There are many companies that are struggling with all the issues you might think of, starting from solvency to the pay-cuts, etc. However, what this COVID-19 is teaching us is that we must stay home 24/7, and this obviously implies working from remote.
Who has never dreamt of staying home, maybe drinking your matcha, listening to your favorite podcast while working from your cozy couch? Let’s be honest: all of us have thought of it at least once, especially when obliged to take the train to go to work in the middle of the summer. People love staying at home, of course, they do. But what about their productivity?
Many people feel just fine, they work even more than what they were used to: they found their right balance. I consider myself one of those people: working from home is great for a bunch of reasons:
- First of all, you don’t waste any time on commuting. This is controversial, though: I know people who love getting on the subway while reading their books and then to get some fresh air to be active and energized for the new day. However, for those who live in New York, Los Angeles, or any other big city, commuting means spending yearly hundreds of hours underground.
- You don’t have to dress up the way your boss wants you to. Frankly, this is just about someone’s attitude: I always try to put some pants on, sometimes even a shirt, no matter how much homey my day will look like. There are studies that show how much productive you are if you dress up to be focused on what you do, and that is exactly what jeans, white t-shirt, and sneakers mean to me.
- You are the boss of yourself. There are no people looking at you while working from home. You’re alone. You are let by yourself, and sometimes this could lead to dangerous and bad behaviors: waking up too late, not caring enough about your tasks. However, try to look at the bright side: you’re allowed to take more breaks, start your work earlier, maybe watching a TV show and ending later your shift. It’s just great. You just have to get used to it.
- You can cook real meals. I cannot describe how many recipes people around the world are actually trying. It has been great so far.
As everything else, even working from home has some cons:
- You don’t really have boundaries between your work-life and the rest of the day. Sometimes I find myself still working at 10 pm, something I wasn’t used to doing when working in the office. It’s extremely challenging and it needs quite some time to find the correct balance within your daily schedule.
- You can only rely on Zoom. Or whatever you use. You don’t have any other option to choose from when in need.
- You will eventually start to feel the fatigue earlier. This could happen whenever your home is too cozy.
- You will miss people. All of them: you will start to miss anyone you worked with, even that angry boss that used to drive you mad.
These are tough days. We have to be brave. We have to be tough. We have to remember to treat well our planet, this was just a warning.
Thumbnail Photo by Kevin Borrill on Unsplash
