A 2 months remote work experience

March 2020 marked by many measures taken by the majority of countries in the five continents following covid-19. My company who already allowed their employees to work from home occasionally, Now they are obliged to continue working remotely for an undetermined time.

Despite many advantages remote work bring, there are some inconveniences to manage for good productivity and effective work.

Setup my home desk

As I'm working from home, I've never though about setting up any similar environment like the one at the office, I've just being lying on the couch the whole workday or sometime I change my position a trifle. Two weeks later I observed that my concentration and productivity is going down more and more, I tough having some tiredness, After exchanging with a colleague, He reveal its secret for keeping energy and effectiveness, I was surprised while hearing that setting up a similar work desk at home may highly help. I decided to take into consideration this point, Now I confirm how this changed my home working routine.

I'am 100% convinced that setting up a convenient desk at home can considerably help with commitment, concentration and effectiveness while working from home ☺️

We don't all have an isolated room!

Unfortunately living in Paris or any big city around the world has its disadvantage when it comes to spacious lodgement. For the parents with their children at home, for the friends sharing the same room, dealing with this limitation is a key point for relaxed home working without impacting our collaboration and performance. From my point of view, we can manage this issue by rotating our work hours and companies should tolerate this option letting parents working while their children are sleeping. Overall having a private room stay the best option for enhancing what has been mentioned about setting a home desk.

Effective communication

In the field of software engineering, Often discussing new technologies, good practice or some technical decision brainstorming may be held while we are sharing a coffee with team-mates in the cafeteria, or around a table in a meeting room, that means we have a face to face communication, In my case, I do love this way as it brings to me a smooth and flexible tools using my body language to explain and talk about a topic. Unfortunately while working from home this manner is no longer afford the same way we do at the office. But thanks to recent video-conference platforms we can continue relying on our communication habits taking into consideration some rules for en effective exchanging, follow the ones I’m using:

• Turning my camera on during the meetings.
• Wearing my usual clothes like in the office.
• Using a virtual whiteboard instead of the real one to explain, share and design my ideas.
• Turning my micro off when I'm not the speaker.
• Summarizing your notes and sharing them with colleagues.
• Video calls or chat over emails
• Most important is to setup the rules with your team and colleagues to avoid disturbing each other.

Do not forget ourselves!

I noticed during the first weeks of my home working that I did not take rest and breaks regularly. So I used to schedule meeting right away, sometimes at lunch time, sometimes I chain them without any pause. Few time later I recognize a lack of concentration and it becomes very disturbing to see calls and meetings notification showing up. The conclusion is working remotely does not mean working continuously and do it so may substantially impact our physical and mental health, the reason why I decided to schedule my rest and breaks during the work day and stay away from work during these time slots.

While working from home, never forget to take rest and breaks during a workday as it protects us from health risks and mental disturbance.

So far so good

Being armed with the right tools and techniques helped me keeping a good mood with my team-mates, enhancing my productivity and enjoying my workday from home.

Wherever we are, let's do our job with love and passion.