Distance Does Not Matter — A (personal) Not Relationship Guide.
One thing that is inevitable to change is how we work.
When covid-19 was announced as a global pandemic in early 2020, it affects many things in our life (literally!). One thing that is inevitable to change is how we work. Many companies have decided to apply either a half working-from-home policy where employees who work at the office are scheduled weekly or monthly; many others totally go remote. Willy nilly, we have to adapt to this situation. Everything now goes online, and this could be a big challenge for people who enjoy direct communication with their teams. Well, I also experienced this at first. As a recruiter, my job connects with everybody in and out of the office. I talk with them a lot. But again, I have to adapt. Hence, after a few weeks of trial and error, I finally can state that I’m nailing this work-from-home period, and I’ll be sharing with you how.
Wake up early! Freshen yourself, do a little stretching, or yoga, or whatsoever.
I should admit first that I’m not at all a sports person. Well, since working full-time, my kind of sports activities is walking from my room to the nearest public transportation stop, catch the bus, and that’s all. When it comes to working from home, the distance of my walking reduced to even less! I only walk from my bed to my working space, which is literally only half a meter away from my bed. You hear them right; I barely move. This is not good! I start to feel weak and unproductive. So what this lazy girl does now is setting her alarm 1,5 hours earlier. During that 1,5 hours, I do a 45-mins tiny activity such as workout, yoga, or walk around the neighborhood. After that, the rest of 1 hour is a chilling moment with my cats, fish, and plants. I relax my mind before start hustling. This works! I feel so much ready, no more stiff sleepy sound for the meeting & rest of the day, also my body now shapes better. Lol
Write your to-do list, focus on priorities.
Priorities! Yes. Working as a recruiter can be stressful at times; I talk for hours every day, then there are many administrative tasks, deadlines, and others. I realize that it is essential to sort my priorities to finish the job according to the timeline. Because having distance from my office meaning that I need to set my own schedule & be discipline. No one at the office will come to my booth and follow everything up — of course, they’ll still follow up through chat now, but you know, as now I’m alone in my working space, I need to remind myself even more. So here what I do (every single day): I always write a to-do list of the day. I have this small cute 10x15cm book with a pretty picture of tigers on the cover that consists of my daily to-do list. Then I start working based on it. After I’m done with the list, gonna cross them one by one, and oh my god! When I complete all within a day, the satisfaction is absolute! So buddies, write your priority, so you won’t forget, and it won’t mess up your mind.
Take your lunchtime seriously!
Lunchtime is 2nd my fave time of the day. After a few hours busy with documents, emails, chats, interviews, I’ll take a short break from them all to charge my brain real quick. I usually watch 1 or 2 episodes (only applicable to a 20 mins series! Kdrama usually lasts 60 minutes each episode, so don’t you even try) of the current series I watch, How I Met Your Mother. Then, I’ll take a short nap (10 mins) & wake up to be an even strong person of the day. So every 12–1 PM, I eat my lunch, enjoy the series, laugh, and freshen my mind. I find this is really affecting my working performance. By taking a short break, I feel more ready to face the rest of my workloads during working hours. I nap and become a champion.
Make yourself sit comfortably.
Since my office is moved to my own working space, aka bedroom, I’ve been trying to make it as comfortable as possible. Because, man, working with no fellow to have mini chitchats every day is quite dull for me, so I need to make it less boring. I decorate my table, buy a fish as a companion (lol), and equipped it with complete stationaries (plus candies). Not only that, I bought a speaker! So I could sing while running for the deadlines. It works! My workspace is now much more comfortable. If you feel the need to buy an office chair, please do. If you feel like getting a pillow to sit on, please do. If you feel like getting a warm lamp because the light in your room is not sufficient, please do. Make your own work desk as a space you’d love to sit because that’s where you’re gonna spend at least 8 hours of your day.
End your day with fewer work talks.
Lastly. One of the keys that I think matters to my success (wow) of work-from-home working experience is maintaining a good work-life balance. I’m not saying that mine is perfect, there are plenty of rooms for improvements, but I believe that ending my day with conversations and other activities about anything else but work will make me less tired. I usually invite my friends to have dinner or drink at my place or watch movies together. We’d order food online or getting takeaways, then enjoy the rest of the day before finally sleep and start again. Yes, spend more time with your loved ones.
In conclusion, at least in my case, the distance between me & the office does no longer matter. If this what it takes to protect all of us, then we gotta try our best together. I know that lot of you have experience work-from-home thingy longer than I do, and I’d love to hear what’ your secret to nailing it. Hope this helps, hope covid ends (ugh!), so we all gonna gather again.
