Features and blogging

Plenty has been blogged, posted and twitted, of late, about working from home, but I spy a gap in the market.
Here at Wordfairy Towers I’ve been living the freelance life for years, and Mr WF has often sat in his home office all day, brewing coffee from morning til night and hogging the cheeseboard.
Now Covid-19 has come to town, Mister is home full time and there’s a third body in the building. I’ll be honest, the schedule is a little off-kilter, and there’s a hole in the life-hack posts – we need to know how to turn our peaceful home offices into growing companies with an HR department, canteen and breakout zones. We’re on day one and this is how it’s been. Ask me again in a month.
1 Set your boundaries and if you can’t arrange separate working zones then find a way of splitting the house/flat into compartments, working out who goes where and trying not to deviate.
2 Use headphones for conference calls. I’m never annoyed by the tinny ramblings coming from the front room when Mr WF is on a call because I love hearing all the different voices, but I bet it’s a nightmare for some. Fortunately I can shut the door to avoid getting distracted.
3 Ban the biscuits. Biscuits are not food and you never had any in the house before. Don’t start now.
4 Also in the kitchen, remember it’s not a restaurant so don’t go all Masterchef with the lunches. Save the fancy stuff for post-ration times, and preserve those crucial gourmet minutes for proper work.
5 Be nice – this isn’t The Apprentice and you’re not in competition. Having a bad day should never result in squaring up every time you pass in the hallway.
6 Stop making tea for two – sharing the odd cuppa is lovely but making endless rounds will take precious time off your clock, and it works both ways. Ignore the sing of the kettle if you’ve still got half a cup left.
7 No talking. Whatever you want to discuss, write it down and say it later, otherwise you’ll end up designing the new cupboards when you should be dialling in to Switzerland.
8 Take breaks, sure, but only when you need to and not necessarily at the same time. Agree to sit down to dinner together, allowing small positives to filter through. Otherwise: getbacktowork.
9 Get new systems in place for housework by drawing up a schedule and sticking to it. This applies in particular to freshly home-schooled children: I think it’s called PSHE…
10 Switch off at night. ‘Just a sec’ is a rabbit hole from which you will never return. If you leave work at 6pm then that’s when the OFF button needs to go ‘clunk’.
Keep calm, keep well, stay safe and carry on!

When this crazy week/month/year is done, I will be sending out my first ever newsletter, which is now perfectly timed to land on your virtual doormat. No rubbish, no selling, and no spam, honest. Stand by.

Now I’m off to put on the kettle. For me.