Just as lots of artists, musicians and the like jumped on the Lord of the Rings bandwagon and created LoTR inspired pieces, so lots of people are posting stories on how to work at home.
So I thought I would to, having done it since around 1987.
Procrastination
The first thing to say is that in the real world, not everyone can do it with 100% success, or even 75% success. It is far too easy to put off something on the grounds you’ll “do it later”. So, if you are a large procrastinator this is going to be hard make no bones about it.
To Do Lists
One thing that helps in this, is the last thing at night before going to bed, make a list of all the things you need and want to do the next day. I use a $10 white board I got from The Reject Shop in conjunction with a copy of Microsoft OneNote that is also on my phone and syncs the two auto-tragically.
Next label these according to priority – As MUST be done and done before anything else is attempted. Then Bs which must be done that day, Cs can wait a day and Ds are something you want to do, but the sky won’t fall in if you don’t.
When each is completed, physically put a line through it.
Dedicated Area
As most of my peers have suggested, make sure you have a dedicated area to work in, free from distractions if possible, such as TV noise (as cute as Bluey is) or Alan Jones on the wireless.
Music is good. I’ll repeat that. Music is good.
Take a break every hour if possible and walk around, go outside, smell the roses, play with the dog, hug the kids, kiss the partner but then GO BACK TO WORK.
Have a proper lunch break and don’t drink too much coffee.
Make sure you have a knock off time when work has finished for the day and do not go back to it apart from your list making.
Training
If you run out of things to do, may I go back what I talked about last week and suggest you spend the time in self-learning? There are any number of trial versions of software to try out for editing, effects, compositing etc – some are even free such as Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve and (NLE and Fusion (compositing and effects). I’d also recommend those from BorisFX and chuck in HitFilm (fxhome) too.
The full post on this is here.
Dress
Some people find it useful to dress as if they were still working in an office. I had one friend in the past who needed to not only dress in his normal office clobber (a three piece suit no less), but had to get in his car and drive around the block a few times to “get in the groove”.
Social Media
And finally the hard one. As tempting in times as it is in times like this, if you have work to do, actual work, resist the temptation to also having social media running or even live news feeds. Trust me, it is far too distracting and potentially, even distressing.
Conclusion
We are all anxious in this current situation to some degree, mostly I suspect as we cannot see, or have been given a hint of some sort of time frame or end point. There is no light at the end of the tunnel so to speak, and our freedoms have been cut.
For control freaks especially, this is an anxious thing by itself. I certainly get that.
For what it’s worth, personally I consider that China seems to be the benchmark, and after 3 months, they are coming out of the severe austerity measures they had to put into place.
If this is true, and I have no evidence to suggest it is so (or not), hopefully we will all be having a slap up Happy New Financial Year party.
Won’t that be brilliant?
Film, Video & Virtual reality 