Working from home during lockdown

Several months have passed and for those of us who work on IT, we will surely have to work from home for a while longer. It is likely that you have already adapted to remote work, however, it never hurts to review some tips for working remotely, being more productive and feeling better both at work and on a daily basis.

Manage times and spaces

The first #Eudatip to work from home in quarantine is to plan a routine that includes breaks at limited hours. This can be based on meals, for example, it's important to plan breakfast, lunch and snacks so that they are always at the same time, and avoid eating in front of the computer! Try to make the work and rest spaces different so that the rest becomes more effective.

Sometimes the comfort of the home can backfire. If you don't have colleagues or partners around you, it's easy to get distracted. There are always other things to do, like doing laundry, dishes, etc. Therefore, you have to do your best to put them on pause until finish or do them during breaks. Setting an alarm on your phone or computer can help you organize better.

Another tip is to get up and put on an outfit different from the one you wear to sleep. It can be other pajamas, more comfortable pants, whatever you want! The goal is to start the day with renewed energies.

Do not lose communication

Keeping fluid contact with your team is vital. Here are some tools and tips that we apply as a company and may help you:

• Slack or any messaging tool of your choice. Communication is very important when you work remotely, especially because if you are not there, your team may forget about you. It is important that they know that you are available so that they can contact you. At Eudaimonia every day we greet each other with a “Good day” in the main channel and we say goodbye when our schedule ends.

• Google Hangouts / Meet, if you have a business Gsuite, Zoom or other video conferencing apps. In this context, meetings are more important than ever. I'm not saying that several calls are necessary per day or per topic, especially when some issues can usually be solved with just an email. But the meetings that have already been set, daily if possible, must be an opportunity to take advantage of. It works to write down everything you did the day before so that you can share it at the meeting and that everyone is aware of the progress each one made.

• A Kanban, to sort the tasks and priorities of each project. If you do not have a defined work plan from the beginning, it is best that as you begin to have requirements to write them in a Kanban. Trello is a very helpful tool, because it allows you to have visibility of what everyone is doing and measure the progress of each project.

• Online news portals to keep you informed. Reading the news every day before starting helps us not to lose communication with the outside world and can be used to share interesting articles with your colleagues and generate conversation.

Knowing when and how to stop

This is one of the most difficult things since sometimes we just get carried away and work more than our stipulated time. Chances are that whatever you're doing after 12–13 hours of continuous work won't be the best quality, plus you'll be overloading yourself for the next day. Working remotely could make some people assume that you are available at any time of the day, but you are not.

On the other hand, a good tip is to end the day with a little exercise. If we jump directly from screen to screen, our eyes get tired and can cause headaches. If you do not like to exercise, with some spinal stretching that you can easily find on youtube is more than enough. There are no excuses! You can find short routines of up to 7 minutes. You'll feel less contracted and in a better mood.

To sum up, we know that working from home has its pros and cons, but the key is to keep trying until you find out what works best. Once you do, you're probably going to be able to work wherever you want. After a while you will realize that you can be much more productive than you thought.

Have you already put into practice any of these tips? Do you have any to add? Tell us in the comments below.