Since Hurricane Sandy, my regular office has been out of commission. We’ve been rotating between a few of my company’s other offices and working from home. So my professional work outfits have transitioned into comfortable work-from-home outfits. Like this one:
I’m wearing a large tunic sweatshirt thing and leggings from I can’t remember where, a scarf from Penneys, and a puffy vest from the Gap a few years ago. Yes, I am wearing leggings as pants. And yes, it is awesome. This is a far cry from the professional self I like to portray at my office, but who wants to wear pantyhose if you don’t have to?
Working from home was sort tricky for me to get used to, but now I think I’ve got a pretty good thing going. Here’s my desk.
I have a few guidelines that work for me and my job, which will be different, I imagine, for everyone else.
- I must get up. I can’t work from bed. I know this. I like to have a designated space to work, so when I sit there I’m ready to work, and when I leave there I can switch to playing.
- Mute the TV (most of the time). I have a lot of articles coming to me at once sometimes, and I need to focus on what I’m doing. For me, that usually means silence in my apartment. Which is actually a nice change from offices that can get noisy.
- Have a start and end time. Because other people rely on me to be available at certain times, it’s easier to have a very clear start and end time. Sure there are times I will need to work late, but I generally keep regular office hours. This makes it a lot easier to turn off my computer at the end of the day and focus on home-work after work-work, even though I’m in the same place.
- Make sure #fatcat gets attention. Because if he doesn’t, he jumps onto my desk in the middle of the day and plays with the mouse. My computer mouse.
I think we may get to go back into our building in the next few weeks, but if I keep working from home or need to again, I’ll be prepared. Even if I look less professional than normal.
Do you guys work from home? What are your tricks?
I don’t work from home on a normal basis (my position as a department administrative assistant doesn’t really allow for working remotely regularly), but I do work from home on occasion; usually if I have a big project I need to work on so there are fewer distractions, or if there is bad weather. (in fact, due to the predicted storm heading toward the Northeast, I’m working from home tomorrow). But it was difficult for me to do when I first started doing it because I found that being at home can be so distracting. The dog, the TV, no one to see what I’m doing, etc. But ever since I got my sewing table in my spare room, I’ve had a better designated area that I can use to do work-work: there is no TV in there and I have enough space to spread out whatever papers, notebooks, etc. I need. So now I don’t mind working from home!
Your office space looks like a real nice set up; love the see-through furniture! 🙂
Thank you! I love that it’s see-through, it makes my tiny space seem a little bigger. It’s cropped out of this picture, but my sewing machine is on the very end of my desk against the wall. I use my work space for sewing too! I just like sitting in that spot if I’m going to be working on something for a while. I hope you were safe and warm in the storm!
Multi-tasking at its finest!
Yes, we were thanks. No problems here! 🙂