment.
We know this is unchartered territory for everyone, so if there is anything we can do to help you or your company, please reach out. We’ll be working remotely!
Tags: Best Practices
