WFH : Working From Home

As the #Coronavirus epidemic spreads and the WHO is of the view that a #Pandemic is now quite a real possibility, a lot of places are going into lockdown mode. A lot of events are cancelled. A lot of offices are asking their staff to work from home. ( You can go over my coverage at https://vibhurishi.pythonanywhere.com/CoronaVirus/ )

Here are some tips and tricks that I have picked up over the last few years to work from home:

1. Most important : Designate a place for your work. 
• Allocate a room as your work room. If you have an extra room ( e.g. a study room, guest room, etc. ) make that your work room. 
• Allocate a desk for your work. You may be tempted to just lounge on your bed or the sofa, but that's now how you get work done. If you have a computer table - use that. If you have a dinging table - use that. Have a proper desk and chair setup. 
2. Stick to a routine :
• Make sure you get up at the same time every day of the weekday. 
• Make sure you take a bath every day as is normal if you were going to the office. 
• Make sure you have lunch at the sametime every day. 
• If you get home cooked food - its awesome. 
• If not, order or get a tiffin. Or learn to cook. 
• If you find out that your meal time is getting erratic, put in a calendar event which blocks the lunchtime for you. Not only will you get a notification to have lunch, but also it will block your calendar so that people don't inadvertently put in meetings during that time. 
3. Upgrade your broadband
• Working for home is really easy in this connected world. However, the tools of your trade now covers being connected. I see many people crib about working from home and they use their mobile to tether for broadband. Bad move. Get a dedicated broadband. You are anyways saving a lot on petrol and diesel. 
• Check your office policies - in most cases you can get reimbursement for your broadband and phone bills. Utilize it. 
4. Ergonomics
• Stretch: Its easy to be sitting for long stretches working on your laptop. You need to get up every hour and stretch. Set a timer for the hour. Get up , drink water, stretch. Get back and work. 
• Get a monitor: Laptops are very bad for ergonomics. You will get neck strain by tilting your head down for long stretches of time. Get a monitor and hook it to your laptop. I recommend a 24" Monitor with a matte (non glossy) screen and atleast 1080p resolution. If your laptop supports it, go for a 4k monitor. 
• Get a good keyboard and mouse: The laptops keboard is cramped. It will put strain on your shoulders. Get a good keyboard and mouse - or at the very least a mouse. I recommend gaming keyboards and mouse e.g. the ones from Logitech. 
5. Take calls while walking : 
• This is a life hack I have found to be quite useful. Walk and talk. It gets your out of the chair and also makes you focus more on the call rather than whats on your screen. 
6. Talk to your family about work from home.
• One of the biggest complaints that people have is that they get distracted by their kids and family a lot. This is why I recommend a separate work space. However, if you do not have that luxury, you will be making use of the common area. In whichever case, you have to have a talk with your kids and family that this is your work time, and if possible, they should not make too much noise during that time. 

I have found that WFH has been a great facility I have availed. It saves me around 3 hours in a day for traveling, parking etc. I end up finishing my work faster also as there is less chit-chat happening. 

Hope these tips help you in setting up your WFH scenarios.