On Monday 16 March 2020, the Prime Minister advised us that, if we can, we should be working from home to limit social contact and the spread of coronavirus.
For many people that’s going to be a huge step-change. The majority of the working population is used to working in an office. With a routine, a structure to your day, colleagues, meetings and more.
Here at Visit Fylde Coast we’re experts at working from home. We’ve been doing it since we started our own business, more than 27 years ago. Here’s a bit of insight and support from the coalface of self employment!
In Our Experience…
I thought I’d start with a bit about us. ‘I’ being me, your editor, Jane. I’ve got some photos of the very young me, sat in my very tidy office at the time. When I can find them I’ll add them!
It’s 1992 and I’ve just got married. I’ve also been bullied out of my job. I literally walked out one Friday afternoon, told my employer why, and told them I wasn’t coming back. The bullying had been going on for a long time and at the time it was very traumatic. With hindsight it was the best thing that could have ever happened.
My dad, Derek, runs the Graphic Design course at The Sheffield College. He’s always done free-lance work so we decide to see whether we can make some money and start a small business.
As Bob the Builder would say, ‘Can we do it, yes we can’. By 2020 we’ve been trading for the entire period in between. We’ve lasted through recessions and a 120 mile move to the coast. We’ve worked like dogs and it’s been hard. Everything that we’ve got we have worked for. There’s been no hand-outs, no easy rides.
What About Working from Home?
We’ve started and then maintained a professional services business from our home office. It’s not the same as being asked to do your normal job from home.
When you start a business at home it’s difficult to stick at it and make it work. You’ve not got much work to do, so you’re literally looking for it. Anything and everything becomes a diversion.
Fast forward a few years and you’ve got that much work to do you can’t get away from your desk. At this point the work-life balance becomes the challenging thing. Knowing when to walk away and give it a rest isn’t easy.
Our Tips for Working from Home
We haven’t got any children here at Rabbit Towers, so we’re really not qualified to advise you on how to deal with small people while you’re trying to do your job.
But we can help you to cope with getting your head around working from home. Here are our tips and you might be interested in our ‘Vlog with a View’ on the subject –
Make a Work Space
You really need to have a demarcation between ‘work’ and ‘home’. Otherwise it will take over your life, your head and your space.
If you can, set up a table of some kind that you can use as a desk. It’s important to have a designated workspace that you can just leave as it is and walk away from. Just like you would at work.
Your new desk could be anything, depending on what you’ve got to hand. Now is a time to make-do-and-mend! You could use a picnic or trestle table, a sideboard, or buy one from a second hand shop.
This is my very first desk that we cobbled together from old cupboards and planks, when we started working from Cleveleys. We’d got two home offices on the go at the time – the ‘official’ one was still in Yorkshire!
What do we do?
Working from home is a permanent arrangement for us, so we’ve always had a ‘proper’ working environment. Although it’s changed shape several times over the years, we’ve always had enough space to have a dedicated home office. Our home office is no different at all to the ones that thousands of you have in public buildings up and down the country.
If it’s a long-term or permanent arrangement it’s also important to be able to close the door on work. You’ll never stop yourself from ‘popping in’ to check things. But if you can close a door on work and not be able to see it, it makes it a whole lot easier to switch off!
Get into a Routine
You’ll quickly lose all sense of time when you start working from home. Be warned, you won’t have a clue what day it is, or even what time it is!
When you go out to work, your day is split up into sections. You arrive, leave and eat your lunch at the same kind of time each day. It gives you structure and helps you to split your work up into blocks.
Do the same thing when you’re working at home. Have a routine, but now your routine can suit you! Take a general view of how much work you have to get through. What happens each day in your house? Are you a morning or evening person? What commitments do you have to meet?
What do we do?
Here at Rabbit Towers we have always had a routine. We eat our meals at the same time, we start work at the same time, and we work almost to a timetable. With four people in the house and a demanding schedule it’s the only way to maintain order.
I’m well known for being almost nocturnal – I’m usually up and working at 5am. I do most of my mornings work before most people have started moving. But now I knock off at 4.45pm and leave it at that. At one time I carried on working into the evening – but that’s another story!
On the other hand, hubby Kevin is a night owl and prefers to stay up late at night, often working into the early hours of the morning.
We go to the supermarket in the middle of the day during the week. Dental appointments and such like can be made during normal working hours. We do most of our housework at weekends – and a fair bit of normal work too.
Write Lists
Oh the lists! Now that your work life is increasingly blending into your home life, you’ll need to remember everything that you need to do.
As we said, time melts away. Hang the washing out, see to a meal, clean the bath and before you know it the morning has gone.
What do we do?
I am the self confessed Queen of the List. I have lists all over the place! My memory is shocking and I have to write everything down there and then.
I’ve always had an A4 week to view diary. I have it open on my desk and write tasks down on one side, with notes on the other side. That way I have a fair idea of what I’m supposed to be doing, and what happened during that week.
Have Rewards
There must be something that you enjoy and can look forward to. You might already do this anyway! It’s a good way to discipline yourself to stick at your work until it’s ‘home time’!
It might be watching the TV, a glass of wine, a chocolate or two, or a hobby that you enjoy. It’s your reward for sticking at what, let’s face it, you don’t really want to do!
Time Off
We’ve already said it. Make sure that while you’re working from home you have time off. It’s especially important if you’ve got a partner, kids and family.
Will Things Change?
Because we’ve been self employed for a long time, and mostly very busy, we’ve had to learn how to be efficient with our time. That means using technology to get more done, adapting our lives to blend in with our work commitments. Not going to meetings if we don’t have to.
If the coronavirus pandemic shows people that time can be used more efficiently, that will be one good thing to come out of it. ‘Work smarter, not harder’ and use your time wisely. Then we can all have a life and earn a living.
While you’re here…
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