Show Notes
Chad: Hey, Chad here. Welcome back to the virtual workplace podcast. A podcast in which we're going to be exploring, this new virtual workplace we all find ourselves in, here in the spring of 2020. But it's not just a virtual or remote workplace, we are all human beings living in real life and so I think there's some interesting human and technical elements to this virtual workplace that I'm going to explore here.
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00:00:36] So I'm going to be sharing some of my insights and learnings as well as bringing others, to share their experiences in this new virtual workplace as well. Today, I wanted to take some time to talk about setting up our in real life or in person virtual workplace.
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00:00:53]I have been on video calls with many people, in studio apartments, where they and their partners are, working from home, trying to share and manage that space. I am in a one bedroom with really only one door that can be closed, between the rooms, you're either in the bedroom or in the living room. And, others of us are very fortunate, maybe we have a basement that we can go to a separate office but I think setting up our in-person workspaces while working from home, is maybe often overlooked a little bit as, those of us that weren't working from home, before coronavirus have now been been forced to do.
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00:01:37]We've all kind of just, I've been making it work, but I wanted to take just a couple of minutes to share. some things that I've seen people do that I think are really cool. Some, some things that I have tried to do myself or, myself and my wife is, we're trying to both share, some work from home space. And, I'm coming to you on this podcast, in my closet. or I should say I'm facing into my closet because that's the most soundproof area of the apartment while, my dog and, trash trucks and sirens are outside.
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00:02:13] I think as all of us are just swept up into call after video call. we could just take some time to take a look around, see some of the things in our spaces that we want to bring into the virtual workplace and maybe some things that we want to keep separate .
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00:02:34]Kind of a fun mental activity that I do, is my quote unquote commute to work, and I know that may sound strange if you're just getting up and moving in to another room or maybe even from one part of a room to the other side of the room. But so many of us had commute to work routines. Packing our bags, maybe packing some food, saying goodbye to our partners or our pets, or our kids. And then venturing off whether it's on foot by bike, subway in our cars on the bus. so many different ways to get to work. Maybe some of you hop on planes to go to work. Some of that is lost in , commuting to our virtual workplace.
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00:03:22]Pick one of those parts of that routine in which you commuted and try and bring that back into your experience of commuting and the virtual workplace.
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00:03:31] A friend of mine, Daniel and his fiance have instituted Formal Fridays where, he puts on a button down shirt and a tie . Other people I know, take their dog out for a walk right before they start work.
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00:03:47] For those of you essential workers that are actually going into work, I just wanted to say thank you.
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00:03:54] Some of the things that I have done is, you know, making a really great pot of coffee, fixing some breakfast or even just a planning and preparing my lunch for the day. I think doing those things before I sit down and get started working, can be really helpful.
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00:04:13]As I mentioned before, I'm just in a one bedroom apartment and we've kind of turned it into a transformer apartment where each space in the apartment serves different functions at different times of day and different things come come in and out of that space, as we're working or not working there.
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00:04:34] So, for example, our dining table also serves as my wife's working desk. In the morning we bring out all of, the, The accoutrement for her to get to work like her, her mouse and her computer and in a, in a keyboard that she and that she took from work. and we roll out a little mat to put out on top of the table and put all those things on top before she gets started working. And then at the end of the workday we take all those things off, put them in storage in the corner, roll the mat up, and then we have our dining table back at the end of the day .
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00:05:15] I know that seems like a lot of work, but otherwise, I think our apartment, which has kind of exploded into this weird office workplace home, a disaster area and being really intentional about, bringing out the tools for work at the beginning of the day and then putting them away has been really helpful, for me and the two of us to kind of manage this small space together.
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00:05:46] in the same way that you like packed your bag and went off to work, maybe you can pack and unpack your bag at your at your work surface, whether that's your kitchen table or counter, whether that's in bed, on the sofa, the coffee table, et cetera. Maybe one day this week you can unpack and repack your workspace, to, to maybe better delineate, that work and not working, Time.
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00:06:16]one final topic about sharing these, small at home, what workspaces with multiple people is establishing kind of some ground rules or rules of engagement, with others in your household about, what it means when you're working, what you need from them to be productive. I understand if you have kids that it's a, it's, a whole different ballgame, but even just between you and your partner, understanding that one is working, the other is is tending to to the house or or to the family and then understanding at the same time that sometimes like you just need to be able to not have that structure and kind of throw it to the wind, and be okay with maybe losing a whole day. because you wanted to spend time with your family.
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00:07:09] I think those are realities that our employers and and organizations are gonna, have to navigate, I think as we, all have to come to terms with what it means to work in this virtual and remote environment.
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00:07:28]I'm really interested in passionate about, this idea of of, of what it means to now be working in this virtual workplace. and so I didn't want us to lose the sight of the fact that, yeah, there's tools like zoom and teams, et cetera that that we can use, but, I think the physical environment in which we're working, from home, can often be overlooked or ignored and that's that's to our detriment.
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00:07:53] I'm really curious how, all of your experiences have been working from home. What's worked and not worked for you? So get in touch. You can leave me a voice message or text at 917.719.3737 and I can't wait to hear from you about how you've set up your virtual workplace.
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00:08:12] Thank you so much for listening. Until next time.