The naked truth about working from home E-Book

Scott Anderson

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

Should you "dress for success" when working from home?

Nope. What a waste!

Can you work from home and have a healthy work-life balance?

Yes, in fact, your opportunity for a balanced life improves.

Don’t risk the wrong kind of viral internet fame. Avoid the pitfalls and learn how to optimize your WFH environment to boost your productivity.

This book is for anyone who works from home, or is considering working from home. Primarily it’s aimed at those of you for whom working from home is new, or daunting. However, even if you’re a WFH veteran, I hope you’ll find some new ideas to improve your current experience.

This book is not about setting up a remote working company, and it’s certainly not one of those “How to make $1733 a week working from home” books. Rather it contains practical instructions for working from home productively, while keeping you out of trouble.

After 17 years of working remotely, I've made plenty of mistakes and learnt how to overcome challenges to achieve great results, working with entirely remote teams.

Chapter list

• Who this is for?
• WFH FTW - The benefits of working from home
• Pimp my home office - How to set up your home office
• Kicking goals - How to improve productivity
• Let it ring - Setting healthy work boundaries   
• Smoke signals and carrier pigeons - How to communicate well in remote teams
• Avoiding cabin fever - How to achieve balance
• None of us is as smart as all of us - How to build strong teams 
• Avoid WFH fails
• Square peg, square hole - The specifics on apps and hardware
• Like a boss - Tips for Managers
• Summing up
• About me

Leseprobe

The naked truth about working from home

Scott Anderson

This book is for sale at http://leanpub.com/nakedtruth-wfh

This version was published on 2020-04-24

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This is a Leanpub book. Leanpub empowers authors and publishers with the Lean Publishing process. Lean Publishing is the act of publishing an in-progress ebook using lightweight tools and many iterations to get reader feedback, pivot until you have the right book and build traction once you do.

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© 2020 Scott Anderson

Table of Contents

Who this is for?

1. WFH FTW

2. Pimp my home office

3. Kicking goals

4. Let it ring

5. Smoke signals and carrier pigeons

6. Avoiding cabin fever

7. None of us is as smart as all of us

8. Avoid WFH Fails

9. Square peg, square hole

10. Like a boss

Summing up

Notes

Guide

Begin Reading

Who this is for?

You’ve heard the horror stories, maybe even seen the footage, of people on video calls forgetting the camera is on while they go to the bathroom or yell at the kids. Or maybe the person who told the whole company their boss was a few sandwiches short of a picnic. Don’t risk the wrong kind of viral internet fame. Read on, and not only avoid the pitfalls, but learn how to optimise your WFH environment to boost your productivity.

This mini-book is for anyone who works from home, or is considering working from home. Primarily it’s aimed at those of you for whom working from home is new, or daunting. However, even if you’re a WFH veteran, I hope you’ll find some new ideas to improve your current experience.

This book is not about setting up a remote working company, and it’s certainly not one of those “How to make $1733 a week working from home” books. Rather it contains practical instructions for working from home productively, while keeping you out of trouble.

You might hear ridiculous tips like “Dress for success”, when reading articles on working from home, but, don’t worry, you won’t find any of that rubbish in here. The advice that follows comes from 17 years of WFH experience. Over time you learn what works and what doesn’t. You also make lots of mistakes. Hopefully by reading this book I can help you avoid the worst of those.

1. WFH FTW

The benefits of working from home

Some people are afraid of working from home. Some think you’ll be less productive or feel isolated. In my opinion, working from home gives you opportunities for work-life balance and even productivity that you could never achieve while working in a normal office environment. Nearly every downside can be mitigated, while the upsides are many.

Let’s start with the obvious. It’s Monday morning, you’ve slept in and rushed to get out the door in time to catch your bus. You’ve just made it on and tap your card, “Balance: $0.05”. The bus is packed, standing room only. You’re squashed between a group of high school boys and an especially hairy armpit and decide to check your email on your phone. Oh great! The boss has moved the 10am meeting forward to 9am. You’re going to be late.

Now maybe your average commute isn’t that bad, or, maybe it’s worse. Compare that to WFH where your commute consists of walking down the hall to your office. If the average office commute was 45 minutes each way, then the average worker is spending 375 hours a year commuting. So there’s benefit number 1… you just got 375 hours of your life back! That is only the beginning. You’ll save money on public transport, or fuel, parking, not to mention reducing your carbon footprint. If more people transitioned to working from home instead of commuting, the environmental benefits would be huge, with transportation providing the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the US1.

Food is the next benefit of WFH. That may sound counter-intuitive to you. Surely if you work in the city you have access to some delicious food and great coffee, and while that may be true, people often end up eating at their desks anyway, plus, what WFH gives you, is control. You can choose to save money and not eat out at all or, get some fresh air, and visit a local cafe for lunch. If you averaged $20 a day on lunch and coffee, you could save nearly $5000 a year by eating at home. The best option is a bit of both. Eating at home makes it easier to eat healthy, while still giving you the flexibility to eat out when you want to. Other benefits include starting the roast dinner earlier in the afternoon instead of eating at 9.30pm, avoiding the dirty looks of your coworkers post garlic bread and even taking the risk on that extra spicy Mexican bean burrito not long before your 2pm meeting.

Moving into the work-life balance category… sometimes you need to visit the Post Office or pick up those supplies for your child’s school project. Finding time for these errands while working at the office is difficult. Popping up to the local shops for 15 mins while WFH is easy. The time saved and stress avoided also leaves more time on weekends for relaxation and fun.

One of my favourite benefits of working from home is… comfort. Ditch the suit and tie or the high heels and add to your trackies and slipper collection. If you want to relax, what do you wear? Most likely not your uncomfortable work clothes. The freedom to be comfortable while you work allows you to relax, which flows into improved productivity. I’ve read WFH articles saying you should dress the same while working from home as you would if you were in the office. Lame! Why waste one of the best parts of working remotely when you can be typing away in comfort. Of course there are times when you’ll be expected to be on camera for a video call. When it’s time for the meeting just ensure your top half is looking smart. No one knows if you’re pants-free down below. Just don’t stand up until the call is done.

Let’s revisit the work-life balance topic. For those of you who have children, you are likely familiar with the challenge of finding time for your kids and partner while working long hours in the office and commuting. Unfortunately, most workplaces don’t have the flexibility to let you watch your child run in their athletics carnival or march in the Easter parade. Working from home gives you opportunities to participate in your family’s lives, that would otherwise not be possible, and that fact alone makes it priceless.

MYTH: You should “dress for success” when working from homeAre you serious? And throw away one of the best things about remote work… comfort! You should wear whatever you’re comfortable in because you’ll be more productive that way. Belts, shirts, ties and leather boots may look impressive but discomfort only distracts you from your work.