On April 23rd, 2020 I had the privilege of sitting on a panel for Ladies that UX Denver, to talk about the realities of working remotely. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced us into a "new normal" of social distancing and quarantine. This experience comes with a whole host of challenges that have also managed to bring our communities together in surprising ways.
This virtual event was hosted by Val Head and organized by Maureen Phillips, Jennifer Gunther (Ladies that UX Denver) and Megan Reinhardt (Adobe). I sat on a panel alongside Lily Yee (Mattel) and Liz Blasi (ThoughtWorks), and together we embarked on a topic that has been on many of our minds lately: how do we thrive in this new reality? Of course we couldn't even begin to broach the topic without bringing up the importance of our mental health and wellbeing during this time.
Below are a few of my thoughts and experiences working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Q: What is your favourite thing that your team does to stay in touch while you’re working remotely?
A: I witnessed two main forms of connection flourish after my company, Publicis Sapient, decided to mandate working from home in early March.
The first was the widespread adoption of Microsoft Teams. The experience team had already begun using the platform in 2019, when John Maeda, CXO at Publicis Sapient, first introduced it shortly after his joining the company. John saw an opportunity to create a place for experience folks across the organization to come together. But the importance of this kind of communication—that reaches across both disciplines and distances—became especially apparent once we were suddenly working remotely. In that first week, there were threads of people showing their home offices, their favourite plants, their furry companions and more. We immediately became a community sharing commonalities in what felt like scary, uncertain time.
The second thing that started to pop up in our calendars were virtual morning coffees, afternoon coffee chats and happy hours. Every morning, I have the opportunity to see my colleagues and chat about our days—just like we would while grabbing a coffee in the office. In addition, we have happy hours to close out the week with our experience team over a Zoom call.
These seemingly small things work to bring normalcy and community to both our work lives and our state of well-being.
Q: How do you keep productive while working at home under the current less than ideal circumstances?
A: With regards to productivity, I feel like I'm one of the lucky ones. I live alone in an apartment without kids or a partner who's also working from home. I can only imagine how juggling these types of responsibilities makes productivity a huge challenge.
For me, the bigger challenge has been staying motivated and minimizing distractions. One of the best parts of being a UX designer is the amazing collaboration that goes on within our teams, and this collaboration and feedback is immensely motivating to me. Although we are doing our best to stay collaborative in our work, it doesn't quite feel the same. On the other hand, being virtually collaborative means a flood of meetings in our calendars and non-stop messages streaming through our inboxes. That first week was the most challenging. It was hard to focus and I was constantly trying to multi-task.
I cannot change these circumstances, but I am able to actively work on my daily routine. Here are some of the things that have helped me stay motivated and minimize distractions:
Waking up early: I tend to be the most productive in the mornings, so being able to start my work day early (around 8) means that I can get a bunch of work done without distractions from emails or messages, which usually start to pour in at around 9.
Taking breaks: Working without breaks works sometimes, but it can also cause major burnout. In our offices, we were accustomed and encouraged to naturally take breaks, whether it be a quick chat with a colleague, the walk to your next meeting, or grabbing a snack or a coffee from the kitchen. We need to build these breaks into our WFH schedules. For me, I take a break mid-morning to eat breakfast and have booked lunch into my calendar every day. Additionally, do your colleagues a favour and book 20-minute meetings instead of 30, so that we can catch a break in between calls.
Hiding my desktop toolbar: If you're anything like me, that little red dot that denotes a notification drives you bonkers. I can't move on until I get rid of it! To combat this, I went into my Macbook's settings and hid my toolbar (a.k.a. dock) so that I couldn't see my notifications until I decide it's time to check.
Use your Slack/Teams status bar: Take advantage of these helpful features that are already built into our platforms. You can set your status to "Do Not Disturb" if you need to work through something for a while without distractions or set a custom status to let people know that you're taking a break.
Q: Work/life balance is as important as ever right now. What tricks have you found for keeping your work life and personal life separate even while they’re happening in the same space?
A: The truth of our WFH reality is that the lines that separate work life and personal life are very blurry and we might not be able to make them completely separate during this time.
Instead of working towards separation, maybe our alternative is to make sure we're taking care of ourselves and offering extra patience and understanding to those we work with. While we're all experiencing this together, we also fall on a spectrum of varying personal situations with unique needs. Set boundaries for yourself to honour your individual scenario, and make sure you communicate what you need to your colleagues, manager or HR.
Your mental health and wellbeing is important.
While my answers above may provide some tips and tricks to try to get back to a more regular routine, it doesn't address how we might be feeling through this unprecedented time. Part of the reason why balance and productivity is especially challenging now, is that we often put a lot of pressure on ourselves. We feel the pressure to be extra productive or to prove that we are working when no one can see us working. We feel the guilt of not being able to be as productive as we think we should be. We feel the anxiety of the threat of being laid off, because of the economics of the time. We feel the stress of managing a team at work and also managing our kids in the next room. We feel that we might be failing as a leader, a parent, a partner or a colleague.
These feelings are real and should not be discounted. Whatever you are going through right now, know that you are not alone. We are all going through this together. Give yourself the extra love and patience you deserve, just as you would to a colleague who might also be dealing with the same struggles. While our minds are filled with worried thoughts and bouncing to-do lists, I'm here to tell you that your health and wellbeing is more important.
Take a break. Take a breath. You got this.
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