Surviving Working from Home

I have been working from home for years.  I find it to be super rewarding and because of my work ethic, I do not have an issue with being productive.  On the contrary, I am more productive at home than in any office.  Probably because my family is used to seeing me, they are not involved with InfoSec at all and therefore don’t come to me consistently with “do you have 10 minutes?”, which is code word for 30 minutes.  Here are some of the things I do.

1. Get dressed.  Do not do work from home in your pajamas or even worse in your birthday suit.  You need to mentally and physically know that you are working.  Now do not get dressed in a three-piece suit but definitely change out of the clothes you were wearing to bed.
2. Routine, routine, routine.  I set a schedule to go out an walk around my lake (3.5 miles).  I do this with my AirPods and an audio book or Blinkist and disconnect.
3. Do not look at Social Media until you deliberately do so.  I know that sounds stupid, but the way I do it is that I set aside 30 minutes every 2 hours to check my various social media accounts.
4. Music.  I listen to music all the time.  I mostly have it very low but it plays in the background as I am working.  It is like white noise. I have created my playlist and it suites me well. (Don’t judge my music 😀)
5. Pets.  If your pet can behave during a conference call, bring them in with you.  My dog Ginger is super well behaved and she hangs with me all day.
6. Take breaks.  I use an app called “Stand Up” that tracks you and tell you to stand up.  The Apple Watch also has something but I’ve been using this app for a while.
7. Email – I have multiple email accounts, actually 11 of them.  When I am working, I ONLY show the work account.  I do not want to get distracted with other emails.
8. If possible, set a stop time and set an alarm for it.  This one is easier said than done for me.
9. Get a good task manager or two in my case.  When you sit down at your desk in the AM, update your to do’s.  Read your emails and modify the ToDo’s as needed.  I force myself to finish 90% minimum of my ToDo’s before I call it a night.  Right after lunch, go through the list again and update as needed.  Move things to the following day if necessary.  I use OmniFocus and Trello.