Strategies to work at home

Until at least April 20, businesses will be challenged to continue to work productively in groups of fewer than 25 people. For many businesses, it's an opportunity to rethink the workplace by refocusing old routines on productive output and re-examine the monolithic notion that people need to be at an office to show up for work. Let's look at strategies for a proper home-based work ethic.

HAVE A DESK:

At home or away from the office, a room dedicated to work is best, but at the very least, have a desk that is dedicated to the work that you will do. It puts you in the zone to do work and sends a signal to your family that you are at on duty.

HAVE WHAT YOU NEED :

There is no greater lure to work avoidance than having to find a pen, to buy some paper, to find something, anything that will justifiably lure you from concentrating on the work at hand. At the end of each working day, list what's needed for the next day's work and spend a little time organising it and putting it into place.

DRESS FOR WORK:

You don't need to put on a shirt and tie, but simply having work clothes, and comfortable ones too, sends a signal to your family as well as yourself that you're crossing that invisible curtain between home and work.

WORK COMFORTABLY, BUT...:

There is work that I can do while watching Netflix. There is work I can do while listening to music. And there is work I must do in absolute silence, a zone in which even a door opening is like being splashed with cold water.

WORK WHEN AT YOUR BEST:

I'm sharpest soon after a good sleep. I'm writing this after doing the morning's taxi service, having breakfast and settling into my work chair at my work desk at my office at home. It's going well. It can for you.

HAVE A SCHEDULE:

Log into your workspace chat and say hello. That lets people know you are on the job. Carve out the time to do the day's tasks and do the work in that time. It takes time to settle into work properly and get up to speed. Constant starts and restarts will take a toll on the quality of your output and your ability to finish projects on deadline.

WHEN WORK ENDS, IT ENDS:

When it's time to end your day, end it. Log out of software. Turn off business phones. You were at work, now you are not.

Accept that working from home isn't being at home. Perhaps the biggest challenge to working from home is creating a clear division between work and home. It can be easy if you have a room with a door or a space that you can cordon off with dividers, but sometimes it's an emotional wall, one that you can help build by dressing the space for work.

Tape schedules to the wall. Tack to-do lists and phone numbers to a board. Sometimes the tools you work with create the division. There's a big difference between booting up Word on your home computer and logging into something like Citrix, which completely replicates your work system on the device you are working on.

The demands of an employer will sometimes conflict with the demands of home, particularly now, when it's likely that more people will be at home with you. Resolving that challenge isn't easy, but with the right design and scheduling along with many conversations, it's possible.

Mark Lyndersay is the editor of technewstt.com. A version of this column with more tips for employers can be found there.