My first week working from home

I have always considered myself a routine person, the last couple of weeks have been quite challenging times globally, we decided as a company to set up home offices while the country moved towards self-isolation - fortunately we had the capacity to remain working- but now doing this from home. This puts me out of my everyday comfort zone and has made me set a new way to operate. There have been newfound benefits, but it comes not without its distractions.

I set my alarm, wake up and get ready as per my usual working day- albeit a slightly later alarm time means a morning cuddle with my 5-month-old son (who is up and ready to start his day at 6 am), I make myself a cup of tea, get dressed and I make my way to the spare room where my new 'home office' is set up. I try to avoid distractions from anything that is not work-related- and try to replicate my workspace at home.

Our team has maintained our routine and daily briefings- and with apps like Zoom actually, make this process seamless, our meetings have been fun and quite productive, we have remained positive and I am grateful to have a very supportive team.

When you are working in an open-plan office you have to learn how to block out the conversations and phone calls around you, now it is a new array of sounds to get used to, it may be giggles, tears, Beat Bugs (my son’s favorite cartoon with a pretty cool Beatles soundtrack), my wife on facetime with her parents of friends.... and because I am at home these are sounds, I relate to the weekends and for a moment I digress, but then I know I need to keep focus at the job at hand.

I structure my days- I set up all my appointments and meetings and have my to-do list which I find great pleasure in crossing off all accomplished jobs, I keep in touch with messages and regular calls to the team throughout the day.... when I am powering through a few jobs and have no calls I put my music on which has helped me to embrace my home office environment - The minute I am on work mode the music is on, it has helped me focus and stay on track between my appointments.

Having your lunch break with your wife and son daily is a great perk at the moment, but I stick to having a set “lunch break”, this is the key, at least for me it means that having set times that my family respects, allows me to get back in the work zone.

As a side note, I have read a lot about the impact of mental health and the importance of keeping active and exercising whenever possible, the one positivity that I take out of this whole experience is that there are no more excuses, I have the extra time now and I have the opportunity to prove to myself that I can make the most of my spare time and exercise :)