Remote workers need anchors, consistent cues that separate work from home. Keep a regular wake time, shower and dress for work, take scheduled breaks, and end your day with a walk outside. Video calls help too.
Hey everyone, I just wanted to make a quick little video because I wanted to talk to you about anchoring. Anchoring basically is just that, it grounds you into a time, a feeling, an emotion, a memory. If you think about it, you know that smell that your grandma used to wear, anytime you might smell it now you think of grandma, or a jingle of a commercial, that is an anchor. When you hear it, you think of that company. So if you do hear it, they're doing a great job. Well, anchoring is also a really big part of our day, and it would seem to me from a lot of discussions I've had this week that people are really struggling with it. So right now, a lot of people are working from home, as you know, and some people think it's amazing. Some people like the flexibility of being able to work from home when they have a home office, and some people are just having a hard time. It's that problem they're having is that they're not able to create the blend between the home and the work environment very well. And of course, the social isolationism is a struggle. So I definitely recommend you guys turn your video camera on when you do conference calls. But when it comes to creating structure and order in your day, like if you wake up early for work, still wake up early. You may not have the hour commute and that's okay. Maybe you sleep in a half hour, 45 minutes later. That makes sense. But wake up, go through your normal routine. That routine puts you in the mindset of going to work. If you wake up, you have coffee, you make breakfast, you prepare your lunch, and you go to work— even if work is at home right now, keep doing it because that's going to set you up for being able to stop and break for a proper lunch. If you wake up and you shower in the morning versus at night, shower in the morning. Don't just put on your loungewear knowing you're going to be at your computer all day, especially if you You talk to nobody on the computer. I still recommend that you guys have some order and structure, just like you would if you were going to work. So again, if you wake up, you normally shower, you eat your breakfast, you do all that stuff, you prepare your lunch to bring to work, do all of that. Make sure you're creating proper breaks in your day. The sun is coming up right now, the birds are chirping, it's amazing where I'm at. Even for people in colder areas, I know the weather has been pretty awesome. Also, that break between your day and your night. Get out of your house. Find a way to make your day stop and your night end. You know, right now getting outside, getting some fresh air is so important. I definitely recommend maybe you do a little bit of yoga, stretching, a quick jog or run, some activity. Wander around your block. Take those dogs out. The dogs have probably been running from you now because you're home so much. So again, anchoring is so important. If you have a habit and pattern to go to work, keep doing it. And that means getting up early, do it. If you put on a suit every day, maybe you don't put on the full suit, but you put on still a dress shirt and some nice slacks and so on. I talked to a client recently, she said she's been wearing dresses to her table every day, and I thought that was pretty awesome. Anyway, you guys have a fantastic day. Bye.
