Your company may have recently advised you to work from home. Do you embrace it? A chance to get everything done without being distracted by happenings at the office. Or do you dread it? Time all alone with no office banter nor coffee machine.

Whatever your response, we have got your back. Our consultants are used to remote working and we have some tips to help you get through the day productively:

• Plan your next day. If you’re not sure where to start you’ll lose valuable time and distractions can creep in.
• Take a 20 minute walk around the block in the morning. This helps you feel like you’ve ‘arrived’ at your office and are not still at home.
• Use the morning to work through to do lists when you’ve got more energy and focus. Save any calls or virtual meetings for the afternoon when you may need a social boost.
• Schedule small breaks during the day where you call a co-worker for a non-work related chat. It can be lonely working at home, so make sure you still talk to people.
• If your children are at home too, make sure they’re distracted in another room if you have an important call. Remember when Professor Robert Kelly’s children gatecrashed his BBC interview?
• If you are screen sharing remember to turn off any pop up messages you don’t want to share… (whoops!)
• Sense check your work. When you’re in a silo you can go off on a subjective tangent. It’s always better to find a sounding board for feedback.

Wherever I lay my hat, that’s my home sang Paul Young. Life on the road as a Nine Feet Tall consultant is a bit like that. Wherever I can charge my laptop, that’s my desk. At Nine Feet Tall we are all equipped to work away from the office. Here’s how:

• We all have lightweight laptops rather than desktops.
• We all have Mobile Smart Phones which can link multiple calls and host the apps we use regularly.
• We have a Cloud based IT system where all documents can be accessed from wherever we are.
• We frequently use Yammer, WhatssApp and Skype Messenger for internal communications.
• We all have access to Microsoft Teams for video conference calls, screen sharing and file sharing.
• Remote working is part of our culture. We are used to working anywhere and can help to build this capability for your team too.

If you need a Project Manager to help your business to stay operating as normally as possible we are ready to support you remotely in any way we can. Contact EstherM@NineFeetTall.com for more information.