4) Overcoming Challenges While Working from Home
1. Communication challenges: Earlier I mentioned tips about keeping communication open with your spouse. Now, what about communication with your boss or team? Here are 3 quick tips to ensure that you stay connected with your team while working from home.
Participate and engage in virtual meetings and calls. Remember those class participation points you needed to get in back in college, let’s exercise that same effort and energy during your virtual team meetings.
Share useful feedback with your team to prompt an open and productive dialogue. Depending on the subject matter, determine if a phone call or email is best when responding. Always start out on a positive note, mention how you will use the feedback and then proceed to ask your questions and provide constructive feedback.
2. The feeling of isolation:
To all my independent women out there doing their thing in the professional world. I see you and I hear you! Going into the office provided you an environment where you could have face to face interactions with your co-workers. Now during the pandemic, you are wondering how you can prevent the feeling of isolation.
Take time to be social; just a little bit. COVID-19 has literally taken us away from water cooler chats where we would learn about what’s going on with our co-workers personal lives. It has also taken us away from seeing full sidewalks and a bustling coffee shop. Make time to connect again with your co-workers and who knows, sharing your #WFH challenges may help you solve an issue they are dealing with? Try to allot at least 5% of your workday to being social with your co-workers, family, and friends.
Remember the purpose and role that you serve at your company. As cheesy as it sounds, you are a valuable employee, so while you are working at home by yourself, think about the value and skill set you bring to the rest of your team if you don’t complete your work. The work you complete matters and definitely impacts your team. Let’s choose to be intentional and make it a positive impact!
Take breaks. Disconnecting is helpful with being productive because sometimes you need to step away from something if you’re stuck. Coming back from a walk where you may see a neighbor outside or a car driving by, mentally reminds you that you aren’t completely alone while we are all practicing social distancing.
3. Managing young children and work:
Fortunately our in-home daycare was still open last week. Realistically I would imagine that this luxury will be short-lived, so to come up with these next 5 tips, I think about those Saturdays that I’ve had to finish a tight deadline pre-pandemic with my youngest kids around.
Schedule important projects during their screen time. Screen time goes beyond YouTube. Put their favorite movie on or have them play a computer game on a tablet. If your child is old enough to read, turn the volume off to their favorite movie and have them read the subtitles.
Take breaks together. Since kids under the age of six have not reached the “I’m too cool to play with Mom and Dad stage” they most likely will want you to play with them when they have free time. Use this mental downtime to connect with your kids and step away from your work.
Have play meetings with your kids while you are checking emails. Anytime I have to work from home, my two-year old is bound to make her way in my lap while I am working. I’ve learned to embrace this moment, take a pause and find an alternative activity to include her in what I’m doing. This could be a “play meeting” or project so that she still gets attention and then give her 5-10 minutes of playtime.
Be kind to yourself. There is no one answer or perfect routine to get the #WFH life just right with kids, so be kind to yourself as you go into week two. I think if we recognize ahead of time that there will be interruptions and long or sleepless nights, this will help to alleviate some of the mental pressures we put on ourselves.
Take advantage of nap-time. Schedule your important calls and projects during your kids nap-time.