Thursday 14 May 2020
Our office buildings are reopening on June 1st, but only for business-critical meetings and employees who are struggling psychologically with working from home. I have to say, even though nothing changes for the majority of the company, this was sooner than I expected. Still, working from home remains the norm, and even if the client chooses to work from offices again I would need approval from my employer to go to the client site.
Friday 15 May 2020
I have been benched since Week 4 of working from home, and at the end of that week I commented that I got an insane amount of internal stuff done. Reflecting on the past several weeks, I realize that my increased productivity is a direct result of decreased distractions. At the office, it’s hard to do focused work for more than an hour on end because people interrupt you all the time, whether it’s just saying hi, or asking something, or inviting you to play a fussball match. Admittedly, I enjoy all of the above and I welcome the distraction and interaction.
Of course it’s always possible to shut yourself off from your environment, even at the office, but if I’m being honest I wouldn’t do that, for several reasons:
My main reason for going to the office is to be able to quickly connect with my team or stakeholders, and to be available for them. Shutting myself off would defeat the purpose.
I’d be afraid to miss out on interesting conversations. Classic FOMO.
I’ve always had a proper desk and chair at home, so if I really need to make a deadline (that doesn’t require much discussion) I could just go off the radar by staying home. Sometimes I applied a hybrid approach by going into the office for meetings and to connect with colleagues, and going home after lunch to do some distraction-free work (or the other way around). This worked well.
Now that we are all working from home, FOMO is no longer an issue, and the third reason solved itself. The first reason is a bit hard to navigate. I still want to be available for my colleagues, but I also notice a huge jump in quality of my work when I’m not interrupted. It’s a nice challenge to find the sweet spot between being responsive and being productive.
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