Three Tips for Working from Home (Day 26 of 30)
Ever since I had kids I’ve insisted on having a job that allowed me to work from home whenever I worked. We can debate all day the merits of this set-up, sometimes it served me and other times I wanted to escape (mostly because I wasn’t managing my mind or time effectively in the early days)!
What is challenging for one person isn’t necessarily what is challenging for another, but here are three tips that helped me and I thought were worth sharing:
1) Get the tidying out of the way ASAP: I don’t know about you, but I can’t focus in a messy home. Yes, I can do thought work around this and I’ve definitely made progress around what I define as “messy and dirty.” But I still like a clutter free space. So as soon as hubby and the kids leave the home at 7:30am, I do a quick sweep of our apartment and tidy it up to my liking so it isn’t a distraction to me the rest of the day. It usually takes me about 30 minutes so by 8am I am ready to roll. One can recruit the family in this routine. My husband is responsible for the kitchen and the kids for their bedrooms, but let’s just say it is never to my liking (that is sometimes my issue) and it still leaves a lot of work for me to do in the rest of the apartment anyways.
I used to do it in bits and pieces throughout the day and I found this wildly inefficient. I would also think negative thoughts about the family members during the process as well. Now I just own that this is important to me, and I just do it first thing in the morning. Boom, done!
2) Keep refrigerator and kitchen cabinets junk food free: Sorry hubby. If you want your junk food, eat it while you are out of the house! No matter how good I am at managing my mind and urges, when I’m under pressure and have to write something (my trigger) I don’t want it to be easy to get up and go to the fridge for a quick snack. Our kitchen is almost always junk free, but recently when I started to fall slightly behind on these blogs I discovered my husband’s stash of Cliff Energy Bloks for our triathlon training. I had never paid any attention to them even though we’ve always had them, but under writing pressure one day I decided to give them a try. Within a couple days they were all gone. Totally thought management failure! They weren’t even good! I wasn’t willing to sit in the discomfort of slogging through a few tough blogs. Unfortunately, I can't banish the Energy Bloks from our home as they are needed for training purposes. So I had to coach myself on this and make a strong commitment to not attacking them again. But normally they would be OUT THE DOOR! I’m happy to report they have been untouched so far for over a week now and I have to carefully watch my thoughts when writing so I don’t try to avoid my feelings with over-eating. 🤪 But I still recommend keeping the kitchen junk food free too. The two go hand-in-hand.
3) Get out of the house at least once a day: To my surprise it is very easy not leave the house all day if you have older kids who can get to and from school on their own. When the kids were younger their daily schedule got me out and about. Now I have to make an effort, even if it means just walking around the block a couple times. My job can be very social, talking to people all day via video conferencing, so I forget I haven’t been out of my apartment. Ideally, the best way is to schedule this is through my workout first thing in the morning, either before the kids wake up or after they leave. I also try to meet a friend for coffee or lunch once a week and attend a networking or fun social event so I’m actually interacting with the physical world. For a long time I had a healthy habit of walking during my lunch break around 12 pm, but that seems to be a popular coaching time.
Share with me any off the beaten path tips that work for you if you work from home. I’d love to learn from you.
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✨See you tomorrow for Day 27 of 30 lessons learned from 2019!
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