We are all getting used to working from home at the moment as the virus that must not be named has sent the country into lockdown. Here at Integrity, we are still working hard on projects, but responsibly, meetings have gone digital, site visits are cancelled and most importantly we are all working from home.
Like a lot of the country's population, we are not all used to working remotely and it has so far been a week of adjustment, with us all getting used to our new work environments. With the bombardment of worrying news that has been leaning on us all lately, we thought we would try to bring some fun to the world with our rules to help survive working from home!
Rule #1: Cardio
Since we are no longer at our rural Kent office we are not getting our lunchtime walks around the country lanes and it could be quite easy to forget to fit in a bit daily of exercise. So in line with the Government's recommendation, we are trying to get out of the house for one form of exercise a day. Emily has been going for runs in the morning and Chris is getting out on his bicycle during his lunch breaks. But if you cannot get out of the house why not join in with Becca and Yasmine with doing some online fitness classes, and if you have little ones don’t forget Joe Wicks’ morning PE classes!
Rule #2: Blame Someone Else
You may well have already seen this rule on the internet before, with a viral tweet suggesting that couples who are suddenly working at home together should create an imaginary coworker to blame things on. It's an amazingly simple idea for couples who are not used to being in this close confinement for an extended period of time. At Matt’s home, he is having issues with Jeff (or Geoff, this is currently being disputed) who is causing chaos because he is unable to put a mug or glass in the dishwasher and tidy up after himself! Good luck Matt and Lydia, he sounds a pain to be around!
Rule #3: Have A Break
Firstly rule #3 is not sponsored by Kit Kat. Now we have that confusion out of the way it is key to make sure that you get away from your desk every now and then. As you are no longer in a workspace with multiple people it is easy to not have those natural breaks when you make a round of tea & coffee, have a bit of a gossip with a colleague or just take a brief look at the news.
So now you’re at home make sure you get away from your computer. Go to the kitchen to make a cup of tea (and if you're that way inclined, dunk a biscuit into it too). Catch up with a colleague at the start of your calls and if your break used to consist of taking a look at the news, now may be a good time to find a new news site that isn’t covering the Virus!
Rule #4: Adapt Your Workspace
Before working from home was the “in” thing to do many of us won’t have had a home office set up or ones who did may not have accounted for the rest of the family to be working from home at the same time. New workspaces are having to be created around the house for the new workers. In the Backshall household, they have five people working from home and with laptops being the choice of computer, good work posture has become a concern. To combat this a library worth of books have been repurposed into laptop stands, let’s hope the one book you need isn’t at the bottom!
Rule #5: Stay Connected
It could be quite easy to stay in your own bubble when you are working from home, so it is good to make sure to stay connected with your colleagues. Our Monday morning meeting when we normally would gather to catch up in person with a spread of locally baked doughnuts has now changed to catching up online and has been dubbed ‘Diginuts.’ Unfortunately, the new meeting format does not come with doughnuts, although we are trying to take this as a positive as apparently doughnuts aren’t healthy.
Rule #6: Repurpose Your Commute
As none of us at Integrity live in the office we have all found ourselves with some extra time as we are no longer commuting to the office. This ranges from 40 minutes to a couple of hours. This time can be used for more useful things than getting out of bed later. With this time we have been exercising, baking Bakewell tarts (we are all sad that Yasmine can’t share it with us) and even getting in a second spice girls song while in the shower. On a more serious suggestion, some of us have also been starting work in our commute time to make it easier to juggle child care by taking longer breaks during the working day.
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We hope this gave you some slight relief during this challenging time and just remember to be safe, be kind and most importantly be happy!
