COVID-19 and Work from Home
One of the most discussed topics after healthcare in 2020 and 2021 was work from home. The daily life dynamics were changing. Change, as most people say, is always good. It’s healthy. It grooms the personality and you try to be the best version of yourself. But the change COVID-19 brought was something most of us never had imagined. It had nothing positive in it and it was not easy to cope with. It was different, depressing, painful and above all it brought uncertainty.
Like many others, I was adopting this new culture of working from home. It was obviously difficult to handle. And I was looking for opinions from others on how they are handling it what’s their stance or perspectives in this regard. So I talked around and looked up to the articles being written about work from home. What I understand and came across was astonishing. In order to share my perspective on work from home, we need to be divide work from home into two parts. The first one is a perspective of a freelancer, who already is working from home. Second is the perspective of any corporate job-holding person who has a 40 hours week routine.
For you to understand the freelancer perspective in detail, here is the link to an amazing article published by FastCompany magazine. This article was written by Lindsay Tigar and published on 26th Mar 2020 which can be accessed at https://www.fastcompany.com/. Here is how Lindsay introduces us to the article, “While much of the news is scary, I’ve found a silver thread of hope in this pandemic: What if this is our chance to prove remote work, well, works?”
You can read the whole article which clearly points out that almost all the organizations have asked their employees to start working from home just like a normal workday at the office. It is very interesting to read, where Lindsay has directed us to an online work management system known as the remote year which helps you to align all your daily tasks. Remote Year can be accessed on https://remoteyear.com/. In this article, she discussed the liberty she had to do her work as a freelancer. She claimed that not only she was more successful but also more organized in her daily life routine. She was also more productive while working from home as compared to her old-day job performance.
In comparison to a freelancer, there is a job holder who works 40 hours a week and is now adjusting to this new idea of work from home. Here I will redirect you to another article which was written by Carrie McKeegan and published on 6th April 2020 in inc. magazine. Carrie’s idea is that “the smartest move you can make as a leader is mimicking a normal work schedule, even in a remote setup”. She suggests that it’s wrong for us to think that we can linger on to our daily tasks and that it’s okay to work 24/7. Her article suggests that if we try to linger on the task then we might end up losing interest in it which will lead to increased mistakes and serious health issues. This article can be accessed on https://www.inc.com/carrie-mckeegan/working-from-home-shouldnt-mean-working-24/7-heres-why.html?cid=sf01003.
What I understood from these two articles was, no matter what you do and however you do that, it is very important for you to understand that we have to be precise, accurate, authentic, and honest in our jobs. Pulling long hours won’t work, doing the work smartly, effectively, and efficiently will give you ample time to follow your dream and pursue things that you have planned but had no time to follow.
In the end, I would request you all that these are troubled times and only by taking care of ourselves we will be able to survive. Take good care of yourself and the one’s around you.
