Good Mornin’! Good Mornin’!
I work at home. I sit at my desk in the basement with my laptop, phone, digital recorder and hot cup of coffee and look to creatively tell stories.
I type, I think, I research and make phone calls all day. Occasionally, I get out of the house and cover events and interview folks. Been doing this since my last downsizing that threw me into freelance writing full time in 2008.
You’d think I’d be an expert about working at home and everything would be smooth and fun and productive.
You’d be wrong.
Oh, I have those days where I’m running like a well-oiled machine and the phone calls I make are being answered and information is gathered to be disseminated in creative parcels. Some days my brain is in full gear and it all clicks.
Then there is the quarantine working environment. Everybody is at home trying to figure out either how to work at home or how to be at home with someone working at home all at the same time. The dogs are constantly barking as they have more folks to protect at home now rather than just some curmudgeon in the basement tapping out missives.
If you’ve found yourself working at home for the first time, here are a few tips from my experience. Now full disclosure, do as I say, not as I do! Lol…
1. Get out of bed at a normal time and oh, go to bed at a normal time like you used to before the quarantine. Hitting the sheets at 3:00 a.m. after binging Netflix makes it hard to obey the alarm in a few hours.
2. Make a To Do list of what you need to accomplish and prioritize it. If you need to put “drink beer or adult beverage” on your list, that’s fine, just don’t make it number one or before noon if possible.
3. Don’t watch the news. It will only seek to feed you with too much gloom and doom. Your dog can fill you in if there’s anything important like a new squirrel in the yard or the mailman stopping by.
4. Don’t stay on social media all day while trying to work or TikTok will eat up more of your productivity than any online game ever could.
5. Brush your teeth, take a shower, shave and actually comb your hair. We will get back to some type of normalcy and we don’t all need to look like we woke up on the set of Land of the Lost as part of Chaka’s family.
6. Clean something, throw out junk, fix something. If you don’t know how, search for it on YouTube. Just don’t get caught up watching the “How Good Were They Actually” videos on NBA, NFL and MLB athletes. But the one on Wilt Chamberlain is great and I have the John Havlicek one saved. See how I administered restraint there?
7. Be polite to your family. They are stuck with you not by their own choice during this quarantine. Give them some slack to “live” in their own house and don’t expand the borders of your workplace.
8. Finally, make another pot of coffee and drink some water and try to remember what day it actually is.
Good luck and God Bless and hey, what day is it anyway?
