Photo by Avi Richards on Unsplash

The pandemic changed how we work…forever. No longer are we tied to a location to do our work. Except for those whose work involves labour, or those that provide a service to the community (healthcare, hospitality, etc.), the rest of us are free to work from a cabin in the woods, a caravan by the beach or just about anywhere we want that has a good internet connection and phone reception. But just because we can, should we?

The answer is an emphatic…NO. The reality is that you’re not ready to work remotely. Two years post-pandemic you would assume that people would’ve worked this out. But I see the opposite. It has been forced upon the majority who have no idea what it is, they’ve not been shown what to do or how to do it properly.

I have been working remotely (ie. from home) for the last 15 years. So did the pandemic change anything for me? Absolutely! For the first time in 15 years I had a full house of people in my workplace. How would you be if your family showed up to your workplace at 10am, strolled around in the background loudly, while you were in meetings? Exactly!

When I first started working from home, I told myself that I needed to treat it as if I was going into an office. That meant keeping up with my morning workday routine. If I didn’t get into the work mindset, I would fail.

Every morning I would take a shower, make myself a coffee and sit at my desk to start the day. This had to be in a separate room — not my bedroom. Why does that matter? You need to have the separation of moving through environments for the different parts of your day. You need to maintain a work routine. You did your work in the “office”. When lunchtime came around, you go to the kitchen, make yourself a sandwich and eat it in the kitchen or outside. Do not sit at your desk and eat. I did that all too often. You need the separation.

The other critical mindset shift for me was that I had to have others in the house understand that just because I was working from home it didn’t mean I was at home. That meant no supermarket runs at 10am because we ran out of milk, no errands at 3pm because the post office would be quieter. I was at work! The activities could wait until my lunch break or after work.

I knew that if I didn’t treat working from home like going into an office, I wouldn’t give it the respect it deserved. I had a job to do. My work location was irrelevant.

Over the years many people would comment how lucky I was to work from home. How convenient it was. Sure, I could see that. However, my reply was always the same — “I challenge you to do it for 6 months and then come and talk to me.” If you didn’t work from home, you had no idea what it involved. If you are not disciplined, you will fail. People are simply not ready to work remotely.

In the early days I was a systems engineer and managed my own work. I would support customers remotely, complete upgrades remotely and even stay up for 36hrs straight trying to recover from a failed upgrade. I would have my US colleagues logged into my remote session and on the phone with me for 15hrs until we recovered the system ready for the customer to begin their day at 8am on a Monday. All remotely.

I’ve seen first hand and heard how people today roll out of bed and onto their desk chair at the foot of the bed, to start working. No separation. They don’t even bother to get out of their pyjamas. No routine. I even know of people who log onto their laptops while still in bed! This is doomed to fail.

Just because we have Zoom, Google Meet or Teams does not mean anyone can simply work remotely. It’s not the tools that make this work, it’s the mindset. And if you don’t adopt the mindset, you can never adapt to remote working. This, I can promise you.

I eventually became a project manager and managed all my projects remotely. Team calls, customer calls, go lives…all remote. But my mindset was the same as it was in my engineering days. As it is today, as a manager of a national service team of 25 people. Remotely.

The thinking behind how people can and should work has shifted greatly due to the pandemic. Businesses were forced to adapt quickly…irrespective of whether they wanted to. This was a new world, a new challenge. But it proved that business can continue and grow with remote workers. Being in the same building, in the same office, was no longer a requirement to getting work done.

The idea of working from home was a dream for many over the last 20 years. The idea of the freedom it would bring. Even just prior to the pandemic, remote work was for the “lucky” minority. Today, it is commonplace. But there is nothing lucky about it. You must treat it as though your work location of choice is the office you are going into, you must adopt the mindset, you must continue the work routines, you must have the discipline. Unfortunately, many people still fail on multiple counts. Eventually, this will catch up with them.

Unless you treat working remotely with the same mindset as though you were still in an office with colleagues, you’re not ready to work remotely.

