The short term realizations of long term working from home

By short term here, we mean instant but not necessarily permanent. Long term should be at least 2-4 weeks of uninterrupted working remotely.

Family time is invaluable - earnestly seek by all means, cherish while it lasts.

As a Philippine resident who abhors being stuck in traffic and enduring at least 2 hours of commute time each day (5-7kph average speed at worst), the one solution that seems to make sense to an early bird like me is to simply avoid the rush hour altogether by starting early in the morning and coming home a little later at night. Considering that getting adequate sleep time is not a dealbreaker, the greatest sacrifice with this arrangement is unarguably the lost quality time spent with our loved ones. My folks would still be asleep at the moment I wake up to prepare to leave the house and by the time I arrive back home, they will have already started to doze off to sleep. There are literally no meals we can share together throughout the day. The only real chance I truly have is the weekend - less than 20% of the time on a weekly basis.

Of course, heavy traffic is not the only hindrance there is against staying close to our families. There are numerous working conditions which are, if not more, just as obstructive to this natural human desire. Some may have their families in the province and are living in an entirely different city for their business. Some may have work shifts not in line with the normal hours. Some may even have livelihoods that require them to be in various locations majority of the time. In any case, this dilemma has caused many of us to consider work as a contrast to other life areas such as the family time we long for; hence, the concept of "work life balance".

The idea of balance means that one must equally distribute two or more elements to form a proportionate whole in an antagonistic sense. While work life balance in itself is a separate topic I do not wish to delve into, it brings forth the notion that work and family are two things that are somewhat difficult to give priority to at the same time. Nonetheless working from home has proven to us that they can be aggregated and are not intended to be pitted against the scale of life. After all, we run the daily grind for our loved ones, do we not? By bringing our families close within our vicinity while we carry out the work, we are reminded time and time again that these two more closely resemble two peas in a pod as opposed to apples and oysters. Let's ask ourselves this question, if there hadn't been the privilege to work from home, how much time do we dedicate to understand the daily happenings of our family members' lives? How much do we really know about them in the now? Do we even make an effort to do so and how often on a weekly basis? Perhaps, it is about time we start devoting to our family time instead of simply prioritizing; and working remotely from our humble abode will support us in doing just that. But then..

Not everyone is fortunate enough to be able to work from home. Needless to say there are those who sadly are unable to keep their families close during workdays mostly due to differing roles, function, job description, or non-optimal home setup. This is why I would like to reiterate - realistically speaking, working from home is a privilege rather than a right. And just as all privileges there are, it is something we must learn to be grateful for without abusing its merits.

(Lindemann presents a solid case as to how she believes that the distinction between work and life, including family, has since become a 'lie' with the COVID-19 crisis in her article here.)

Contrary to popular belief, working from home does not always impair productivity.

Productivity is undoubtedly the biggest consideration organizations have in its movement towards digital transformation. Usually the fear revolves around the thinking whether people will yield the same levels of output as if they were in their designated work areas. Evidently enough, most companies have since been discovering their own distinct ways to address the issue of having totally new working dynamics that comes with remote collaborating. I'd like to approach this dilemma by inspecting the elements that are taken away when we leave the workplace. If we want to be more or just as productive as we are in the office, then replicating these conditions are supposedly the answer into allowing us to sustain our efficiency and continue to bring our 'A' game.

When we leave our workplace, we lose our work place. No, I am not referring to the physical building or space we go to every now and then to do our hustle. Here I wish to highlight the importance of the 'idea of a workplace'. The comforts and familiarity of our habitat are things that make home feel home. To a certain extent, we can tolerate messy objects left on the floor, unwashed dishes on the sink, or wearing whatever clothing (or no clothing at all for that matter) simply because one, there is no immediate need to be presentable and two, there are no people around whom we are not suited to being with regularly. Whichever place one may fall into the spectrum of comfortability of being home, this very fact is actually the danger that potentially impediments our productivity. It makes it extremely easy to fall into the trap of relaxation while we embark to carry out our profession. While some may argue that the response of such working style will vary per individual, I strongly believe that at least determining a specific working area in one's territory is necessary to stay in tip top performing condition. It can be as simple as a dedicated table with all our work essentials in place or even an office room if available to spare. All we need is a spot to remind us that 'it's game time, baby'. We may not be physically present in the workplace per se, but the idea of its existence is then reinforced in our minds through this strategy.

