Lessons from 2020 (Home Office)
By: Felix Geilert
Tags: Reflections, 2020, Learning, Home Office, Productivity

What a hell of a year, in the most literal sense of the word! I guess (almost) nobody expected at the beginning of the year how it would turn out, and all the challenges that all of us would have to face. And I guess most of us are looking forward to 2021 to reboot and leave all of this behind.

But let us stop here for a second. Take a minute to reflect. The challenges we faced forced us to find solutions to new problems and we have grown along the way. In these articles I want to take the time and reflect on what I have learned in the past year, and why it might be interesting for you as well. And, who knows, maybe reflecting on what we have achieved will also bring a bit of positivity back into this year. I certainly hope it will inspire others to share their reflection of 2020, and I am open (and thankful) for any feedback!

This series is split into multiple articles:

Lessons from the Home Office

2020 has been a year of sacrifices, but it has also been a year of new possibilities. A year that forced us to adapt to a new normality and explore new possibilities. During my time in home office I have tapped into many pitfalls, but in this article I want to share what I learned along the way and how I found my way back to productivity.

In January of this year I started a new job at Microsoft (more on that in my article “Lessons from the corporate world”) and I felt utter excitement when I stepped into the office on my first day. Little did I know that I would only see my co-workers in person for two month and would then spend more time at home than in the office. (And many people that have onboarded since then have had an even harder start, needing to do it fully remotely).

The Foundations

After the first few weeks in home office I felt a little fatigued. While I was productive and actually completed more tasks than before, I somehow felt tired. And as I thought about the problem, one of the reasons became obvious. The line between work and private life began to blur. With my laptop always open on my desk, there was nothing holding me back to stop by after dinner to just quickly check my emails again and … oh, yeah I can answer that shortly. And just like that, another 30 minutes of email writing ensued.

Overall, this is nothing new. And doing it once in a while (e.g. before an important deadline) doesn’t do incredible harm. But I quickly found myself doing it every evening. And also in the morning. Where you would normally start your day slowly, getting dressed, making a coffee and be off on your way to work, I now just sit down at my desk. There is no barrier anymore, you can just standup walk to your laptop and get started.

To make it short, there were no anchor points in my day, and without that I had no rhythm.

A Fresh Start

What I needed was a way to recreate my rhythm that would anchor me in the day and tell my brain when to focus. Without such a reference point (or boundary if you prefer that term) your brain will try to focus all the time, hence the fatigue. There are many ways to solve this problem, such as a morning run, changing to work cloth, making coffee, etc. And I do most of them know and then. But the morning routine I stuck with is quite simple. Meditation. I am certainly no expert (for that I use an app) but I found it helps to clear my mind and set my priorities straight for the day. After 20–30 minutes of meditation in the morning my mind is ready to get started on the work ahead.

Ending the day right can be more challenging and I still struggle with that. Planning your day out in advance (e.g. through the method described by Cal Newport in Deep Work) certainly helps to limit your time investments in the evening. Creating a hard stop timer can also be helpful (but is not always applicable, esp. if you have late meetings). Another way is to have an evening routine that will double as a wind down exercise, e.g. cooking dinner or reading. This will create a clear separation between work and free-time. For me it also helps to take occasional breaks (10–15 minutes, enough for a coffee) to recharge and keep your peak performance.

Take care of yourself

However, even with a clear rhythm, I still felt like being hit by a tranquilizer dart every now and then. Usually I try to reach every location by foot. However, having nowhere to go, the lack of movement has clearly taken its toll.

This is quite easy to fix. Occasional walks or exercise will do the trick. I ended up with a regime, where I would go running every second morning and would do a short workout (around 30min) every other day. Another important aspect is to pay attention to nutrition, but that is a very broad topic and I won’t go into details here. Let me just share a quote from Michael Pollan that sums it up:

“Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly Plants.”

Keep yourself Fresh

Besides the lack of physical movement, mental and social movement is also restrained (at least that was the case for me). Let me explain. Under normal circumstances, I thrive on mental exchange and feedback. But most of this comes from random interactions (e.g. a chat in the company kitchen on the recent presentation). With everyone being at home, having a clear work agenda, these random interactions are limited.

Such limitations are a lot harder to work-around. If you have great colleagues you might end up with a regular social chat in the morning or with random coffee breaks. But you can also ping people for an explicit 1:1 chat or use tools to simulate random encounters. I am by no means an expert here and there is certainly not one right way to solve this problem. (That is to say I would be happy to hear how you tackled this problem!).

Take-Home Points

Create a clear rhythms

Find ways to separate personal life from work life

Don’t forget to take care of yourself (good food, enough movement)

Take breaks to recharge your energy

Make sure to block time for socializing

I hope this might start a discussion, I am certainly eager to learn about other techniques and how to improve the #HomeOfficeLife.