Untitled design (2)

Learning to Work From Home in the Time of Coronavirus

It’s been several weeks since school closed for…EVER and my husband started working from home. Isolation is wearing on us all. People (ahem, not me) are forgetting to brush their teeth. My husband just asked me what our zip code is…and I had to start picture schedules for all three of the males in the house—my three-year-old, my five-year-old and my 44-year old.

It’s been interesting.

I’m a work from home (WFH) pro. I’ve done it for almost 10 years now. For those of you who aren’t so well-versed in WFH culture, here are a few tips to save your marriage keep you productive.

Set up a quiet space

This can be in a spare bedroom, basement or even a closet that has a door that locks. Bottom line, make sure that you have a space to go when you need peace and quiet. It also helps if you have a desk to crawl under and eat cookies when things get really bad.

Stagger your schedules

Trying to homeschool your kids and get in a full day’s work is tough at best. We’re working to stagger our schedules so that we get actual work done and the kids get some education besides listening in on conference calls.

Invest in earphones

For everyone in the house to have quiet to concentrate. Also, my 5-year-old said “I’m over this shit” the other day, so… yeah. Earphones for everyone.

Hide the snacks

You will be amazed at the number of snacks tiny humans can consume. If there is anything you want to eat, find a creative place or keep it under lock and key.

Take a break

You will quickly see that working from home is not all sunshine, rainbows and happy hour at noon. If anything, you’ll find that you get three times your normal number of emails when someone can’t pop their head in your office. You’ll see people posting all over social media about the free time they have in the coronacrisis—this won’t be you.

Shower and change your clothes more than once a week

Grunge was a thing in the 90’s, and while may things from that era have come back this is not one of them. I love the work-from-home-in-yoga-pants-thing. I live it. But the key is clean yoga pants. For the love of all things holy and your entire family. Please. Shower. Put on some clean clothes.

All joking aside, times are tough. Companies are moving to WFH in a way they haven’t before. If you’re suddenly working from home find a quiet space, do your best and remember we are all in it together. The world is going through a crazy time and we’ll get through it. It’s much better if you get through it wearing clean underwear.

Share It!