As a huge advocate of building healthy relationships through constant face-to-face communication, I am alarmed with the fact that implementing work from home arrangements risk compromising the transmission of information. Effective communication is among my top priorities as a project manager. When a project team fails to communicate effectively, I take it as a failure on my part. If we were to remove F2F interactions from the equation, then it only means one thing - as an organization, we now have to convey our messages to one another in the most efficient way possible. Communications technology is so rampant nowadays that there are virtually countless options out there whether it be e-mails, instant messaging, video calls, voice calls. Regardless of what is being utilized however, the message can only be as good as the messenger constructs it to be. Being direct and outright with one's messaging is key in this regard. Drop the flowery words and fancy semantics, be pointblank with the information. Moreover, don't just say it - illustrate it. Send a recorded video to present a bug. Highlight the error in a code. Point out exactly what is wrong with the graph. When asking for assistance, remember to include the acronym WWW - What is needed, Why is it needed, When is it needed. Couple that with the H if possible - How to move forward by your suggestion. When the information gets a little bit too complex, give out a call and talk it through.

I once had a project manager who seemed to have taken it a few steps further into conducting "quick calls". "Can we have a quick call?", he would ask as I busily take on a complicated task at hand. And though to many team members, it may have felt 太过分 (tài guòfèn) or "too much" in the negative sense already, I have come to appreciate what he just wanted to accomplish perfectly back then - clear out the details and get it over with. Sometimes in reality, it just takes one to two minutes of your time to properly deliver the facts. On the other hand, it also takes one tiny bit of misinformation to build a snowball of misalignments and inaccurate assumptions.

Complimenting effective collaboration within the team are the available communications technologies out there for usage. Never undermine the value of such tools. Even without monetary investment, a number of such apps are accessible enough to offer free usage with just an internet browser as the minimum requirement. Tiered pricing is present to cater to larger organizations with customized needs. There may be subtle differences between each one on a feature list standpoint but what ultimately matters is to find the one that suits your business the best.

We have more time than we think.

This final realization resonates more to me on a personal level than it does to the majority. I mentioned in the start that every day I am compelled take at worst 2 hours of travel time to go to work due to heavy traffic. Considering that's merely one-way and counting the number of working days in a year, I do not dare to do the math on how much time I literally commit for travel time exclusively. For the temporary time being that travel time is out of the picture, I have found myself being able to accomplish more things than I used to. Staying informed with current events while indulging in my 'me time' hobbies has become effortless. I've never felt more free in the sense that before I always 'ran out of time'. Writing, in general, is in fact one of the healthy habits I try to explore nowadays.

Introducing a new hobby always comes with the risk of burn out, especially when there is no reward or fulfillment realized in the first few days. I'd like to introduce here the '10-minute rule' coined by one of my favorite vloggers, Craig Benzine (a.k.a. WheezyWaiter) which is his proposed solution towards tackling procrastination. In one way or another, I feel that this is also perfect for anyone looking to take on a new hobby with limited time. Link to his YouTube video introducing the '10-minute rule' here.

Special thanks to

Unsurprisingly the person whom I most speak to about the WFH process is Raymund (a.k.a. Rayms) who happens to be my manager in Cashalo. From the very start, Rayms has been open to exploring strategies in effectively working from home while maintaining the team's high organizational performance. He understands how our role will sometimes require 'out of the box' work arrangements and is therefore willing to discuss ways we can collaborate together to avoid compromising our personal lives.

Raymund Buenaventura, Project Manager, Cashalo. LinkedIn