Working from home has never been a problem for the IT professionals, as most of their jobs can easily be executed anywhere with only little changes being done systematically. However, during the crisis of COVID-19, it is now extremely important for the safety and health of you and your family to remain indoors and work from home.
However, as pleasant and easy it may sound, there are some obstacles to be faced here. At the very beginning of the Coronavirus pandemic, regardless of the fear of putting their and their families' health on the stack, many employees had to go to the offices. But, today, almost every country is in total shutdown and people are forced to work from home.
What do IT organizations need to understand?
The “stay home, stay safe” rule applies to both customers/clients and their employees to avoid going out or meeting in person to cater to IT-related problems. Now, it is not quite possible, but this is a problem with a simple solution, both IT professionals and customers/clients can indeed get in contact with each other via technological means and execute their work from homes. IT employers need to understand the seriousness of the situation and should allow the professionals to set up the systems at their homes. It seems that COVID-19 has decided to stay for a while and is not planning to end anywhere soon.
Tips to Effectively Work From Home
Hence, if you have already started working from your home or are planning on doing so then there are a few tips that might come across quite handy to assist you down this road. The following tips will help you to stay focused and productive amid the Coronavirus crisis. So, without further ado let’s get right into it;
1. Avoid working in any public place whatsoever
The whole purpose of isolating yourself and working in a compact environment is to avoid physical contact with other people for yours and their sake. You might feel like grabbing your laptop and joining your friends for a hot cup of coffee in a nice café, but it is advised that you mustn’t, even if your country is not under lockdown yet. Furthermore, on the same topic; don’t try to infiltrate any crowded places whatsoever because it is not about you getting the most comfort out of this crisis but getting the safety of others seriously too. That is why you must avoid all the crowded places and backout from any events your friends might be planning. Just try to make a working environment at your flat or home.
2. Work on your surrounding’s vibes
There are some things that you need to work on even if you are working from your home, because you won’t be able to get much done and would fall into non-productive habits rather easily. That is why you need to work on following things to make sure that this doesn’t happen to you;
● First of all, you should have a proper desk and equipment fixed over it, as this way you would get a proper feeling of working for your organization in an office-based vibe going around you.
● Properly isolate yourself from your family members because this way not only you would have extra time to focus on your work but also getting more and more productive as days pass.
● Engage yourself in healthy patterns that are also repetitive so that you can get a hang of them. Start by making your bed daily in the morning. Secondly, do clean your room, take out any litter there is and also properly manage your working desk.
● Have proper lighting at regular intervals and think about using some aromatics to soothe the overwhelming worries of being in a crisis.
3. Work on establishing your systems
Work on developing a proper working system for yourself, this way you can be more productive and focused with a proper timetable to hang onto. Start with having fixed working hours and then try to stretch or shorten them as you go. Use various common tools that can help in getting the job done effectively. Set a proper communicating tool that you can grab onto during this time of crisis; many tools can be found on the internet that could support you with this, such as Slack, Sansa or any other for that matter.
4. Help others out
If you need to steam out this overwhelming feeling of being lonely all the time then you should probably reach out to your teammates, friends or comrades for the fun of it, and by reaching out we didn’t mean physically, it’s virtual, starts a group video call online for instance. Not only it will help you to relax a little but would also help them in dynamic ways, such as venting out with a colleague or getting some technical help from an IT professional which also happens to be their friend.
5. Work on new skills
When you are alone and are not continuously disturbed by others, this is the time to pursue or work on new ideas, learn new skills and hone them. Learning new skills related to your field can help you in becoming a better IT professional than you are at the moment. Also, you can take cooking classes online, do exercise, do gardening or think of that old dream project of yours on whom you always wanted to work and get it rolling.
6. Work on open-source
If you feel like that your skills are going raw and you need to work on them then start working on an open-source project. It can be about anything, such as developing new systems for IT-related landscapes or helping others through this time of crisis by developing a special digital awareness program for them. You can also work on getting your hands-on new IT certifications for a change and cling to the knowledge it brings forth.
7. Avoid panicking
Last but not least, you should avoid going into a panic, help yourself and your family by working on the community guidelines provided by your government regarding COVID-19 crisis. This is a hard situation and needs to be taken seriously but with time it is going to get better and the crisis will end soon. Don't go into a panic, on the contrary, avoid others from going that road too. Be kind and gentle and work like it is any other normal day because this is how you are going to get through with it.