My Personal Work From Home Set Up
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After posting my recent post ‘Working from Home – Tips and Tricks’, a few of you have asked how I have personally set myself up to work from home and the tips and tricks that I incorporate into my working day.
Routine
For me, routine is a vital part of my daily life. During the work week, my routine is pretty regimented, as opposed to my weekend, where I don’t have a strict routine so that I can feel as relaxed as possible.
To get the most out of my morning before starting work, I have a morning routine timeline so that I can incorporate exercise, meditation and relaxation in my day before leaving for work in the office. When working from home, I still stick to the same routine, although I wake up 30 minutes later to get a little extra sleep in to make up for no commute.
When working from home, in the evening I make sure I keep my routine the same as I would do if I was working in the office. Finishing at the same time, but choosing to do something relaxing for myself to make up for the time that I am saving in my day from not having to commute. I also keep my ‘sleep time’ the same, not choosing to go to bed later, just because I don’t have to travel to the office the following morning.
Dressing for the day
In order to prepare myself for the day, I always make a conscious effort to shower, get dressed and apply a little make up before I start my working day. As I discussed in my previous post, there is power in the way we dress, the clothes we wear are not only an expression of our identity but it also allows us to play a role. At home, I normally opt for a ‘smart casual approach’ to the way I dress for work – a smart/casual top and trousers or dress, so that if I have to join an impromptu video call, that I look like I am in the correct mindset for providing the best service to my clients.
Breaks
Remembering to take small breaks in my day is something I forget to do, both at home and in the office. To combat this, I now set mid-morning breaks and mid-afternoon 15 minute breaks in my work calendar, to remind myself to take a break.
For my morning breaks, I normally take them with my partner (who also works from home). We use the time to have a quick coffee and talk about what we are working on and plans for the day and week.
For the afternoon break, I usually use this time to catch up with family and friends whilst taking a quick walk in the fields by our house, which also helps me to get a bit of extra exercise.
For my lunch break, I normally try and do something that I wouldn’t be able to do if I was working from the office, helping me to make me feel grateful for being able to work from home. My lunchtime plans range from: popping to get my nails done; creating a healthy home-cooked lunch; sitting in my garden with a book or magazine; watching a youtube video or catching up on my latest show.
The one key thing, all these breaks have in common, is I leave my work phone with my laptop to ensure I don’t keep checking emails. This is the most important choice, I choose to make during these breaks as it ensures/allows me to maximise my ability to disconnect during a short amount of time, helping to increase my productivity for when I return back to work.
My Work Space
Location
I am lucky to have a spare bedroom to use as my study for my office. The room has a large window which lets in lots of natural light and catches the ‘golden hour’ just before sunset, which in the summer feels me with joy and helps me to get into the mindset of finishing work for the day.
Furnishings
As our house is yet to go under a huge renovation, I haven’t done much by way of decorating the room, however, it is painted white with light carpet as it was important to me to decorate the room in neutral colours which I find calming throughout my day. In addition to this, I have added light-coloured furniture to add to the overall calming ascetic.
The furniture, I have opted for is a desk, which has the ability for the height to be adjusted, which was helpful to me when I was suffering with back problems. In addition, the chair I have is provides plenty of back support and tilts back allowing me, to turn away from my desk and take moments to relax or away from the screen to mull over ideas for work.
I have also added two screens to the study, as my work requires me to have two monitors to work more efficiently. The screens are placed on a desk-raiser shelf to ensure the positioning of the screens are at the right height for my eye-line whilst sitting, encouraging good posture. Further, I have added wireless accessories to my desk to help declutter the study of wires and help with the overall calming and decluttered feel of the office.
Comforts
I have added little bits of luxury to my work set up, to help me feel wrapped up in comfort whilst working. There is a Neom ‘Calm and Relax’ diffuser on my desk, as the smell reminds me of being in a Spa (something which I love to do). I place the diffuser on my desk, by my screens, so that the smell is strong enough for me to get little hints of it throughout the day.
I also place fresh flowers in the room, as they bring me joy every time I look at them and they also help to increase the amount of oxygen in the room.
