How to Work from Home Happily

Not everyone’s thrilled with working from home. They’re not good at it, didn’t choose it and aren’t particularly happy about mixing their home life with their work life.

Here are 5 ways that working from home can be a little more fun.

Wear your Pajamas

…but just the bottoms. Make sure the PJs are outrageous: bright colors, images of cats, matched to your youngest, whatever tickles you. Ditch the PJ top though. Wear a simple crew neck or favorite white shirt instead. They both look great on Zoom, Facetime, WebEx, all the video conferencing biggies.

Schedule a Happy Hour

Invite important customers, employees, special contacts to have a drink with you. Set up a 5 p.m. bring-your-own-wine or mocktail happy hour video call. Keep it short, lively and get off that call in about 15 minutes. “Thinking of you” phone calls are meant to be short and not about cramming in as much business as possible. Set up another call to do that.

Look Exotic

…or traditional or minimalist. Be aware of what your space says about you, and make it say something you like. Animal print file folders for everything! A great looking desk lamp! You know lighting matters when you are on camera!

Work Guilt-Free

Create your own work schedule. Start at 7 a.m. if you’re wired that way. Take a walk every day at 11 a.m. and follow up with a shower and lunch. Or start at 10 a.m. ( if your job allows it) and do your heavy lifting all afternoon if that’s more you. Don’t drag your workday into a work night. There’s nothing happy about looking at an email at 10:15 p.m. and deciding to answer it just because you saw it or want to feel responsive. Get over the guilt of your flexible schedule. Be flexible!

Work Less

Do as few things as possible all at the same time. Stick to the thing you’re working on. Dogs barking, cats on the computer keys and phone calls from the pharmacy are all preventable distractions. Multi-tasking is a road to loss of focus and increased time spent on more projects, not fewer.

Most of us have spent years going to the office or work site. Only about 5% of us were “work” from home employees before we were introduced to the coronavirus. As an executive coach, I know the struggles we all have with adapting to change, especially change we did not want or plan for. It’s a learned skill, and a huge number of us are ramping up fast. We can do it!

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This article was written by Karyl Innis, who is leading the way for men and women to communicate more effectively about who they are, what they do and how well they do it. She is a career brand expert. Karyl wants all of her clients and followers to recognize their personal brands, create their own true messages and vigorously deploy those messages to accelerate their career growth. Karyl is the CEO and founder of The Innis Company, a career consulting firm focused on building stronger, more distinguished careers for their clients around the world. She is known for her work with executives in identifying their personal brands, elevating their presence and accelerating their careers. Contact her at kinnis@inniscompany.com, through her website or LinkedIn.

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