Hey everyone,
Josh, here. First, I hope you and your family are well and taking care of yourselves. It's an interesting time we live in, isn't it?
Last Thursday, I started working from home to "flatten the curve" but also with the thinking that if I'm at home, it limits someone (who is not my kid) coughing or sneezing on me. And as someone who worked from home for many years, I had a momentary thought that it'd be easy. I'd just sit at the kitchen table, throw on some music, and do some writing. But then that moment ended and the next one began with my kids asking why am I still home.
So I ensconced myself in my bedroom, created a makeshift office on my bed and started to work. Kinda. I had a hard time getting the engines going, and thankfully, my colleague Mary Emily O'Hara laid out a good plan on how to work from home. One piece of advice that hit came from the senior director of PR at FlexJobs, Kathy Gardner, who said:
“Explain to [your kids] that when you’re ‘at work’ at home, they shouldn’t interrupt you. You might even print out green light and red light photos to make a sign to hang on your computer, so they know when you need to be left alone. Even small kids can understand that red means stop.”
As a newsroom, we are on Slack all the time. But sometimes, a more personal touch is required—as much as I know my team loves to hear the dulcet tones of my voice. Funny how it's taken self-quarantine to actually use the phone function of my cell phone. And as the days turn to weeks (and hopefully not months), we'll be moving over to video conferences. That way I can see when they're rolling their eyes at me.
With folks trying Zoom, as the app has spiked up in the App Store since the start of societal sequestering, I may as well, too. But we can also use Slack, Google Hangouts or FaceTime. For more videoconferencing tools, check out Shelly Palmer, who has a great blog post explaining the different video apps his team uses.
But as the industry (and the world) adjusts to the new normal, the impact of working from home won't be known for a while, Adweek's Robert Klara reported last week, talking to Anat Lechner, professor of business management at New York University’s Stern School of Business:
“There are quite a few people who have never worked from home and are not accustomed to doing so, so there has to be a bit of a learning period,” Lechner said. “The learning curve takes time—and we won’t have time to learn.”
Have tips for working at home and staving off the fam? Have good tools to get you in the office mindset as you sit at your kitchen table? Drop me a line.
Also, if you have any tips, or want to talk about how your company is navigating the coronavirus (for good or bad), email me.
Until next week. Be well. Be safe. Be smart. Stay home.
Josh Sternberg
Media and Tech Editor, Adweek
