miércoles, 25 de marzo de 2020

Working from home


If you go to google and try to find recommendations to work from home, you are going to find a lot of articles that will help you. In this one I will share with you, the ones that I implemented, especially now due to the corona virus situation.

Something that I consider important to have in mind while you read, is my family “configuration” because recommendations are somehow related to it. I am married and I have 2 beautiful daughters (almost 6 years old, and 3 years old). We live in an apartment that has 3 rooms and one of them is an studio/deposit. Internet is not good in every corner of the apartment and the service has been affected due to the current situation (corona virus March 2020). So this is my experience so far:

Office space: All articles related to work from home recommendations, usually explain how important is to set up your space for work in order to have the “work mindset” once you are in that space, however in my case this is not as simple as “setup the office at home”. In our family both my wife and I work, and the studio is either for her or for me to work because is not big enough. Our normal situation is that both need to work at the same time, so, what we implemented is to prioritize the studio for the person that need to have a meeting so the “family noise” will less affect it. The plan B for the one not using the studio is to use the table we have in our living room. At the moment I am writing these recommendations, my wife is in a meeting and I am at the living room.

My second monitor: For me is a must to work with a second monitor and I have one, but in my office, so in order to have a second monitor at home, I have 2 different configurations:
  • At the studio: We have a small TV with HDMI port, so when I am there, I use that TV as my second monitor.

  • At the living room: For those that have a tablet, what I did was to download an app that allow me to connect my tablet as a second monitor. For sure there are several apps to do this, but I can only share with you the one I choose. The name of the app is duet, is not free, I am using it in my iPad and you can connect to a laptop running either Microsoft Windows or IOS (499 PHP or around 10US$)



My internet: I believe several people are having problems now with the internet. Due to the situation we all are working from home and the service is on “high demand”, so the speed/quality is not the best. In order to try to minimize problems with the service, we define a rule at home: If mommy and/or daddy have a meeting, kids cannot watch Netflix or YouTube Kids. Instead they can watch cable (not related to internet), where they can watch kids channels. Is not as simple as setup the rule, but so far, is working. When possible, we also try to avoid having meetings both at the same time. In the meetings we prioritize audio and “share screens” over the video of ourselves, and if we are not talking, we are on mute.

My way to avoid distractions at the living room: Not an easy task because my daughters will be around, however there are several things I do. 
  • One is to talk with the kids for them to know that I will be working, that believe it or not, it helps. They are now more conscious about what is working so they will be more focus on the TV or the worksheets we bring them. they also play to work.
  • Other one is to put my headphones and to listen some music that will isolate (somehow) the “family noise”. I don’t have any special headphones and the ones that I have are working well.

Rules during the meetings: additional to the one mentioned about no Netflix/Youtube for the kids, I am also following certain rules like:
  • If I am in a meeting:
    • Headphones is a must.
    • Explaining the team at the meeting about the “family noise” is helping a lot. A certain level of empathy is generated when you say it, and in fact other people also share their challenges for the call (pets, bad connection, no headphones, etc)
    • Try to be effective during the call so I can go back to my family and bring them attention
  • If mi wife is in a meeting (and I am not):
    • Try to avoid the kids going inside the studio: At the beginning we started closing the door but as soon as we did it the kids started knocking the door because the want to see me/her. Now, understanding they don’t like the door closed we have the door partially open so they can enter, however is the mission of the other parent to either try to avoid they enter or to try to convince them to go to the living room and leave the studio. In order to do this, we have some special tools to use, like games (snake and ladders) or special activities like camping at the leaving room



I cannot tell you that is easy for me to work from home, and that everything is smooth, in fact there are several factors that are affecting my effectiveness, however, I am still learning how to improve. Only for you to have an idea of the challenges that are still to be improved:
  • Working hours: Certain days, family wants more attention and I try to bring the attention they need but “overtime” is also happening. Balance is the key, the idea is to find it.
  • Exercising: My first week was a complete disaster in terms of exercise, I only exercise twice. Knowing I decide to improve my exercise frequency, now I am more conscious about the options so depending on the quantity of work and the meetings, I try to select the best schedule to exercise, either before lunch or before dinner.
  • Focus: Especially when I need to read important documents. Music usually distract me from reading, but without music the “noise cancellation” is also unavailable, so is quite a challenge.
  • Meetings conflict: when we are both in meetings, kids are under “no rules” and this is usually a problem for us to have full attention to the call.

So far this is my experience in working from home. I hope some of the recommendations here can help you, and if you have any additional recommendations, please share it, we are in the same boat so we can learn from each other.