Working from home is hard work
Working from home is no joke. Sure, it sounds easy. We’ve all done it that day we had a delivery during a helpful 8 hour time slot or when one of the kids was home sick. But this, working from home every day, all day for an indefinite period of time is different. I thought I’d share some routines and life hacks I’ve established that make it easier.
Every morning, I “walk to the office” by taking a brisk walk around the block — getting some daylight, fresh air and mentally leaving home. Since the whole family is now at home too, I’ve taken to hanging my Nordnet ID card around my neck to signify when I’m “in the office”. Otherwise it’s hard for them to know if I’m available to talk. I seem to always be coming on or off a conference call…
To help create that “at work” feeling, I make sure I wear my trademark blazer, blue shirt and jeans although I’ve traded the Reebok vintage sneaks for Birkenstock (shhh don’t tell anyone I wear Birkenstocks). This way I’m more inclined to turn on the camera in Skype or Slack — and we all need that social contact. With some colleagues, we even make each other stand up to make sure no-one’s wearing boxers or pyjama bottoms! 😁
To not work from bed or my couch, I’ve set up a makeshift home office in a corner of the TV room, with an old IKEA table the kids used for Legos, my Macbook from work and a second-hand Apple screen I just bought online. After some tinkering, I even got my iPad to work as a “sidecar” extra screen to keep an eye on my colleague @NordnetAxel’s awesome Twitter feed. Result!
At lunch I take off the ID lanyard and fix a quick meal so I have time to go for a longer walk or do some Yoga with Adriene to loosen up the shoulders (pro tip: stretch jeans mean I don’t have to change). I try to hit 10,000 steps a day even though I’m essentially stuck in a chair all day.
My product owners and I started off the week holding a daily stand-up Slack call everyday after the dev teams’ stand-ups, but we just ditched that in favour of a round-up call at 17:35 after the Nordic markets close. It’s obvious we all miss hanging out together as that call usually stretches on a bit, with everyone sharing what happened that day and what we’ll focus on tomorrow.
I do think it’s especially important to try to retain that social contact and camaraderie even though we only see each other over Zoom. I knew I’d miss my team — but not this much or this soon. Video calling rather than just chatting over Slack helps alleviate that.
Speaking of which, last Friday our Swedish Country Manager Martin Ringberg had the fantastic idea to have a virtual afterwork drink with colleagues. It was a bit cringe at first but we got into it pretty quickly and had a great time, sipping our drinks and joshing around.
In all, I’m very proud of the way everyone at Nordnet has come together to work through this crisis and keep our platform up and running for our customers. We have a real “can-do” attitude and I love that!
Do you have any tips on how to make working from home more fun or more productive? Leave ’em in the comments below. Oh, and mash that like button!
