Working From Home

I have started my working from home way back in 2015 when there was no such a global pandemic. Because early in my career, I had workplace experiences such as dress code and standard working hours that annoyed me to my gut. Hence, the new normal lifestyle of the current scenario was actually not a NEW concept to myself when putting into practice.

Honestly, I was curious about challenges and solutions of working from home as I have already embraced it with flexibility before COVID 19. Here are some of the challenges that I face and how I overcome them. Hope this can be relatable to you too.

The main challenge is time management for my own schedule. I felt that I need to have a regular planned schedule that set certain number of hours per day for my job while balancing home affairs. Actually, my working time is from (2- 6) am on week days whereas the number of working hours are less in weekends because I would love to have a break. Without a structure many at-home people may spend more time with family as you are free to pursue other interests like sleeping, gardening, playing, singing, dancing, exercising etc. So, you tend to procrastinate and try to convince that ‘I will do it later’. To avoid this, I became a person who is working for deadlines accurately. While doing so, it is very important to strike the equilibrium in work-life. As you no longer have a specific geographic location as an office, I believe it is better to create a home office in your home with clear cut boundaries. For example, I need calm and quiet environment without interruptions when I do online lectures. Then only your family members will learn and respect your rules with adaptation over the time.

The second challenge is distractions. As a multi-tasking female, when I am surrounded with personal devices and reminders of house chores as a mom and a wife, it is hard to focus. As a result, you can find excuses for early breaks despite proper planning. If kids are around, then they will not hesitate to grab your attention at every opportunity. So, what I have done is delegation of work with family members.?So that they are aware that I should not be disturbed while I am remotely working.

The third challenge that I feel is reduction guided supervision because it can give you out of focused and directionless feeling as you are physically away from your superiors. So, I remain in close communication with my supervisor of research work of the university at least once a week to discuss my challenges and progress. Because the feedback and the direction that superiors provide are priceless even you like being your own boss.

My fourth challenge is social isolation because I am a social creature. I really need interaction with my superiors, peers, friends, relatives and customers (in my case they are my students) to avoid being lonely. So, I try to reach out them through various communication methods, especially with the help of social media because you need to find a way for social interaction.

According to my working hours early in the morning, I work in my night dress. Dress code is essential where I have built solid routines that I wear professional clothes and my make up for day time lectures, conferences, meetings, workshops even for couple of hours. I never worry about what to wear for work but I have kept some clothes dedicated to wear at special online sessions. It is all about performance with professionalism in online mode because the way you dress not only can impact the audience, it reflects about how you see, think and behave as well.

The final challenge that I face is networking. We need to stay connected with our professional community to stay updated in spite of physical social distance if you want to grow. We need to invest our time for specific associations and masterminds both locally and internationally. As a matter of fact, I am a council member of Institute of Physics Sri Lanka and currently serve as a co-editor while engaging in organizing monthly webinars for Physics popularization as the convener. Apart from that, in various communication platforms I raise my voice as a speaker and writer to widen my interacting community. Even I budget time and money for various conferences, workshops, webinars, training sessions and courses to expand my knowledge as an academic.

I really prefer work from home where you can enjoy more flexible work schedule from anywhere in the world without wasting time for transportation for a specific place. Yet, you need to work hard as there are challenges associated with each benefit. Once you create your own working routine and structures, you need to keep in mind that there are embedded additional responsibilities once you adapt to work remotely.

(This article originally appeared in Probe- July issue of 2021.)

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