November 30, 2020

Top 5 Ways of Staying Sane While Working From Home

Technology is not the only important aspect of getting work done from home. Staying productive is everything.

So you’re working with Skycomp - Your laptop and technology has been working flawlessly - and when it hasn't you've called us and one of our team has remoted in, or fixed something on our end. Now you’re wondering what you can do to making working from home a little more bearable. We've spoken to a few of our team members who have been working from home since day one of the pandemic. These are the real troopers of the team. Some of us have trickled back into the office and have a core team still supporting your technology. The beginning we did all work from home with a few of select team members to go in and check on servers - pickup important items from the office. 

How is working from home for you?

The Skycomp team has some mixed feelings about working from home. Most of our staff have families with young children, this has defiantly been a challenge for them. Juggling taking care of family as well as maintaining standard working hours has been possible because of the understanding and patience of our team. Skycomp has allowed people to remain working from home full time. This has kept client’s IT infrastructure running smoothly all the way through the pandemic.  We are incredibly lucky at Skycomp to have an admin team that really thought things through. The administrative team in any office can only do so much. The rest is up to you, how efficiently you can work from home, how many distractions are around you, and what you can do to stay sane in this new virtual world.

Optimize Your Workspace:

Having a clean and organized workspace is key to staying productive and allows you to stay relaxed and focused while working in your home office. This is as simple as cleaning up stacks of papers organizing your piles of sticky notes in ways that remove clutter and would let you post a picture to Office Weekly magazine. It also will help you look good on video calls to have a slick setup. Optimizing your workspace is just one way to stay positive and feel better about your commute from your bed to your home office.

Social Media Limiting:

Social media is not all that important to daily life. It's an extremely helpful tool to stay connected with others in your company. family and friends. But it doesn't keep you on track and productive. Unless of course you work in social media, then this doesn't apply to you. But giving yourself maybe some specific times during the day to check social and your phone. It doesn't have to be once or twice; you can check it multiple times. But giving yourself a goal of a few times per day to start is a good thing. You might find your hand with a mind of its own reaching for your phone. Breaking the habit can be tough for some. Remember at the end of the workday you can hop on your social accounts and catchup on all the action. It's probably just your parents sharing a dog picture. We promise you aren't missing much.

Take Enough Breaks:

This one is a big one. For most of us working from home means - starring at a computer for 8 hours a day, taking a break by watching a YouTube Video (from Skycomp.ca/learn) and then going to the living room to watch Netflix, then fall asleep to a podcast. Technology and video streaming are all around us and is a way of life for some. The best way to take a break in Sky comp’s opinion is to step away from the screen, whip together a nice lunch and maybe give your eyes a break from the screen. Read or listen to a chapter or two. Maybe go outside for a walk with the dog. Take yourself out of it for your lunch hour. But keep your phone on you. The stress of knowing you might be missing a work call is sometimes worse than missing one. Along with your lunch break, it might be also wise to look away from the screen for a few moments, whether that be making a quick snack for the kids. Maybe bringing your partner a coffee to their home office space. Doing the little things to keep yourself off the screen is key to keeping you sane. Also keeping your kids from busting down the office door to ask for your attention. 

Making Human Contact:

Now we can't be in a room with more than 10 people right now in our neck of the woods. But we can still see people virtually. Even if it’s you team - instead of picking up the phone. Maybe give your team member a video call instead. We know it’s not the same as being in the conference room together. Or knocking on the office door. But we really think that seeing someone through a video screen, can do wonders, you can see that they are also working from home and are in the same situation as you. Turn your camera on! Make a human connection! It might save you from feeling lonely in your home office. Unless you are calling from you bed. Then maybe leave your camera off.

Actually End Your Shift:

This is something that many of our team are guilty for. We love what we do. We love it so much so that we end up working a little late some nights. This is okay once and a while. With most jobs if something needs to get done, and it’s your responsibility and the hours keep ticking away. You should most defiantly stay late, get the job done. But for those days when it’s not urgent, when you could end your workday on time. Make sure you sign off and end it! Proving that you work fourteen-hour days and working into the evening every day is how you burn yourself out. Especially now when your office is sometimes a few feet from your bed. Make sure you get the work done but give yourself time to recover. This is key in keeping a clear head and achieving quality work each day. We aren't perfect that's for sure. We defiantly have our days and weeks. But that’s the catch. Nobody’s perfect with this. The best thing you can do for your mental health is sign off - and get some sleep. Maybe binge a few episodes on Netflix. 

At Skycomp we believe that these five things will make work easier. Make working from home almost stress free. Checkout the video below if you want to make your video conference calls look a little better...

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