To the Hybrid Boomer – I appreciate your support.
“We will notify you 30 days in advance of when we will begin bringing people back into the office”. This is what many companies were saying during 2020 and 2021. A vaccine was released to treat the virus and everyone was hoping that life would return to “normal”. Including me! I just wanted this all to be over so that I could get my life back. My life included getting dressed and going into the office. This was not to be.
It’s 2022 and I will be working from home permanently, but going into the office when absolutely necessary. Up to now we had a period of a trial of allowing volunteers to start the road back to working in the office. I put my name on the list. On about 3 or 4 occasions I actually did go into the office a couple of days a week. It was lonely there! The halls were empty and where there was once cubicle’s and offices with people in them, there was darkness. This made it difficult for me to feel motivated to continue coming into the company office to work. What to do now?
What next? The first thing that I needed to do was make space in my home where I could isolate from my home life for work. This meant setting up an “office” in my home. I set out to do just that. I moved out of my space at our company provided facility and set up a small loft space in my home. I positioned a desk in front of a window that overlook the neighborhood. It helps to relieve the quietness when I can see cars and people coming and going. I live in a newly built neighborhood, so there is construction going on all day. I actually look forward to the hustle and bustle of the homebuilding going on outside my window. I can fill by day doing people watching while I attend video meetings, answer emails, and work through my to-do list.
One of the other things that I have done is separate from my dog while I am “at work”. He is not happy about it at all, however attempts to allow him to hang out in my “office” while I work proved too distracting. He seemed to want my attention just as I was in the middle of a video call. He is now banned from my workspace, but I do schedule a regular lunchtime that I spend with him.
Keeping to a regular work schedule is very important when working from home. The start time, breaks, and end of workday should be handled as if you are going to “work”. I learned this the hard way! In the beginning I struggled with separating “work” from my home life. Everything seemed to run together. My sleep pattern was off where I was up late at night and dogged tired during the day. I was having a hard time concentrating because I was sleepy! Yet, I was working all day and all times of the night sending emails at un-Godly times.
My home-life was suffering as well! Housework and laundry were getting put off because I was working all of the time. Coupled with watching the news in my free time, these habits were leading to anxiety and stress. I was still not going out due to the pandemic, but I so much needed to be pampered too! Setting up a separate workspace in my home and keeping to a regular work schedule helped me to begin to bring order back into my life.
What are some of the things that you have done to make the transition to working from home? Share it with me at boomer@hybridboomer.com and with your consent I might feature your story in our blogs.
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