Photo by Eloise Ambursley on Unsplash
First thing’s first, you gotta drop the guilt. When you work from home, you tend to get an extraordinary amount of subtle, but apparent pressure to conform to societal standards. Working from home lives outside of societal standards, and that’s one of the great things about it. Right now, smack bang in the middle of 2020, A LOT of people are now working from home–for obvious reasons, relating to a person with a penchant for eating bats (👆not Ozzy Osborne this time 🦇).
So, a huge portion of the world is now in the same workboat, but tradition takes time to change. All this to be said that, if you can get away with it, sleeping in until 10 am is perfectly ok, dressing however you want is ok, mental breakdowns=totes ok, and not doing everything else that we’re told by “gurus” to do is ok too. We are all as different as our fingerprints and what works for one may not work for the other.
Having said all that, there is one key rule to live by when working from home, and that’s to make an office space. Even if you’re in some Manhattan highrise with but a foot of room surrounding your bed, you can put up a shelf and make a standing desk or dedicate the foot space of your bed as your desk. You could even go to a park that’s located near to free WiFi and draw a 6-foot circle of salt around you to keep that beastly virus at bay.
But, why should you make an at-home office space, and how do you do it? Let’s start with the whys:
Talking to Your Cat
If you’ve ever found yourself having full-blown, somewhat intellectual or otherwise discussions with your pet, you’ll realize what horrible conversationalists they are. After the first few sentences, it’s a total waste of time, because they always come back with the same predictable argument, disguised as a subtle “meow” or an active “woof.” It’s circular.
My cat (shown below) is not only kinda bad at holding intellectual debates, but she can also be rather menacing too.
From talking to 100’s freelance and remote workers, I can say with great confidence that talking at length to your pet–or yourself–can be a real turning point in any freelancer or remote worker’s mental state.
If this is happening to you now, *THIS* is the time when you ABSOLUTELY must draw the line between work and home. It doesn’t have to be some fancy spot, you can dedicate a coffee table, breakfast bar, or a window ledge and just not sit at them outside of work hours.
Separation of Home & Office
Work/life balance can most often only happen when the two aren’t completely intermingled. As a freelancer or remote worker, it’s beyond important to make the distinction between the two.
Separating your spaces is an easy way to work only when you’ve set out to and not a moment longer. If you’re working remote and have one of those company-issued cellphones, leave that bad boy in your office space. People will adapt when they realize that they don’t get a response after or before certain hours. Many will even optimize their communications to try to get their email at the top of the pile. So, if they know that you don’t answer your emails until 9 am, some will begin strategically planning their comms. Stepping away is a scary thing to do but watching the results is absolutely awe-inspiring. Look out for yourself first, and you will be better at your job.
I know this, I used to work in social media for some pretty gigantic brands, and I’d get headaches every Friday morning due to being Slacked, G-Chatted, Emailed, Texted, Instagrammed, you get it, it was gnarly. Eventually, it took leaving that job, but before I did I learned how to set boundaries with people. Now, I do not answer any form of notification-sending application after a certain time or before a certain time. I also only check email once in the morning, once in the afternoon, and once about an hour before signing off. Not every job allows for it, but the less you can check attention-grabbing apps and other comms tools, the more productive and healthier you will be.
You Can Wear PJs if You Want to
Some people love getting dressed up to go to work at their at-home coffee table, and some people hate getting dressed up. Some professionals have even sworn against pants.
You’ll read tons of blogs about the psychology behind getting dressed up in the morning and how you absolutely must do it–but it’s total bollocks and I’m about to tell you why. I know firsthand that it does not matter if you get a suited-up to work from home because that style doesn’t work for everyone. People are individuals. Just like in a corporate environment, not everyone feels good wearing a suit.
As I sit here writing this, I’m wearing jeans and a slouchy sweater (in the middle of a Texas heatwave, but that’s because my boyfriend is apparently a huge fan of the Antarctic and everything it stands for).
The thing is, for those who like getting dressed, walking around in your cornflake-adorned dressing robe all day can make you feel like a bit of a pile.
Coworking Spaces
According to Flexjobs, remote workers make an average of $4,000 more than their telecommuting counterparts. Upwork’s “Future Workforce Report” predicts that 73% of all teams will have remote workers by 2028 (and that was before the pandemic). According to Global Workplace Analytics, before the pandemic, 5 million people in the USA worked remotely.
Among performance-based remote work statistics, 85% of businesses confirm that productivity has increased in their company because of greater flexibility. 41% of US companies have said that they will put more emphasis on work from home type settings.
Once we no longer have to stay at home, coworking spaces will be where it’s at. A coworking space with a strong community will propel your productivity, creativity, connections, ingenuity, mental wellbeing, and will pay for itself before the first month is out. Coworking spaces are worth the money because they help you make more money. It’s both a science and an art. Below, we put together an intensive collection of killer coworking spaces for you to check out below.