Adapting to Covid: Balancing Work & Home
(This post is part of a series of 4 key challenges facing small businesses in the pandemic. To get an introduction to adapting your business during covid-19, check out the directory post, or navigate directly to read about moving online, accessing capital, managing your resources.)
So your home became your office? Losing your boundaries? Maybe your mind? Or maybe you’re doing fine but your employees are complaining or slowing down. We understand your struggle and we’re here to help.
Balancing work life and home life can be difficult under “normal” circumstances. Then add the stress of a pandemic and maybe even having your work and home occupy the same space or part of your workspace living online and you’ve got a recipe for frustration.
Fortunately, there are steps you can take to improve your situation both for you on a personal level and for your business.
In this section we will point you in the right direction for practicing personal self-care, introducing some WFH (work from home) tips + resources, as well as some remote work communication/project management tools you can use with your team.
Practicing Self-Care
First thing here is - if your mind is racing and you’re scrolling anxiously - take a deep breath and slow down. You are doing okay because you are doing your best, because you are looking for help and you’ve found it.
As oversaid as this may be, this is a reminder that everyone is struggling in some area of their life right now because something has been thrown off balance. So, if you are feeling lost or overwhelmed it isn’t something you are doing wrong. That said, let’s try to make it better.
In order to run a healthy business, you’ve got to make sure it’s being powered by healthy minds and that starts with You. Whether you are a part of management or an employee, getting your own mind to a healthy place will allow you to share that healthy headspace and communicate better with your coworkers.
You’re busy so let’s cut the fluff. In order to function well you need to:
Eat nutritiously
Exercise daily
Relax your mind
Nourish your mind
Every day, try to commit to at least one thing that ticks those four boxes.
Eat nutritiously. This doesn’t mean diet - in fact, it means quite the opposite. It means making sure that you are eating foods that brighten you. What wakes you up? What slows you down? There’s a lot of research into healthy v unhealthy food on the web but we’re not here for that. You can do the research and you can listen to your body, then work towards consuming foods that make you feel good. Do this and your brain will work sharper and you’ll be less vulnerable to emotional outbursts and getting stuck in your lows.
Need some help?
Try these fresh + affordable meal kits delivered to you portioned with recipes for home-cooking - (less than $8 per meal)
Exercise daily. No that doesn’t mean you need to run that big run every day or even go to the gym every day. It just means that every day, you make time to move your body to get your blood flowing and to get some fresh air. This could look like going for a medium-paced walk around your neighborhood for 30 minutes. Then a few days later, maybe go for an hour or do two walks. Exercise gets your blood flowing which means more oxygen moves around your body and oxygen wakes you up and energizes you, so this is great to keep in mind if you’re feeling slow one day. Sometimes you need a nap, sometimes you need to walk.
Need some help?
Try a fitness app or online workout -
Obe - fitness app with live + on-demand home workout videos
Daily Burn - fitness app, high intensity personalized home workouts + videos
Relax your mind. This pandemic is stressful. Give yourself an outlet. Maybe that’s meditation, maybe it’s journaling or maybe it’s listening to music with the window open and turning your phone off. Give your mind space to breathe and reflect. You may be surprised what parts of your brain turn on when you take a moment to switch off.
Need some help?
Try a meditation app or setting a journaling/breathing reminder -
Nourish your mind. Maybe you love your job, maybe you do it for the money. Either way, it’s a good idea to feed a passion or enjoyment that’s separate from your business. Something you do just for pleasure that gets your brain excited and doesn’t make you think about work. Maybe you enjoy reading good fiction or maybe you’re interested in scientific articles or playing an instrument or painting or researching a particular topic. Whatever it is, make time for it each day even if it’s just 15 fully dedicated minutes. It’ll make all the difference because it’s something you’re doing just for you.
Need some help?
Try researching some ideas for fun activities, like this -
94 fun things to do at home (for adults)
One additional app recommendation is called Fabulous - an excellent self-care app that helps you build healthy habits over time. You choose one goal package at a time - e.g. if you need better sleeping habits - and it breaks that down for you into small steps to take every day to build better habits. Check out the website to learn more.
Looking for more? Check out this quick-list of 100 ways to keep your mind healthy.
WFH Tips for Morale
Now you’re on track to feeling good in your head, you can put your healthy mind to work. The home-office operates a little differently, so if you’re struggling, it’s simply because the rules of this new office are still being discovered.
No need to fret though, as many bloggers have covered this very popular topic with lots of strategies for working effectively and happily from home.
