Maximizing Your Working-from-Home Productivity during Social Distancing

In case you're not already saturated with tips and tricks on working from home... here are a few more...

Staying focused

• Develop a routine: Maintain your regular work hours, follow a routine as you would on a regular working day, i.e. get dressed, make a coffee, have breakfast, then start your day. If you need to flex your working hours, set clear start and end times.
• Schedule breaks: Schedule well-defined breaks to minimize distractions. Try to get up from your work space. Try to get outside and take a walk at least daily
• Plan ahead: stay on top of your ‘to do lists’ and priorities

 Your "Home Office"

• Dedicated working space: Create a space for yourself to work. If a separate room is not possible, dedicate a desk and some peripherals only for work use
• Work equipment: Set your space to be equipped correctly with the right chair, desk, screen and laptop at eye level. Your working area needs to be comfortable, streamlined and efficient

 Staying Connected

• Stay informed: Ensure you have subscribed to any relevant news-feeds, workplace collaboration tools or communication channels your team leverages to stay in the loop
• Socialize with colleagues: Connect with colleagues on chat channels, support each other, give kudos, share tips.
• Use meetings to communicate: “Show Up” to meetings and be heard. Be sure to turn on your video and actively participate. Check-in with peers and leaders regularly, stay connected, talk about important projects, talk about ‘you’
• Keep updated: Consider weekly updates to your leader and/or team members if you don’t already do these.
• Update your calendars: Make sure your calendar is updated so that colleagues know when you’re available.

Alignment and Positivity

• Stay aligned: Align with your leader and team members on common success metrics (job expectations, OKRs/objectives, cadence of meetings/1-1s) and identify and communicate productivity challenges, project risks, or barriers to achieving success as early as possible
• Keep learning: Look for training opportunities or online courses that you normally would not look for when in the office
• Get/Give support: It takes serious focus to work remotely. If your attention drifts, it is OK to take breaks. Recognize that we all adjust to change in different ways, and at a different pace. Support each other and ask for help

 Leading and Supporting a Remote team:

• Self-care first: Remember to take care of yourself so that you can adequately support your team through this time. Identify a peer or leader who you can lean on. 
• Stay connected: Establish team expectations for staying connected while working remotely. Communicate clearly. Consider a daily or weekly stand-up.
• Expectations are key: Clearly discuss success metrics, priorities, and expected cadence of communication, check-ins, updates, meetings.
• Leverage appropriate tools: Enable your team’s productivity, focus and collaboration through clearly identifying your communication and collaboration tools.
• Overcommunicate: Build in time for small talk and informal conversation. Identify opportunities to create a ‘virtual water cooler’ that works for your team. Leverage high context communication tools (video or voice calls). 
• Be proactive: Identify and communicate any barriers to productivity or project risks – support your team through these. Create contingency plans and plan ahead!