Take Control of Working from Home Temporarily

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JCN

With the current health situation, many people have suddenly taken to working from home… Volunteers for community and sporting groups have already been doing this for decades!

Sure, volunteers may only spend a few hours a week, or per month, doing their tasks at home, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take them seriously and can’t perform them in a professional, business-like environment.

Take Control of Working from Home Temporarily is a free 55-page book tailored for the sudden onset of telecommuting — but it also provides invaluable tips for those who already volunteer from home.

Part of the difficulty in working, or volunteering, from home is creating a separation — physically if possible and psychologically — from the rest of your home life. This can take as much effort if you live alone as if you have a partner, roommates, or an extended family. With the help of this book, you’ll delve into strategies for staking boundaries, working around others, and trying to communicate limitations to your work that arise from this necessary period of isolation.

The book will advise you on how to stake out a space to work, how to equip it either with material you already have or what to buy if you can afford to invest in the space. Do you want to stand or sit? (Get a better chair or a laptop or monitor riser.) Should you get an external monitor if you don’t have one? (Yes!)

There is a chapter on how to juggle family obligations, especially with school-age children.

You be reminded to be kind to yourself, take breaks, have a little tea or coffee, do some stretching, and even take a brisk walk around the block while maintaining social distancing… these can go miles towards boosting your mood and productivity. This isn’t easy for anyone, and it’s OK to admit that.

With Take Control of Working from Home Temporarily, you’ll learn more about how to:

  1. Stake out a physical space, even if it involves setting up a curtain or moving a bookshelf
  2. Pick or adjust a chair if you plan to sit or Stand while you work without necessarily investing in a new desk
  3. Put up a sign or otherwise signify when you’re working to those around you
  4. Invest a tiny amount or a lot into noise-canceling headphones or earbuds
  5. Take regular breaks to avoid burnout, but if you get in the zone, you can stay there, too
  6. Juggle the simultaneous burdens of full-time home parenting with home working

Plus there are a tons of other topics that you can always look at utilising — like using video conferencing software rather than meeting in person all the time.

Author Glenn Fleishman, a veteran freelancer, who has spent the last decade working full-time in a home office, solicited advice from dozens of Take Control Books authors, contributors to the Mac publication TidBITS, and friends and acquaintances who have hundreds of years of collective remote work experience.

Download Take Control of Working from Home Temporarily

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Other Take Control titles that may interest Community and Sporting group volunteers

Take Control Books
ps: Take Control have a number of useful titles, that whilst often have an Apple (Mac, iPad or iPhone) focus, can advise in you in other areas of your organisations’ digital life.