Photo by Avi Richards on Unsplash

The pandemic changed how we work…forever. No longer are we tied to a location to do our work. Except for those whose work involves labour, or those that provide a service to the community (healthcare, hospitality, etc.), the rest of us are free to work from a cabin in the woods, a caravan by the beach or just about anywhere we want that has a good internet connection and phone reception. But just because we can, should we?

The answer is an emphatic…NO. The reality is that you’re not ready to work remotely. Two years post-pandemic you would assume that people would’ve worked this out. But I see the opposite. It has been forced upon the majority who have no idea what it is, they’ve not been shown what to do or how to do it properly.

I have been working remotely (ie. from home) for the last 15 years. So did the pandemic change anything for me? Absolutely! For the first time in 15 years I had a full house of people in my workplace. How would you be if your family showed up to your workplace at 10am, strolled around in the background loudly, while you were in meetings? Exactly!

When I first started working from home, I told myself that I needed to treat it as if I was going into an office. That meant keeping up with my morning workday routine. If I didn’t get into the work mindset, I would fail.

Every morning I would take a shower, make myself a coffee and sit at my desk to start the day. This had to be in a separate room — not my bedroom. Why does that matter? You need to have the separation of moving through environments for the different parts of your day. You need to maintain a work routine. You did your work in the “office”. When lunchtime came around, you go to the kitchen, make yourself a sandwich and eat it in the kitchen or outside. Do not sit at your desk and eat. I did that all too often. You need the separation.

The other critical mindset shift for me was that I had to have others in the house understand that just because I was working from home it didn’t mean I was at home. That meant no supermarket runs at 10am because we ran out of milk, no errands at 3pm because the post office would be quieter. I was at work! The activities could wait until my lunch break or after work.

I knew that if I didn’t treat working from home like going into an office, I wouldn’t give it the respect it deserved. I had a job to do. My work location was irrelevant.

Over the years many people would comment how lucky I was to work from home. How convenient it was. Sure, I could see that. However, my reply was always the same — “I challenge you to do it for 6 months and then come and talk to me.” If you didn’t work from home, you had no idea what it involved. If you are not disciplined, you will fail. People are simply not ready to work remotely.

In the early days I was a systems engineer and managed my own work. I would support customers remotely, complete upgrades remotely and even stay up for 36hrs straight trying to recover from a failed upgrade. I would have my US colleagues logged into my remote session and on the phone with me for 15hrs until we recovered the system ready for the customer to begin their day at 8am on a Monday. All remotely.

I’ve seen first hand and heard how people today roll out of bed and onto their desk chair at the foot of the bed, to start working. No separation. They don’t even bother to get out of their pyjamas. No routine. I even know of people who log onto their laptops while still in bed! This is doomed to fail.

Just because we have Zoom, Google Meet or Teams does not mean anyone can simply work remotely. It’s not the tools that make this work, it’s the mindset. And if you don’t adopt the mindset, you can never adapt to remote working. This, I can promise you.

I eventually became a project manager and managed all my projects remotely. Team calls, customer calls, go lives…all remote. But my mindset was the same as it was in my engineering days. As it is today, as a manager of a national service team of 25 people. Remotely.

The thinking behind how people can and should work has shifted greatly due to the pandemic. Businesses were forced to adapt quickly…irrespective of whether they wanted to. This was a new world, a new challenge. But it proved that business can continue and grow with remote workers. Being in the same building, in the same office, was no longer a requirement to getting work done.

The idea of working from home was a dream for many over the last 20 years. The idea of the freedom it would bring. Even just prior to the pandemic, remote work was for the “lucky” minority. Today, it is commonplace. But there is nothing lucky about it. You must treat it as though your work location of choice is the office you are going into, you must adopt the mindset, you must continue the work routines, you must have the discipline. Unfortunately, many people still fail on multiple counts. Eventually, this will catch up with them.

Unless you treat working remotely with the same mindset as though you were still in an office with colleagues, you’re not ready to work remotely.