like many of you I am now working from
home no one knows how long this will
last so while we get used to it how can
we stay positive and productive during
these challenging times remote work may
now be the new normal but it's not a new
phenomenon the idea of working remotely
has been gaining traction worldwide for
quite some time now as technology
improves and workplaces grow more
flexible in the u.s. the share of the
labour force working from home has
nearly tripled since the start of the
century and in the UK more than one and
a half million people work from home a
seventy four percent jump in ten years
but now millions more like me and
joining them and with it faced new
challenges in our professional and
personal lives this is definitely one of
those advantages of having forced to do
the remote work here in the finnish
lapland there are you know some remote
workers and a lot of reindeers and
that's about it
you can see my bike here and I get to go
for a 10-minute bike ride get some fresh
air before the day starts I usually walk
every day so it's really good to clear
your mind so just get yourself out of
your own space I'm speaking to three
people who regularly work from home
hopefully they can give me some tips on
getting the best out of the situation
and what things to watch out for
I think it would be self motivation and
I think that's one of the greatest
challenges
and also getting into a good routine
because I was used to get lost in the
fact that you are at home can get really
unproductive --nt Alice law is a stress
management and performance coach she's
worked from home for more than two years
I think it's really good to block out
time and to our to our chunks so you
just get really clear and then you can
see how your day is gonna go what other
things do you do to stay positive and
productive I mean I I genuinely meditate
every day even if it's just for five
minutes because it's bringing you back
into the present just put this pillow
there and support myself and rest sit
meditating in the window reducing stress
the boss you're by yourself and not
ruminating and getting some clarity I
think the best thing people could be
doing right now so first things first I
need to map out a routine well that
wasn't too difficult and the first thing
on my routine is exercise
there is one thing actually two things
which are making it difficult to follow
this routine these guys I'm just filming
with no childcare and no grandparents my
wife and I are taking it in turns to
work and look after the children through
sleep yes so the schedule says that I
wake up at 7 a.m. but really it's
whenever my children wake up and then
here it says I work when my children are
having their lunchtime sleep at 1 p.m.
but what if they don't go to sleep
straightaway or at all it's not going to
be easy keeping to this routine so yeah
I have two two sons now at home so it's
kind of just finding those kind of ways
of working with each other and kind of a
line in each of those things that we
need to do
Spencer Waldron works for video
presentation company Prezi his role
includes helping its employees work
better remotely so are any key tips that
you've got for me I mean I think this is
something I see everybody doing on mass
at the moment because you know we've
kind of gone from everybody working in
office to everybody suddenly being at
home and what everybody's done is almost
like copy paste what they were doing in
an office to what they were doing at
home and then people suddenly find that
that doesn't work so much because you
know everybody's home life is different
some people have kids some people may be
just on their own like so everybody has
different things that they're going to
have to deal with and I think one of the
one of the lessons that I learned in the
early days was to repartition my day
what we've tried to do again as a family
is say okay so we know that the morning
the kids are quite busy with the school
stuff and that's when I'm doing my deep
work and that's when my wife is doing
stuff and then the afternoon is where
there can be more noise in the house and
more chaos in the house
so it's coming up to 10 a.m. and the
team and I are about to have a
videoconference seeing cool and then
we're gonna have another one at the end
of the day this is happening every day
so that we can stay connected with
working from home yeah right it's been
strangely busy I never thought I'd do so
many video conferences with so many
people in one day any tips that you
could give me or any of the team that
you think all that really helps of being
productive I think setting timers are
quite helpful so for like dedicated
tasking on one thing at a time because I
think it's really easy to get distracted
that's my my work is really
collaborative which means working
remotely is proven to be really
difficult
I can't obviously see my camera op
Benjamin and film with him and I'll
usually sit down with Sean who does
motion graphics and discuss ideas so
doing that on a video call is proving to
be pretty tricky as you can see we have
quite a bit of snow here I take a short
walk in between there working working
hours and between the meetings this is
posi mine / CEO of Alisa vedera a
telecommunications company from Finland
or motivation is definitely one of those
things that that you know needs to be
built up and the team to maintain when
people are you know you know physically
this time you know that's definitely you
know one of those challenges in 2010
China's largest travel agency see trip
conducted a nine-month experiment which
allowed hundreds of its call center
employees to work from home the study
found that productivity for these work
is improved by 13 percent while employee
quit rates dropped by 50% while most
employees said they liked the
convenience and improvements to their
lifestyle they also reported feeling
less motivated without their team around
the experiment was deemed a success by
the nasdaq listed company and the option
to work from home was eventually rolled
out to all of its 16,000 employees but
interestingly some of the experiments
original participants opted out citing
loneliness and isolation as factors do
you think after this is all over that
people will be better at working from
home and will be more inclined to work
from I definitely think that those two
things will happen people will want to
work more from all they will require
more flexibility you have cute enough
network you can you can work wherever
you want you know and that's that is
going to change forever the biggest
challenge of working from home for me as
I imagine for most parents is caring for
my children making sure they're having a
productive time often comes at a cost to
my productivity I also miss the routine
and social side of office life and this
may sound weird but I miss commuting
hopefully putting in place structure and
routine for the long term will help me
make the most out of working from home
hi guys thanks for watching our video as
you can see I'm filming this inside my
bedroom not particularly interesting but
we're doing the best we can during these
difficult times before you go we'd love
to know your thoughts on the best ways
to work promote me comment below the
video to let us know and remember
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