How to work from home and not go crazy

As a film and TV composer I’ve spent most of my adult life working in my home studio. Many of my friends and colleagues are saying how difficult it is to work from home, and how feelings of isolation and depression can build. Here are some tips I’ve learned from many years of working at home, that everyone who’s new to this situation can try. One can be happy and immensely productive working in a home environment, with a little effort.

1.    Don’t stay in pajamas all the time. It’s best to shower and groom every morning, and get dressed, just as if you were preparing to leave for work. It’ll make you feel good, and besides you’ll look better in all the Zoom calls that have become vital to our work these days.

2.    Set aside a specific place for work in your home. It’s easy for the lines between work, family time and leisure to become completely blurred, leading to stress for everyone. Don’t work in the kitchen or living room or bedroom. Set aside a specific place to do your work, preferably a room with a closed door where you can be entirely separate from the rest of your family or roommates. Set up strict rules that no one is to disturb you during your work hours unless it’s an emergency. This will allow you to focus on work and get it done for a good portion of the day, and then devote time to family and leisure outside of these hours.

3.    Limit social media and news to short, set periods daily When you’re home it’s easy to spend more time on social media. But social media strongly promotes anxiety and depression, says the research, and in the time of the coronavirus this has never been more true. Of course, it’s also a way to stay in touch, so it’s difficult to turn it off entirely. It’s best to set aside a specific time each day to tune into social media and keep it limited, focusing on positive posts from friends and colleagues. Of course, we all need to keep in touch with what’s happening in the news, but when you’re working at home, it’s easy to keep checking the news the whole time, and it can easily destroy your productivity, and up anxiety. Try and limit this too.

4.     In fact, turn off the Internet entirely for a while if you can Many of us need constant Internet access for our work, as we are all dependent on it for information and emails. If there are portions of your work for which you can turn off the Internet entirely, do so. There’s a great app called ‘Freedom’ I use when I’m doing actual composing, and not admin or emails, and need to focus on the creative process. ‘Freedom’ entirely cuts your Internet for a predetermined period of time, so you aren’t tempted to check email, Facebook or news, and can focus on one’s work. You can find it at https://freedom.to/

5.    Exercise daily. This is a good idea for everyone anyway, but it becomes very important when you’re working at home all the time. A walk, jog or bike, outside the house, is still considered okay in our new era of social distancing. It’ll help clear your head, avoid ‘cabin fever’, and pump pleasurable endorphins through your body. It’ll also keep you healthy.

6.    Make a conscious effort to stay in touch and connect with people. When you’re working from home, it’s very easy to become completely asocial, particularly if you’re not an extrovert to begin with. Through my years as a composer, I’ve learned to make a strong, conscious effort to connect with people, via social engagements, lunches and dinners and other real-life face-time. Of course in person get-togethers are not viable right now but try and stay in contact via video connections like Skype, Facetime or Zoom. Seeing real faces is always much better than just texts, social media or phone calls. We’re primates, and we thrive from seeing other’s faces.

7.    Stay in touch with your co-workers and team daily. They’re all going through the same thing as you. If you’re the one leading them make sure to be in touch daily at least, preferably with a video or phone call, to see how they’re doing. It’ll make all of you feel good.

8.    Try not to head for the fridge too often You’re isolated, there’s yummy food in the fridge, and no one around. It’s easy to overeat when you’re on your own schedule. I use MyFitnessPal to monitor calorie intake, and only eat at predetermined meal and snack times. Remember to break the rules sometimes, though!

9.    Be open to your inner voices – they can endow you with much incredible work creativity When you’re by yourself in your work space, and you’re not hearing other humans nearly as much, you have more time to think, and more time for your own inner voices to speak. Often great ideas that can so benefit your creativity and your work can come from listening carefully. Like other great historical moments, this virus we’re living through will prompt many unique societal changes and trends, and some unexpectedly positive ones. Look constantly for the lemonade we’re all going to make from these lemons.

Check out Alan’s composer website at www.alanlazar.com

Listen to the Lalela production music catalog at www.lalela.com