Special Episode: How to Work From Home

to be of help at this critical time. They're all productivity experts, and I've asked them for some of their ideas on how we can make this transition to working from home and how to set some boundaries for us between our work lives and our personal lives. These are all new conversations with previous guests. In addition, we've been working hard over here to try and think of some things that might help you and support you in this

difficult time. This episode is one example of that. We'll have another episode out on Tuesday, our regular day, which is going to be about dealing with our emotions and our fears during this time. I again reached out to some of my favorite guests from the past, and they generously agreed to come back and talk with me about

handling our emotional and mental health. During this period, We're also going to be doing a few other things that I want to tell you about, and all of what I'm about to tell you can be found at one you feed dot net slash help. First, I'm going to start offering a free weekly group coaching call. This is going to start this Wednesday they at new and Eastern time, and it will happen at the same time each Wednesday

thereafter for the foreseeable future. It will be an opportunity for you to ask questions, let me know what you're struggling with, and I'll offer my thoughts on how you can work through those things and the most productive, healthy and strengthening way. Secondly, I'll be making a number of one on one coaching spots available for free to healthcare workers.

So if you're a healthcare worker and you're on the front lines of all this and you could use a little bit of extra support, email me at Eric at one you feed dot net and we can talk. In addition, I'm going to discount all of the one on one coach programs, So over the next several weeks, I'll be discounting my private coaching services to make them accessible to

as many people as possible who need them. So if you're wrestling with restructure in your day, building new routines or habits, or you're wrestling with your emotions and dealing with those, or like most of us, you're dealing with a blend of those things, the coaching program might be a really good support for you, and I will be offering discounts on it over what we normally do. You can get more details about all these things at a new page we've created. It's at one you feed dot

net slash Help. It'll have details on how you can join the free weekly call, how the healthcare workers can get in touch with me, and how to learn about the discounted coaching sessions. It'll also have a link to the Facebook live session that I did the other night, and anything else that we create that will help during this time, So go to one you feed dot net

slash help for all of that. Also, if you're not connected to our email list or on social media, this is a great time to consider doing that because we'll continue to share new things that we are offering via all of those channels. And again at when you feed dot net slash Help, you can get access to all the free resources and you can get on the email list there and connect with us via social media. I wish you the best in staying safe, healthy and sane

in this difficult time. I hope you enjoy this episode about structuring your time while being at home, and we'll have another one out about dealing with difficult emotions on Tuesday. Be well. Thank you, and first up, we have David Cadeby. He's the best selling author, blogger, podcaster, and speaker. On episode two eighty three of the One You Feed podcast, David and Eric discussed his book The Heart to Start,

Stop procrastinating and Start Creating. Hi, David, thanks for taking some time to come back on and chat with me about how people who are newly working from home can be more effective and deal with the unique challenges of working from home. Thank you for having me on. Eric, as I said, I was just thinking about the same

thing this morning, So I guess great minds think alike. Yes, yes, So people are working from home in unprecedented numbers and a lot of people who just are not used to doing it or have never done it, and so what are some things that they can they can do to make that transition more seamless for them. I think it really starts with boundaries. I've been working for myself a k a. Working from home for thirteen years, and you know, at first, when you first start doing it, you think, oh,

this is so cool. I can work whenever I want, I can work on the couch, I can sit on my bed and work. And it doesn't take too long before you realize that that's not a good idea. So I think boundaries in general, Uh, you know, I think there's three places where you need to set boundaries. That's in your time, your space, and in your mind. And we can expand on all those I want. Yeah, let's

let's uh, let's work through this. I think I agree with you as somebody who in the last year and a half, I guess, spent a little bit longer than that move to working from home exclusively, I have certainly found the both the wonderful parts of it and the challenging parts of it. And I think I agree with you that what I have found is I do need to set some boundaries. So let's walk through each of

those categories. I think the first he said was time. Yeah, the first is time, and it's interesting because I think that working from home is really not so much about time management as it is mind management. All these things are set up to create boundaries in your mind because when you work in an office, you've got eight hours, but how many of us are really working for all

those eight hours? And then you come home and now it's really not so much how much time you're going to spend on things, it's it's are you going to get things done? And you usually find that you just can't really focus for eight hours. Um, So I think first you want to set up some boundaries with your time. And this is extremely useful because there's so many distractions at home, right Like you know, I, for I guess

