In the last few weeks the world has made the biggest social shift of my lifetime. Office buildings sit empty, there has been no traffic, the streets are empty, and the news only talks about Coronavirus.
Anyone who is in a role that can work from home has been for at least two weeks now. The technology platforms that are allowing many of us to work from are truly incredible and are driving productivity, but they do not save us from being trapped within our own house. Many of my friends and colleagues are starting to go a little stir-crazy working from home (myself included).
One suggestion to increase productivity that I keep reading is to not work straight through the day. Walk the dog in the middle of the morning, take an hour break for lunch, slip out in the afternoon for a run. Break up the day! I am slowly making this transition and it seems to be helping me a lot. Over the last few days of adopting this work schedule, I have found my productivity increase significantly. There are many factors that play into this, but I think part of the solution is that I am not working a straight 8-hour day. My current workday is spread out across an entire day with gaps throughout it.
I encourage everyone to try to move away from the 8-5 work schedule and to create an in and out schedule that fits with their work and teams! Anyone that tries this – let me know how it goes!
A few fun tips that Mindset has done to still feel connected while working from home:
Have a team goal or challenge (Mindset is doing a stay active challenge)
Use video for conference calls
Open a slack channel just for people to have conversations on
Share fun pictures of your children or pets
Join meetings a couple minutes early just to chat
