How To Work from Home: A Freelancer’s Tips and Tricks for Gainful, Sane Employment
I’ll admit, I started this piece on Thursday. Now it’s Monday, and the world has shifted significantly. The tone of this piece was certainly pluckier, and while that’s still the case, I need to acknowledge the shift.
As an independent artist, I’ve worked from home for eight years. I’ve danced jubilantly in my underwear and pathetically wept into a pint of ice cream under a blanket countless times in the privacy of my home. Therefore I can confidently say remote work, especially in one’s residence, is not for everyone. Working from home feels like being single; we dream about the freedom to do what we want, when we want. But freedom without parameters is crippling. What nobody admits is this: working from home is a mind game, a me vs. me battle, in the words of Biz Markie.
The global circumstances will amplify this dissonance even further. And we can manage. In response to how rapidly things are changing, I’m going to strip down this list to bare basics.
If you are new to the working from home culture, this will feel immensely jarring. Yet this can become a beautiful way to live. Any change in environment can rewire the brain. Even if this was forced upon you, as unsettling as the circumstances may be, it is an opportunity. I’ve already made a TL;DR list on twitter but would love to expand on a handful of helpful practices to make the most of your time out of office.
Feel the Change
This is a huge shift, whether you find yourself on the introverted or extroverted side of the spectrum. Suddenly there’s more time to sleep because your commute is a couple shuffles away from where you sleep. There is no designated time to eat, and if you’re used to provided lunches, you must now provide for yourself. Where you found yourself silently willing everyone to stop interrupting you, nobody is over your shoulder.
For the record, this is A Lot™. Any shift in dynamic is enough to cause misanthropy or depression. I urge you to let yourself feel this change. I cried for two weeks when I started working for myself. It’s very possible your home is not situated for work and play. This will affect some of your productivity on personal and professional levels. Reminder that everyone is feeling a different kind of strain: being single with no close family is a different panic than having three kids and two animals practically on top of you, but regardless quarantine can make us all feel smaller.
In light of the pandemic, it’s important to note your body will react to this news in a myriad of ways. You might be sleeping weird hours, feel drained, feel jittery. You may want to throw yourself into work, or you might need some time to process and chill. You might be glued to Twitter for up-to-the-second news, or throw yourself into Instagram for a break from reality. All of these responses are normal. Remember you’re not broken, you’re adapting. Your brain is working overtime to make sense of these changes, and it will evolve more quickly with a little self kindness.
Reframe Productivity
As a big picture thinker and future planner, any impediments to a smooth future can be unsettling. I was going batshit crazy with limitations out the window. Even with nobody over my shoulder, I was glued to my desk nine hours a day for the first month. I was behaving as though I still worked for someone else, like office culture still applied. This is when I realized working from home is about winning the day. My window to the future shrank from three months to three weeks, tapering to approximately two days. And this brought immense comfort. I began reassessing what productive behavior could be. How much time is spent on social media, walking around, leaning against the water cooler like a cartoon when a physical location requires your ass in a seat? Unsurprisingly, we waste so much of our days.
Reading articles and blog posts is self education or research. Sending emails and posting on social media is marketing. Making art is prototyping or creating products. At this time, making bread or soup is productive meal prep. Cleaning maintains spatial sanity. When you have time to focus without the distraction of constant interruptions, you’ll be surprised at how wildly productive you become by these standards. Global circumstances are augmenting how fluid and enmeshed the WFH lifestyle can be. It’s not simply that your dining room table is messy, now your office is cluttered and messing with both your personal and professional vibe. Office life allows us to compartmentalize parts of our day that working from home forces us to confront. Your partner might hear you on a work call for the first time. Your kid might be in your lap watching you type emails.
As a social person who lives alone, the silence was deafening. Therefore I had to fill space between my ears with music and podcasts. Set up physical and virtual meetings 3–5 times a week. Call a friend on your lunch break. Create a support group via text or Slack that brings you joy. Meet your mail person, chat up servers at your local haunt. There’s room to warm up your in person experiences.