Lastly, I treated myself to a Sonos Speaker and added this to my study. Whilst working I used to listen/watch television shows in the background, however, overtime I realised that this was not the most relaxing set up as it felt like information overload. I find that listening to music and opting to play curated playlists geared towards a type of ‘mood’, is the best set up for me. It provides background sounds to an otherwise quiet work set up and the tempo of the music helps with my overall work creativity and productivity. Plus, it allows me to listen to new music find new artists, which I love!
Video Calls with Colleagues
Video Calls with Colleagues
I am in a lucky position, that I quite like the company of my own time, so I don’t get ‘office sick’ as much as others may be. However, I keep weekly video calls with my team members so we can see each others faces and not necessarily talk about work and laugh about our week, which I honestly find refreshing and an essential part of my working week. I also keep in contact with a number of my closer colleagues on WhatsApp and on Instant Messenger, where we discuss work sometimes but mostly the typical work banter. Keeping connected in this way is incredibly important as it allows yourself to not feel isolated from the office.
Lack of exercise working from home
Exercise, however small, is a part of my morning routine regardless of whether I am working from home or in the office, as I know that it helps me to feel mentally stronger and happier overall. Nevertheless, during this extended period of working from home I do miss just generally getting out and about and walking for lunch, to the coffee shop and the normal walking associated with my commute. So to combat this, every internal work call and personal call I have during my working day, I take them whilst pacing around the house, to increase my daily step count.
I tried to take this approach to client calls as well, however, I found it to be a disaster as I often felt too distracted and sometimes felt out of breath! And put this way, no client wishes to hear the other person on the line ‘out of breath’ from just talking!
End of my Day
Unless I have prearranged to work late, I set myself a ‘hard stop time’ of 7pm to close my laptop. My contractual finish time is an hour earlier, however, it is often hard to finish at this time. After my ‘hard finish time’ I close my laptop and walk away from my study, leaving my work phone in the study too.
Once I have finished for the day, I go ahead with what I have planned for the evening. If I don’t have anything planned for the evening, I will run myself a bath and relax with a glass of wine, before cooking dinner and relaxing for the evening. Either way, I make sure that I have planned what I am going to do for that evening, in the morning, so that I can visualise it, so that when 7pm comes I have an exact reason to leave my Home Office. I notice that when I don’t make a plan and ‘visualise it’ that I often find myself still working past 7pm, with the ‘just a couple more minutes’ mentality – so I definitely recommend giving this a try and seeing if this works for you.
Further, if I am working from home for more than 2 days in a row, I make the effort to make sure that my plans in the evening are varied and also involve me leaving the house for a short amount of time (if I have not already been out of the house that day), so that I don’t develop ‘cabin fever’.
Out of Hours – Work Expectations
Like many people in this digital age, I have always worked in a job which requires me to check/respond to emails in my evenings. However, after working for over a decade in this way, I have learnt from the hard way that it is important for me to enforce personal guidelines to working in the evening, in order to protect myself mentally and in order to not suffer burnouts, which has happened a couple of times for me. The balance that works for you will be very much down your personal life, job role and the company’s expectations.
After trial and error, the balance that works for me is checking my emails around 2 times before I get ready to go to bed. Once I have finished my working day, I close down my laptop and leave my work phone in the study. I will then come up to my study twice in the evening, checking for emails and answering only urgent emails and putting in placeholder emails for any work that can be completed the following morning. Obviously, no working day or evening are the same, therefore the guidelines I set myself are flexible, as some evenings things may occur which require more monitoring – however, as a rule thumb I try to ensure that my working week has more days that fit the my guidelines rather than the other way round.
9pm, is my ‘downtime hour’ so I make sure I leave all work devices in my study. I even have a setting on my personal phone which turns off access to most of my apps, so that I am not tempted to sit on my phone on social media or browsing on the internet, minimising my blue light exposure and allowing me to get into a relaxing mindset.
At 10pm when I get into bed, I normally opt to read in bed rather than watch television, as this allows my mind to be focused on the words on the page, rather than wondering to other thoughts which may keep me up at night.
I hope that by reading this post it has inspired you to make changes to your work set up, to bring you extra comfort and joy in your working day. Please share in the comments any changes you make or incorporate in your own set up which you have find helpful.
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