Ten-hut! It’s week 2 of Working from Home
It’s time to clean it up, cadets. The novelty of novel Corona has worn off and it’s clear that those who are working from home are going to be here for a while. It’s time to settle in and get this operation moving with military precision.
Here’s what’s been going on at Avant8 for the second week of the COVID-19 work from home-a-thon.
- Put the video back in video conferencing
Here at Avant8, we’ve been videoconferencing on “Work From Home Wednesdays” since before it was mandated by the Governor. But we never actually used the video capability. After all, what kind of insane person wants to show off their work-from-home outfit via video?
But this week, Avant8 became a default-to-video setting office. And you know, it’s been nice. It’s nice to see our coworker’s faces and it’s nice to be forced to take off the leggings and step into some slacks.
Even more important than the social interaction has been going back to the routine of “getting ready for work” in the morning. Personally, I’d completely lost my pre-work routine of starting my morning with a few minutes of yoga. Going back to my morning schedule has helped me stay on task longer and feel more “at work.”
- Struggling with what’s email-worthy and what’s not
The question at the top of everyone’s minds during Week 2 has definitely been: is it worth sending an email about this? When there’s no in-office interaction, you’ve eliminated the number one informal avenue to bring up important, but not pressing information. Tech is helping us at Avant8 to fill in these gaps, but we’re definitely still missing the ease of our in-office banter. Video chatting and Slack have been essential to maintaining a culture of communication.
- Keep to a regular meeting schedule
Luckily, we’re pretty good about keeping to a regular meeting schedule, but now that there’s no way to run into anyone, it’s twice as important that we are rigorous with our schedules and meetings.
Here at Avant8, we’re big fans of astronauts, and we noticed we’re not the only ones talking about the importance of sticking to a schedule while under social distancing. In an article with the New York Times, astronaut Scott Kelly, who spent almost a year on the International Space Station, recounted the importance of a schedule during Covid-19:
“When you are living and working in the same place for days on end, work can have a way of taking over everything if you let it. Living in space, I deliberately paced myself because I knew I was in it for the long haul — just like we all are today.”
He also recommends taking time to do fun activities, having a regular bedtime, and getting out into nature. Read the full article here.
We’re with the spaceman on that one. We also recommend setting up your home work station to be ergonomic. If you haven’t yet, you’re probably in for some back pain pretty fast here. Stay safe, stay socially distanced. Let us know how your office is combating the work-from-home fatigue in the comments!