Paula Rizzo shares practical strategies for staying productive in hybrid work across two LinkedIn Learning courses she created. She covers setting up physical and mental workspaces, matching tasks to the right environment, and making sure you're heard in mixed in-person and virtual meetings.
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Hey there, welcome to Inside Scoop. I'm Paula Rizzo. Hybrid work is here to stay. Love it, hate it, whatever the case, you can't escape it. Okay. And so what I want is for you to be as efficient and productive as possible, no matter where you are, whether it's the beach— ooh, wouldn't that be nice?— or at home or in the office, wherever you decide you're going to be. Working for the day, there are some tips and tricks that I would love to share with you to make sure that it's as efficient as possible. And I actually created two LinkedIn Learning courses all about hybrid work, which I'm going to talk to you about today and, um, go through all of the hybrid work hacks that I have to teach you. The names of those courses are, let's see, it is Enhanced Productivity in a Hybrid Work Environment is the first one. You can grab it at that QR code right there. And the next one is called Be an Effective or Hybrid Virtual Employee. And there is a QR code for that one as well. And I'm going to go through what the differences are and all the information on, on these. But I would love for you to grab any of my courses on LinkedIn. I have several of them. If you go to paularizzo.com/linkedin or use the QR code there, you can see all of them. There's a few about list making and note taking, of course, hybrid work, how to set up your remote office. And also there is a media training one. There's more on the way. So any of those topics of interest, check them out here. And I would love it if you were so nice to share this with someone that you think would be interested. So if there's a friend or a colleague or someone who you think is, is, um, maybe could use a little bit of help when they are in a, you know, hybrid work environment, share this with them, tag them below, and let's get them the information that they need. Let's get to it. Let's go to the first course, which is called Enhanced Productivity in a Hybrid Work Environment. So I'm going to give you a little preview of what this course entails, because if you use the QR code there, you can take the whole course for yourself. But I wanted to give you a little preview. And this course is very much about your setup, how you prepare not only your desk but yourself, how you, how you really go into, um, the work environment, because it is going to be different, right? Some days you're going to be in the office, some days you're going to be at home or wherever it is. That you're working remotely, and I want you to really be set up as best as possible. So you're going to plan for hybrid work productivity, and that means you may have to update the way that you work, right? Because in the past, especially during, you know, during the pandemic, everyone was working wherever they could. You found the kitchen table while somebody else was over in, you know, the other room or whatever it was when you're working from home. Now is the time to really think through, okay, how do I actually work best? That was triage mode. Now we're moved past that, and a lot of people are doing some days in the office and some days at home. Think about how you work best in both environments, and your productivity style is very important because it is unique to you. So you want to think about how do you work best. Is it early in the morning? Is it late in the evening? Do you have to be in front of a desk? Do you have to have light? What are those things? And it's something that I go through in the course, but also I have in, in my book Listful Living It's really important for you to know this about yourself because it really changes the game on everything. If you're working in ways that don't work best for you, you're working against yourself and it's why you're not as productive as you could be. So you want to think through your personality and what you do and how you do things best. Takes a little bit of, you know, watching yourself, setting intentions for what you want out of your day and also rethinking the space around you. So that's something that you really need to think through. Preparing in advance for hybrid work is really important because you want to prepare for productivity success in the office and then prepare at home, right? You're, you're thinking through two different setups here and you want to be really, really mindful of both. It's, it's important that you do the work and you think about this for both environments because that really will make all the difference. Now, in either place, there are going to be challenges, and it's something that I go through in the course. There's going to be distractions at home, there's going to be distractions at the office, but how will you deal with that? What are the ways that you can really zone in and get your work done, or communicate with the people around you to make sure that those distractions happen a little bit less? And the, the truth of the matter is you really want to stay as organized, organized as possible when change is constant, and that is what's happening, right? I