homeplaceofthefuture daily log 5338

What a great time to be alive and what a great time to work from home! Working from home is a hot topic right now and as such, please ignore the experts out there during this work from home revival and hear me out. With 5338 days under my belt, let me provide 6 expert tips of working from home in the homeplaceofthefuture.
 

1. Have a dedicated workspace. While the temptation is strong to work in your bedroom, kitchen table, bathtub or back porch. I would highly recommend having a dedicated workspace where you conduct the majority of your business. Flexibility in moving around is totally acceptable, but trust me you’ll want a set place to answer your emails and save the world working on those all-important PowerPoint presentations.
   
   
2. Have a uniform. Don’t listen to the “experts” out there, I never dress for work like I did when I went to an office every day. Why waste time wearing business casual clothes, the cleaning, the pressing, the tucking in of shirts so that no one can see you? Untold power and energy await you when you don’t have to decide what to wear everyday, I wear the same clothes every day and over the years have quite a collection of black t’shirts. It’s easy, it’s cheap and fashionable.
   
   
3. Don’t eat all day! I learned this the hard way when I first started and gained quite a bit of weight. In 15 years of working from home, I actually have a food journal that I write in with my hand! Imagine that. If your food choices are written down in your own handwriting, you should feel guilty if you often write down Twinkies or Fried Twinkies, red hot Cheetos, etc. I’m not food snob, but the lack of people around me and a pantry full of junk for the kids you need to find your own way of being accountable. Alcohol doesn’t count however because #daydrinking
   
   
4. Don’t feel guilty. Imagine how much time you waste in the office looking out the window or taking long walks to the coffee room. If you’re quarantined to the homeplaceofthefuture don’t feel guilty if you want to do a load of laundry, talk to the mailman (no handshaking!) or preparing a meal. Studies show that we work best in bursts – personally I go all out for 45-50 minutes every hour and if time and call volume allow, I get up and walk around, do chores, look at Facebook for the last 10 minutes of every hour or sometimes longer…shh don’t tell!
   
   
5. Be social! Listen up, the longer I have worked from home the more I hate people. It comes with the territory, but out of the 7 billion people on this planet, I like about 25 of them and those people who are local to me I regularly schedule lunches with, happy hours with or other after work activities. You will drive yourself mad working from home and never seeing people – we are meant for connection and although most people suck – you should know a few good ones to hang with.
   
   
6. Exercise. I can talk about this one all day, but do something. Sitting is the new cancer and in all seriousness get up and do something throughout your day. Odds are your employer won’t notice and you’ll feel great.

homeplaceofthefuture daily log 5065

If you were having coworkers over to your house, would you hide the bottles of booze that normally sit in your office? 

I'm asking for a friend of course.

homeplaceofthefuture daily log 5039

Dear Baileys Irish Cream,

On behalf of virtual workers everywhere that like a little cream in their coffee and that cream being Baileys, we THANK YOU!

homeplaceofthefuture daily log 5037

As more and more companies have virtual workers and also conduct virtual sessions, I'm seeing more and more video calls. Cultures are changing to include video on almost every call in some way or another. Listen! I don't even use FaceTime with my friends & family unless I have a kid or dog to distract them from my beautiful face! 5037 days of working from home (give or take a few) and I've been avoided the trend of video calls and will continue to do so.

Also I have these toasted corn nuts that are delicious and they demanded that I eat them during a recent video call where I hid my face. I had a good laugh seeing all the faces on the screen while I ate my toasted corn nuts with a large black bar across my webcam.

homeplaceofthefuture daily log 5019

You have to love early morning calls where no one shows up except for me. It was a great call, I shared a cup of coffee with myself and then talked about my day. Mission complete.

Happy weekend!

homeplaceofthefuture daily log 4875

When you say you’re part of the virtual workforce there’s a lot of questions. Who’s your boss? Do you nap? How do they know you’re working? Do you drink on the clock? Let’s ignore those typical questions and go into what I call “bringing it all home” and making them jealous.
 
Anyone that works in an actual office with actual physical coworkers knows at least these 3 things to be true. The coffee is awful, the toilet paper is a science experiment made with sand and it’s always too cold or too warm in the office. I like my sweaters in January not June!
 
What’s it like working from home? Or more appropriately, what’s it like in the homeplaceofthefuture?
 
Working from home is just like being the office except I’m in my uniform, I don’t see people and the coffee and the toilet paper are to my liking along with the thermostat settings.
 
Let’s start with coffee. After years and I mean years of drinking the free office coffee that came in Flavia packets. The funny thing about the Flavia packets we had in the workplaceofthepast was that the packaging said 70% organic – almost like saying hey we tried, but it’s only 70% organic. At times it was tolerable, but I found that if I didn’t wash my coffee mug for weeks on end that the coffee got better. Fast forward to 2018 and the homeplaceofthefuture has a Ninja Coffee Bar that serves local coffee that tastes like coffee and not an experiment in a kool-aid packet. I’m no snob, I just want the coffee has God created it – black and strong!
 
Heating and Air – this one is simple. Just turn it on. Your comfort is worth way more than the $20 you’ll save by getting the thermostat at 58 degrees in the winter. Natural Gas prices in my area have been so reasonable in recent years that I just don’t care – turn it up! Air conditioning is a bit of a tougher pill to swallow for me because it never turns off – the good news is that working from home you can do it without any clothes on (you can’t do that in the winter). My kids know that Tuesday is Topless Tuesday and yes, we have boys.
 
Lastly the toilet paper…..oh the toilet paper! Recently at a client’s office in NYC I was appalled that such a prestigious and well-known company had toilet paper that was straight out of an elementary school! It was like the kids made the toilet paper themselves with sand and cling film and put in on an industrial roll the size of a basketball. Call me old fashioned, but the more plys (or is it plies) the better and NEVER be ashamed to have a stash in your car, suitcase or laptop bag. The homeplaceofthefuture always has the best toilet paper for their employee of the month.
 
Such detail probably isn’t required to bring it home to your non-homeplaceofthefuture friends, but I see a lot of laughs when that toilet paper discussion takes place.