THE WORK FROM HOME DAD

With the recent outbreak of the CoVID-19 viral pandemic, many companies have opted to have their employees work from home. Although this concept may be alien to many, there are some who have been practicing a productive work from home culture. I have been working from home for almost a decade. It wasn’t easy in the beginning and I had to create a disciplined mechanism to curtail various seemingly trivial yet disruptive problems. I am penning down some of my thoughts, experiences and best practices that I have found most effective.

Firstly, accept the fact that this is not going to be easy. Although it would seem like an excellent idea at first, soon reality dawns. Unlike an office environment that brings a herd mentality of work, work and more work, a home office often doesn’t naturally promote productivity, unless you make it such. But it is a worthwhile skill to invest in given the 1.5 hour daily commute in LA or the 3.5 hour commute in Bangalore.

To further productivity, it helps to get yourself a good home office set up. This includes a reliable fast internet connection, printer scanner, multi-screen display (I find this very useful or at least aesthetically “cool”), white board, organizer, good headset for VoIP, Zoom calls (Very Important! Especially for that ever-doomed mute button excuse), and finally invest in a good office chair (for Pete’s sake you are going to be spending more than half your day in it, give your ass a break!). Most folks have some version of this these days. If you have a dedicated space in your home that you can build your work space in, great! If not, you can still work with what you have. Now to the crux of what working productively from home requires.

Discipline! This is the most crucial part of working from home. Discipline to stay away from distractions including surfing the World Wide Web. With no one constantly looking over your shoulder, Snack time, Slack time, Sutta time (aka Smoke breaks), Surf time can easily seem to suck your day into the multiverse. Soon you find yourself with lesser and lesser time during your “9-5” job and this effectively spilling over to your late evening and often late nights.

Most importantly, build yourself a schedule. It’s very important to maintain discipline and stick to the schedule. Of course, this is dependent on your job profile. My job involves being part of several scheduled and unscheduled calls. I ensure my calendar is up to date and available to all team members. If you have a job where your productivity is measured by creating content, then set yourself short term goals. 500 words in one hour. One powerpoint slide in 15 minutes. Hold yourself to task to your goals, whether large or small. Do not look at your phone until you complete your goal. Write using Focus mode in Word.

Avoid social media. There are so many tempting mediums to keep you hooked - TikTok, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and some new platform that emerges every other month. This can easily eat up your day and unfortunately neither do you have the Time Stone nor are you Tony Stark. I usually set aside some time every evening to catch up. I don’t want to be THAT Socially-Awkward-Person-Who-Locks-Himself-At-Home-All-Day, who doesn’t have human contact and is also disconnected from social media.

More importantly, do not forget to set some time for yourself; set aside time for lunch, take forced breaks, take a mid-day walk around your block, play with your pet (if you have one) from time to time. Kaspar, my 110-pound Black Russia Terrier is truly the best work colleague I can ask for.

Some people, after reading this, might be feel sorry for me. Please don’t. I have mastered this, and it works for me. With what we can do with technology, more companies are becoming flexible in how their employees get the job done.

I find it highly effective starting work early even before the sun rises. This of course, depends on the nature of your job. I have had, over the years, teams work for me across the globe and a majority of team members have eventually adopted a good work from home culture. I have found those who follow the above points to be highly productive. It really is not about number of hours one puts in, rather the quality and how productive the individual is. However personally, I find myself putting many more hours of work than if I worked at a desk in an office. Let’s not forget the travel commute time one could save in larger cities like Los Angeles, New York, Mumbai or Bangalore.

For those who have kids at home, toddlers can be a handful, but most kids between 4 and 8 are creatures of habit. With schools shutting down because of the corona virus, we have a stay at home 5-year-old. I sat down with my daughter and built a schedule for every day of the week. 1-hour blocks of her favorite activities: Painting, Drawing, Legos, Doll House, Coloring, Reading, TV, Tab, Mealtimes & Naptime. Parents, the easiest thing to do is to leave the kid in front of the TV, but please know that there are other options! I believe an hour of TV a day is plenty. There are tons of free and paid apps in the App Store and Play store. My daughter loves Slash Math, an interactive engaging app for kids in the age group of 5 to 10. Spend time with your kids. Work will always be there no matter what. This time you spend with your children will be the best memories you create. You don’t need to snap at your kids for interrupting your work call, it might just make you an internet celebrity, like what happened when the BBC interviewed Professor Robert Kelly. My true respect goes out to the many moms and dads who are trying to strike that perfect work life balance.

#WorkLifeBalance #StaySafe #SmartWork #HardWork