Work from home / remote

For starters, I work fully remote from home and only occasionally travel to our company HQ for special team meetings.

1. How do you manage, if you are in this situation, private life vs work? I have a dedicated office just for myself where I have my work setup and I try to minimize having anything else distracting in there that is not work-related.
2. What are your "secret-tricks" for managing everything ? Not sure if I have many, it's a struggle a lot of the times and it can be hard to navigate, but a good disctinction between life at home and life at work is a good way to start.
3. Do you use digital tools? None, other then some for work, but they are not work-life balance related.
4. How do you organize the workspace? I only organize my work stuff - meaning my browser tabs, windows on my computer and emails and tasks. Otherwise, I keep a pretty clean setup for myself and do not like clutter.
5. Anything that can enrich the conversation is welcome! I like to listen to music while I work, it really helps me focus - not sure if anyone else likes to do that as well or if it helps them focus.

I usually go to the office three days a week since it’s just a 15-minute drive from home. On the other two days, I work from home. Being in the office helps with team collaboration and getting things done face-to-face. When I’m working from home, I use tools like Asana and Google Suite to stay organized, and I make sure to have a dedicated workspace to separate work from my personal life. I also rely on a to-do list to keep everything in check and make sure I stay on top of both work and personal tasks.

(1) I am lucky as I only have to be in the office once a week (usually Wednesday or Thursday).  My busiest days are Monday and Tuesday where I have back to back meetings. I find that it's easier to conduct these over Microsoft Teams and Zoom when I am at home.  They involve a lot of concentration, which is easier to maintain at home, and that's why I always work from home on Monday and Tuesday.

(2) I ensure that I plan everything the night before and also continue this planning, scheduling and execution throughout the day after.  I can modifications when necessary.

(3) Yes, I use a number of digital collaborative tools such as Microsoft Teams, Xoom, Cisco Webex, Slack and GoTo Meetings.

(4) I have a home study room, so I do all my work there.  It is a well lit, well ventilated and warm room.  I have a large riser desk, comfortable/adjustable and ergonomic seat, printer, scanner etc.  I have enough shelf space for books and giles and also a whiteboard for purring up notes and reminders.

(5) I am always open to changing my work routines. While I work I like to listen to talk radio (LBC & Radio 5) or sports radio (talksport) here in the UK. Occasionally I like to listen to easy listening and calming music in the background to ensure I am relaxed and that tension and stress are reduced.

Also,  I'm currently reading Cal Newport's 'Deep Work' and 'Atomic Habits' by James Clear to improve my ways of working.

Haha you knew I would have thoughts here and you were correct!

I have been working home since 2012 and am a massive believer in it. The 9-5 cubicle style of work is pretty awful in basically every way imaginable. It requires limiting where you can live to be in close proximity to your office, and an unpleasant rush hour commute twice a day. It also requires the company to pay for expensive real estate and upkeep of the actual office space. When you are walking through major cities, just imagine what these corporations are paying for 10-20 floors of a high rise in San Francisco, New York, Tokyo, London, etc.

The anti-WFH argument is that people are less productive and have a tendency to work less. I blame those instances more on not having strong systems in place to keep maintain accountability. And it always makes me laugh when people bring this up, without accounting for the people who spend half their day at the office chatting with people and browsing the internet at their desk. There's plenty of inefficiency in the workforce, regardless of 'where' the work is done.

How do you manage, if you are in this situation, private life vs work? 

I have a to-do list every day with two columns. One is what I have to do for work, the other is non-work. I hold myself accountable to cross of everything listed in both columns. It doesn't really matter what order I do it in, as long as everything is done.

What are your "secret-tricks" for managing everything

I think it mostly boils down to operating like you are the CEO of your own business. I like to treat every task as if the company will collapse if I don't do it. And when things are hard, I ask myself, "are you going to let this difficulty be the thing that causes you to fail?" I know how to motivate myself in that way :)

Do you use digital tools?

I like Asana and the Google Suite, but I think all of the productivity tools are really a matter of personal preference, rather than "X, Y or Z product" being better than the others.

How do you organize the workspace?

I'm not sure if this is what you're asking, but I have had double monitors ever since my time working in video editing and motion graphics, and I don't think I could ever go back to a single monitor world. (I used to have 3 when I used a PC instead of a Mac!)

I really try to minimize the number of tabs I have open, but I admit I have been a bit more tab heavy than I'd like lately. I'd like to keep it in the 3-8 range, but I've been living in the 10-15 world a lot this year. In my mind, more tabs = less focus and more switching between a lot of tasks, which I find to be less productive.

Anything that can enrich the conversation is welcome!

I think the perfect world is WFH, with travel to be with colleagues for various things maybe 2-8 times a year. This makes getting together with your team special and meaningful, and companies can spend all the money they save on office space toward employee travel instead.

@Brett i'm curios about your reply! I know this is your area!

anytime that I work from home, I basically treat it as a office work day. I follow the same morning reoutine, dress as I would for the office, except for the shoes, and let everyone know that I am at work. normally there is not much noise and distraction in the house, but if my granddaughter comes by, I will take a few more breaks to allow some time with her and then work longer. I find that I get more accomplished at home, without all the office distractions.