I shouldn't say fortunately, but I don't have kids. Fortunately for my for my work, I don't have kids, don't have that that aspect going on. But there are other things. There's a plant that I see that needs to be watered, or I need to do some dishes, things like that, and so if you can set up a boundary for those things where you know, maybe you do realize I need to water this plant or I need to do some dishes. You just stop for a second and say, okay, well,

I'm not going to do that right now. I'm working between these hours and at eleven am, I'm going to take a break and I'm gonna do that, or I'm not going to do that. That can wait until the

end of the day. So setting up some boundaries with your time is really big because it can create that mental boundary that you naturally have when you're going into an office every day because you go into that office and what happens over time, you get conditioned so that you're suddenly in that right mental state to do work when you get in that office. You don't have it at home, So you have to create those spaces yourself.

One of those ways is through time. Yep, yep, I agree, And I think that working from home is a great way to start trying out some working techniques like um the Pomodoro method or policy, because again, when we walk into an office, we sort of sit down, like you said,

and we're in our work environment. We're gonna be there for eight hours, and some of that's really focused, some of it's not really focused, but we're kind of there, and at home it's very different, and so I find, you know, it's a lot more effective to be like, all right, I'm gonna work for a chunk of time, and then i'm gonna give myself a little break, and

then I'm gonna work for a chunk of time. And these really focused blocks of time with breaks and being home means that those breaks, you can do things during those breaks that that you can't normally do at work, which is great. And then knowing when it's time to get back. And so you know, I sort of live by my timer, like all right, I'm on for an hour fifteen minute break, or I'm on for thirty minutes five minute break, but I set the timer for both the time I work and for the break time, so

I know when it's time to return. Yeah, And I really love that because if you're setting these these chunks of time, like you mentioned the Pomadoor technique, you might set a timer for forty minutes or twenty minutes or whatever. When you set that chunk of time, and it gives you that boundary within which to focus. You have to re architect your brain to be able to work from home, and your brain is plastic, so any thought that you have, you's gonna become easier for you to have that thought.

So if you are every two minutes going and doing a chore while you're trying to get work done, you're going to carve those neural pathways. You're gonna set bad habits. But if you do create those spaces where there's twenty minutes that you're going to be focused and anything that you think about you can just kind of set off to the side. You're starting to carve those neural pathways to be focused on the thing that you're working at when you're in this home environment, which is going to

be critical to your productivity. Yep, exactly. So Okay, so we've talked about time, what's the next boundary, the next boundaries space and you might have some idea. What I'm talking about here is that if you have a home office or a separate room that you can work in, that's great. That will help condition you so that if you can make it so that you're only working when you're in that space, and when you're in that space,

you're only working, that's wonderful. Not all of us have that space, though, but there's other ways that you can manipulate your space so that you can condition yourself and create those boundaries, uh, so that you are in the right mental state to work when you're deciding it's time to work. I had a perfect example of this thirteen years ago when I started on my own. I had a tiny bedroom in San Francisco. I mean, you can

imagine apartments are small in San Francisco. This bedroom was so small there was hardly any room between the bed that I had and the desk for there to even be a chair there. But what I did was I set up a boundary by changing the space when it was time for me to work. So you know those a little room dividers that you can get at probably Target or all sorts of places. They're also called show

sogy screens. I don't know if people normally call them that, but I had one of those, like a translucent one, and I would set it up around my desk and I'd make a little cubicle for myself, and then I get like a little clip lamp and I just would sort of redirect the light upwards, the kind of change not only the space but also the lighting in the room. And then that's where I would work. And then when it was time to shut things down, I just shut

off the lamp. I would oh the room divider around the desk so that I couldn't even see the desk anymore. So that way my brain was conditioned then so that when that was set up, it was time for me to work. When that was taken down, then I could sleep. I wasn't thinking about sleeping while I was working, and I wasn't thinking about working so much while I was sleeping. Yeah, that's a great solution. And I have seen on social media this week there have been some some hilarious home

setups of the way people are are working. People working on big garbage cans, people working on ironing boards. Apparently ironing boards are the ironing boards are the new adjustable desk. Oh the night in a standing sitting desk. I just got one of those. They're wonderful that they're wonderful to have, So I need to check that out. That sounds entertaining

the season, these home setups. So yeah, but I think it's a great idea, and I think that you know, we can try uh And I think your example is a great ones for how can we sort of transform our space to sort of mark out these boundaries. So okay, so we've got time space and our final one, our mind.

