Whilst the world is falling apart and banding together better than ever before; we, the lucky few who are able to work from home must keep on keeping on.
Here are 4 tips to working in a home office:
Know the ground rules
Does your employer require a eight-to-five schedule, or is there flexibility? Which tech tools might you need, such as Zoom for video conferencing, Slack or Microsoft Teams for group chats, or Trello for project management? If you work for someone else, it\’s important that your employer spells out the ground rules and ensures you have the appropriate equipment, such as a laptop, as well as network access, passcodes, and instructions for remote login, including two-factor authentication. Be sure to do trial runs and work out any problems that might impede your work. If you work for yourself, you may need many of the same tools.
Set up a functional workspace
Not everyone has a designated home office, but it\’s critical to have a private, quiet space for your work. If you can, separate your work area from your personal spaces and use it just for work, not for other activities.
Get the internet speed you need
If you have kids, their FaceTiming and Xbox habits may slow your connection and download speeds. Moving as close as you can to your Wi-Fi router can help (devices that are distant tend to draw on bandwidth), or you can consider switching to Ethernet. You\’ll likely need a dongle since laptops don\’t have Ethernet ports these days plus an Ethernet cable to connect your computer to your router. During this crisis, however, websites are going down due to high web traffic, so sometimes a slow page might be due heavy internet traffic around the world
Use phone apps
If your job involves making long distance and/or international calls, Google Hangouts, WhatsApp and Skype all let you call over the Internet across the globe on the cheap. And if you and the person you\’re calling are on the same service, the call will be free.
Whilst we cannot guarantee your sanity during this period, we can try and help you to be as productive as possible during these weird times.
Stay safe and stay home
