Embrace your new work at home environment
Working from home can be a significant life change for some. If you’re a daily nine to fiver who has lived the alarm clock, shower, breakfast, commute thing your whole life, well then this may take some adjusting for you. Your routine however shouldn’t change all that much. If you do commute, well then, that’s gone! Bonus right!? Besides that, set out your day, exactly as you would before, or as close as possible. Wake in or around the same time. Shower. Have your breakfast and change into proper clothes! No loungewear, or pyjamas etc! Embrace the new things that have been given to you as you work, like a garden view, your favourite music, better access to the kettle! Granted this is going to be challenging if you’re surrounded by family members, but if you have been designated a work from home position, then you have to prioritise that time and that space for you somehow. The flexibility of working from home means that your day doesn’t necessarily start at 9 and finish at 5. Find time when you can. We can’t change circumstances outside our control but we can make adjustments to our own lives and enjoy the extra little comforts and surprises that have been given to us as a result of a new work environment.
Change your business strategy
Business has changed. There’s no getting around it. In fact business may have changed forever. Social distancing, online ordering, strict queuing and rationing systems are pointing more and more towards dystopian futures that we may have read about or seen in movies. The retail and hospitality sectors are down significantly and business in general has taken a nosedive. We need to face facts that this may be our future. Online may be our future, contact-less and more restrictions still, may be the future. When looking through the spyglass, that means that smaller, traditional or Mom and Pop like businesses or brick and mortar businesses are really going to struggle, if they survive at all. If history and Darwinism has taught us anything, it is that we must evolve or adapt as a species or else we get left behind in the evolutionary chain so to speak. We as humans, we as businesses need to change, adopt, adapt, whatever it takes to carry on and to survive. Now is the time to look at your business model or selling funnel to your end consumer and ask yourself if you’re doing enough to adapt and survive.
Keep yourself physically and mentally strong
It’s important to keep strong both mentally and physically during these worrying times. Switch off the constant news feeds! Even if it’s through social media, you need to curb your craving for every little titbit of information. Get in, get what news you need from a reliable source and get out! Go back to your business social media and interactions, get back to your music, whatever it might be. Constant searching for facts and figures is a pointless activity. In fact it could be to the detriment of your mental health.
Stay physical too! Get up from the desk in your new office space and stretch. Make that cup of tea and go into the garden. Breathe the air and embrace the sun, if we have it! Look at this not as a negative but as a new way to appreciate what you have and what’s around. Go walking while maintaining that social distance. Go off the beaten path. Whatever it might be, the balance of physical and mental health is crucial and we need to maintain that balance now more than ever.