understand that it's not easy to be 3 days in this place and 2 days in that place and maybe 1 day here and 1 day there, whatever. But the truth is, if you do this work ahead of time and you really think through how can I be my optimal self in each environment, it becomes much easier when you are in flux and change mode. When I first became an entrepreneur, I worked with a lot of people who were already entrepreneurs. And so they very much already knew how to work. You know, in a lobby of a hotel or on a train or wherever we were going. And I, I thought, this is hard. I, I'm used to working in an office and being, you know, a very enclosed environment. It takes some getting used to, to really teach yourself to, to be, um, prepared enough to be able to do this. But it is definitely, uh, doable. So that is, that's the first course. And the second course is called Be an Effective Hybrid or Virtual Employee. And this course is very much about your day-to-day to-dos, your schedule, um, how you deal with other people. These things— that's why these courses complement each other so well, because they, they— all of these factors play in. But I encourage you to figure your own productivity style out first, and then go ahead and think about, okay, now how can I integrate this with what everyone else is doing, right? And so first off, you want to establish your routine with your work week, because organizing your work week will make all the difference. It might look different than it used to, but at least you'll know, okay, these are the days I'm in the office, this is the type of work I can get done in these environments, right? So maybe the office is actually a quieter space than your home. So if you have to do some writing, uh, exercises or whatever it is that you do for work, maybe you reserve them for those days when you're in the office. You have to be very intentional about what you're doing in each of the spaces since you are splitting your time. So organizing your work week, um, knowing what types of tasks you do, what you do best wherever it is, and, uh, really understanding the team around you too, because you have to, you know, collaborate with people. So knowing and understanding where everyone on your team is gonna be at any given moment so that you can work well together is very important. In the course, I also talk about enhancing collaboration with your boss and your colleagues, understanding, you know, your own impact where you are and being organized when you do show up together for meetings, whether that be in a remote environment or if you're in person What does that look like? So there's a lot of tactics and tricks about showing up to meetings prepared. How do you make sure that your voice is heard, even if you're not in the room? Now, I know a lot of companies have different policies on virtual calls or virtual meetings. Some of them will only do virtual meetings if everyone is virtual. Some of them will allow 1 or 2 people to not be present, and then other people are in the room. So depending on what it is, it can sometimes be difficult to be heard, right? You want to make sure that your ideas come across even if you're not there physically. We'll talk about that in the course. And one of the most important things too is to remember the basics. That is, that is really what we have to come back to with all of this. I, I, you know, I know like our lives are all over the place now. We're working here, we're working there, but you have to check in on your career goals. Really like take a step back and say, okay, what am I doing here? Why did I want to do this job? What are the things I'm really good at? Um, and leverage those skills. To really use those skills in a different way. It's almost like starting a new job, you know. It's really an opportunity to do this a little bit differently. And also, you know, give yourself a little bit of grace. Make some time for fun. Give yourself, um, you know, a chance to connect with your colleagues in different ways. Maybe you're not going out for happy hours anymore, but there might be other ways that you can connect with them. And I do have some, some good ideas in the course that I think you'll enjoy. But the, the crux of all of this, at the end of the day, is that hybrid work is a work in progress. It's something that we're all working on together, that your team hopefully will all be interested in making sure that everybody is, is doing their optimal work at the end of the day, right? Um, so give yourself a little bit of grace as you start to figure out how you work best and where you work best and how you can do what you need to do no matter where you are. So I hope this has been a helpful overview. The courses, I think you'll really enjoy them. You can check out all of my courses on LinkedIn Learning, or you can go to paularizzo.com/linkedin or use the code right there, the QR code that will bring you right on over to all of those courses. And I do have a freebie for you. If you go to paularizzo.com/list, you'll get my list-making starter kit, which will give you a lot of good tips and tricks on how to be your most efficient and productive. Thank you so much for watching. And if you have questions, please feel free to leave them in the chat boxes below. I will definitely check them out. And I will see you next time.
