My personal experience with working from home during COVID-19
I recently published an article about what we have learned by working from home. That one was more general, about how companies and people cope with the situation. This one is about my personal experience.
I started gradually transitioning into working from home in early March and made the shift to working from home permanently a few weeks later. It’s been about 6 weeks for me now and here is what I learned.
I was actually one of the big supporters of working from home and asked my manager over three years ago if I could work from home at least one day a week. Usually, I am working in an open office with roughly 350 people. Phones are constantly ringing, people are talking and people come to talk to me. That’s great and I love the buzz it creates at times. However, in order to actually focus and get stuff done, a day of working from home is definitely better.
Easier said than done!
Working from home in the beginning was weird for my family and me. Usually I’d leave the house right after 6 am, before or right when they get up. Depending on when I finish work, there are many days during the week where I don’t see my daughter. Usually I just eat, shower, catch up on private stuff and sleep – repeat 5 times until the weekend. Now that is different. I am home all day.
Initially I had my daughter run into my office, interrupt during video calls or my wife asked me to help out around the house. Now with our daughter at home constantly, it’s been a huge burden for my wife as well, so it’s understandable. Luckily, after a couple of days to a week we found our rhythm.
What I do struggle with still though is switching off after work. After a long day at the office, sitting or usually standing on the train for an hour is not pleasant but it’s a good way to get my mind of work. The greater the physical distance to the office, the more I was able to switch off. That is definitely more challenging now without the commute.
What I love about it
Usually I would sleep by 10:30 pm and wake up at 5:30 am. Now I go to bed around 11 pm and get up at 7 am. That extra hour really makes a difference but I also feel it’s less the sleep duration and more the time I get up. Getting up at 5:30 am is never pleasant regardless of how much sleep I got.
Also, now that I save about 2 to 2.5 hours a day commuting to work and back home, I am able to spend a lot more time with my family and watch my daughter grow. This has been great and even now during Golden Week (more of gaman week this year) has been a huge pleasure. Spending so much time with everyone at home is not always easy but I am lucky as I have my own office I can go to whenever I need some time for myself.
I have to say I am really blessed. In my case, I have my own home office with a proper work station set up and proper office chair. I understand a lot of people do not have that luxury. In addition to that, my wife is dedicating her time to our family now and making sure that we have delicious and healthy meals on the table multiple times each day. All I have to do is occasionally go grocery shopping and then show up at 12 pm or after 6 pm for an amazing dish. Again, a luxury not everyone can enjoy and I feel truly blessed that I can.
Why I am looking forward to going back to a new normal
Just like everyone, I’m way less active than before. I usually go to the gym 5 days a week and get a workout in before work. My daily “active” calories are usually around 1000kcal. However, that has dropped to an average of 644kcal.
The same is also true for the numbers of steps I take in a day. While I used to walk around 10,000 steps a day, I’m now down to around 5 to 6,000. And to be honest, I’m even surprised it’s that many.
Lastly, doing some like workouts at home is fine but it’s just not the same as lifting, pushing or pulling heavy metal at the gym. I do really miss it as it is my true “me time” – time to think, to reflect and compete with myself.
Apart from my personal activity and health, I simply miss meeting people face to face. Interactions at the office, water cooler conversations and the chats before and after meetings.
My routine
So what does my day actually look like these days? Here is my daily routine:
- get up at 7 am (instead of 5:30 am)
- do a 20-30 min workout consisting of stretches, yoga and some body weight exercises + resistance band
- family breakfast from 8 to 8:30 am
- getting ready and work until 12 pm (give or take depending on the day’s schedule)
- family lunch
- quick walk around the block for about 15 minutes
- work again until about 3 to 4 pm, coffee break
- wrap up work around 6 to 6:30 pm
- family dinner
What really helped me coping with the situation is implementing the right habits and systems.
Every hour I get up from my desk and do a few push ups, squats, lounges and jumping jacks. Not many but at least a few to get the blood flowing.
Daily stretches real help me especially around the lower back and hips which tend to get stiff from sitting all day. Even just a few minutes in the morning or after shower are working wonders for me.
What I hope the new normal will be
It’s still hard to predict when we will go back to business as usual. What we can predict though is that we won’t go back to what we were used to. I don’t see myself working from home 5 days a week but see a lot of value in having one or two days a week that I can work from home. That will allow me to spend more time with my family and also have some time to focus to work on strategic tasks without disruption.
On top of that, I hope that companies will be more open to online meetings too as it is a lot more efficient and time saving. For new clients I still prefer meeting them face to face and engage either at their office or over lunch or coffee. However, for clients I already have a relationship with, I see online meetings as a useful tool.
Lastly, I really hope that this pandemic gave companies enough reason to review their current processes and move to digital as much as possible. We’ve heard a lot about how business in Japan struggle with their paper based processes and their hanko culture. Let’s hope this pandemic was enough of a wake up call.