Here is a shortlist, specifically for creating a motivating workspace for yourself -
5 tips to stay motivated at home
Strategies for communication, establishing a routine, mental health
7 secrets for a productive home office
And finally, but certainly very important - let’s get into how you can engage with your team most effectively while working remotely.
Remote Work as a Team
Working remotely is difficult enough alone. When you have a team to consider, you want to make sure to help communication continue as effectively as possible, which may mean introducing new modes of communication and project management tools.
What platforms and how many platforms you use to communicate with your team and keep track of projects, will depend on how big your team is, how many (if any) sub-teams you have and of course, the nature of the work you are doing.
In any business, however, there is a common thread of what is being communicated that generally looks like -
Workflow (day-to-day operational communications)
Ideas (sharing solutions + feedback)
Milestones + Updates (sharing goals met/upcoming + news)
Workflow
Communicating about every-day operations can look like anything from asking where that file is that you’re looking for, to getting clarification on a task. This is arguably the most important form of communication to ensure runs smoothly, because the functioning of the business relies on it and so does your employees’ satisfaction.
It is very important that the people in your business feel like they can communicate with you and their coworkers with ease. If day-to-day communication on the little stuff is too difficult, people may choose to communicate less, ask less questions, get less clarification and ultimately may result in poorly run operations.
In order to streamline communication across your team, consider using a professional mobile+desktop application like one of the following…
Telegram - good for smaller teams (< 8 people), few or no sub-teams
Slack - good for larger teams, multiple sub-teams, sharing files
If you’re accustomed to discussing work over text or email and are wondering why go through the hassle of shifting over to a new application - the simple answer is great organization. Particularly for larger teams (8 or more people), applications like Slack allow you to easily keep track of all work-related messages in one place, that are searchable and can easily be opened from your desktop computer or mobile phone. It is a clean workspace dedicated solely to your enterprise, which can also be great for separating your work life from everything else in your life.
Ideas
Having a communication channel dedicated to sharing ideas and feedback, is very important to make sure everyone is on the same page about projects and that work isn’t lost on ideas that took form unapproved or unsupervised.
This mode of communication is the most dependent on what your business is - for example if your projects are very visual (e.g. interior design), then you’ll want a collaborative space that accounts for that.
Here is a starter list to consider -
Notion - a notebook-type workspace, great for documenting + collaborating on ideas; or use for personal planning and tracking one’s own progress on tasks
Google Drive - collaborating + commenting on documents, presentations + excel sheets, organized into folders and options for different permissions (viewer v editor)
Miro - collaborative whiteboards + idea mapping with synchronized video calls (to mimic real-life team meetings / brainstorms)
Pinterest - use private visual boards to share collections of images (e.g. mood boards)
Of course there are many other platforms out there, these are just a few very good options so check them out and if none of them quite fit the bill, you can research platforms like these by searching for “online collaboration tools (for remote teams)”.
Milestones + Updates
Communication tools like slack and telegram are great for back-and-forth messaging on the little things, but for keeping view of the big picture, you’ll want to use a project management tool. Such tools will allow you to lay out what projects are currently being worked on, visually lay out timelines + progress and assign tasks to different team members.
In order to track your progress as a team and conduct effective project management whilst working remotely, consider trying one of the following online tools…
Asana - best for tracking progress of teams + individuals, any team size
Monday - best for tracking progress + CRM + more, any team size
Trello - best for tracking progress, less technical feel, any team size
For a great comparison of the 3 project management tools - Asana, Monday and Trello - check out this resource that compares features, price plans and best uses.
Balancing Work + Home Key Takeaways…
Taking care of your mind will spill into your business - nutrition, exercise, relaxation, inspiration
Create a workspace at home that motivates you to work and creates a boundary between work and home life
Use remote work applications to improve communication and idea sharing across your business’ team
Hopefully you feel more confident now about ways you can improve communications in your business whilst working remotely!
This post is part of a series of 4 key challenges facing small businesses in the pandemic. To get an introduction to adapting your business during covid-19, check out the directory post, or navigate directly to read about moving online, accessing capital, managing your resources.
If you think you’d benefit from more guidance or help on any of the issues covered, Launch Local is an organization, running solely to help small businesses survive through the effects of the pandemic. Our free services range from website design to market research to digital marketing and SEO. And we would love to help you.
Sign up here or reach out to us via email at hello@launchlocal.org and we’ll help you on your way.
Still deciding if Launch Local is right for you? Learn more about our services here or read about how we helped a local apparel store in North Carolina and their feedback.