Pursue Holistic Health
Pick the space in your home that makes you feel most productive and start every day there. Begin with a ritual, whether that’s journaling, reading with a cup of coffee, a brisk shower, listening to a favorite podcast. For me I start and end the day with a meditation. My favorite app for this is Insight Timer, a free service filled with professional counselors, hypnotherapists, and spiritual teachers helping the neurotic masses to chill the fuck out. I tend to choose expansive or manifesting practices in the morning, gratitude or inner work in the evenings. I then go to one of a handful of favorite cafes. Seeing as those are locked down, I am baking myself pastries to have in the mornings with a home brewed cup of coffee.
Always get dressed. Yes, the novelty of pajama pants are particularly glamorous for a couple days. You’ve earned them. Over time, this can zap your self esteem and make your feel insanely lonely. I highly recommend getting dressed, grooming, wearing makeup if that’s your thing, even if you don’t plan on being seen.
Schedule two physical activities into your day, either two walks or a walk and an athletic hobby. Desk jobs of any sort will wreck your health. If possible, make them a destination, somewhere tranquil or with an incredible view, something with a built-in reward to incentivize the habit. Right now some restaurants are still taking to-go orders. If you feel comfortable doing so, find somewhere nearby and pick-up lunch on foot. One of my favorite evening activities is a 30-day yoga class I found on Prime. This class starts at the most basic postures and ends in complex inversions, detailing proper form from the onset. As someone that barely has space to lay down flat in my primary living space, this has been my saving grace in lieu of a gym. Have a solid door frame? Get a pull up bar. Have a set of stairs? Run flights or do squats. Fill unused grocery bags with shoes and cans. Congrats, you have Rocky-style free weights! I can log miles on my phone if I take a phone call and walk around my house. I chart a path and let myself focus on the person on the other line.This helps me remain calm and focused while my body is burning energy. You will be amazed at the flexibility to maintain fitness within your home.
Allow time in your day to indulge your creativity. What professional activities are you drawn to? Would you make art, research marketing tactics, go live on a social platform? Give yourself the room to flow. Winning the day is about balance, making meetings and hitting deadlines while indulging in activities that will grow your business. Is it best to take a long lunch and come back refreshed? The more time you spend in your own work bubble, the louder these intuitions become. Creativity is a muscle that needs flexed, and no longer hampered by location, you are free to move about your day. It bears reminding that this pandemic can stress the productivity out of a person. This is completely normal. I find in intense times of stress that I become a prolific writer (which is adjacent to my visual art profession), or I channel this energy into something else like language learning, baking, playing an instrument.
This said, take aggravating work energy away from your home. If something unsettling occurs, I leave my house. My second daily physical activity is sometimes dedicated to working off steam. Energy lingers (I can attest having worked from home while going through a divorce), and it’s crucial to keep frustration away from the spaces where you typically relax. Creative work is about maintaining flow, which becomes tricky when outside forces create tension. When you work where you live, it’s imperative to process away from your home in order to maintain peace. In lieu of isolating measures, open your window. Stand in front of it and speak out what’s bothering you, what you could do to fix it. If a person is causing you rage, imagine them standing in front of you. Then let it go into the cool air. Take advantage of the physical boundary built into remote work and exercise it frequently.
Working from home is a litmus test for holistic health. A unique schedule holds a mirror to our daily practices and asks if we’re capable of satisfying our own needs without someone telling us what to do. In the words of our modern bard, DJ Khaled, “You played yourself!”
The freedom we crave is actually optimization of our time. We can choose what we do, when, but we have shit to accomplish nonetheless. Especially in a time of mass social distancing, enjoy grocery shopping during typical work hours. Crowds will still want to keep their typical schedules. If during this time napping helps, do so without shame. The pervasive message of our times is this: do what you can to be and stay healthy. Working from home is permission to create your own cycles for sleep, wellness, and productivity.
Want to learn more about the nitty-gritty of WFH? I’m releasing a small update to my newsletter with recipes, tips, and distractions for families by other brilliant artist friends.