You can set up mental boundaries to help condition yourself to get into the right mind state for work, and also importantly to get out of that mind state and into a different mind state when work is over, when you've decided that work is over. And I think that's important to to have some kind of boundary late in the day where you know, after this time, I'm not

working anymore. And so the way that you can create these mental boundaries is just through rituals, and I've already described a bit of one, which was the setting up of the room divider and setting up the lamp. That really changed the feeling of the space. But there was also a sense of rich all to that, and I

didn't mention that. In addition to that, one thing I did was there was a certain album that I would play immediately when I started working, and it was the same album every time that I started, and and just had this this beginning to it where that was just

my queue to get into the mental state to work. Additionally, I had an aroma therapy diffuser that I set up and I would specifically use Lemon, a Roman therapy sent and you could come up with whatever one you wanted, but adding those things on helped create a mental ritual that created that boundary. I've heard of all sorts of other things. It really doesn't matter what you decide as

long as you do it over and over again. There's a writer who I know who has a Star Wars mug, and so he only drinks out of the Star Wars mug when he's going to write. So he knows that when he sets up his coffee, when he touches his Star Wars mug, that means it's time for him to write. I remember hearing a quote from some writer who was saying,

you know, it really doesn't matter what you decide. You could say I'm gonna only right wearing flip flops on my back deck and that it was going to have a placebo effect and that's gonna help you get in the right state to work as long as you decide that is going to and you repeat it on a regular basis. I love those ideas. I Uh. There's a playlist on Spotify called Deep Focus, and the first song on it, I love that one. Yeah, that first song, what is it? It's uh never even looked till now.

It's called under the Wind by the Tides is the first song. But that's that song for me sort of triggers a little bit of a like, Okay, now it's time to sort of settle in and and work right now. So I think music is a great way to do that. Yeah, so all those things you can use to just set up those boundaries. I think the boundaries part is really important. Is something that especially when you first get started. Uh, it takes a to learn the hard lesson that you

need to create some boundaries. Yeah, it's it's absolutely essential. I have found working from home to be wonderful in some ways and as you said, extremely challenging and others. I think the other thing for me that I found so important is to get up and get out of the house a little bit. And now this is not a time to go like visit your local coffee shop right now. I've been really enjoying being out in nature a lot more. I find it. Nature is sort of

always a great touchstone for me. But that's another one for me is remembering to get out of the house, because since I don't leave to go to work, if I don't make a point of getting out, I never leave, and then I start to get claustrophobic. You know, it's funny that you mentioned that, because I do the same thing. I'm a writer, so mornings I'm spending writing, but eventually

I get kind of a mental log jam going. And actually, just before I got on this conversation with you, there's a park near my house that has all these beautiful bamboo trees in it. And know we're under quarantine, so there's not a lot of people there, so that's important. Um So I was just in that park sitting and thinking and relaxing and uh, thinking a little bit about this conversation too. So I actually use it as a creative session to to prepare and and think about what

I was going to talk about with you. Awesome, Well, I love it. Well, thank you so much for taking a few minutes to talk with this. He's have been really helpful, ideas great. Thank you so much for having me up. Next is Charlie Gilki, who was our guest on episode three hundred of the One You Feed podcast, where Eric and him discussed his book Start Finishing how to Go from Idea to don Hi, Charlie, happy to have you with us to talk here for a couple

of minutes. I appreciate you making the time. Hey, Eric, I'm super pumped to be back and appreciate being asked. So what I'm trying to do with this short little episode is just give people who are newly working from home some tips on how to make the transition and make it as seamless as possible and allow them to find some sanity in working from home. So maybe you could start off by just giving us a couple of tips that you have for people who are working from home. Now.

So I'm gonna lead my tip with sort of a mindset shift, because I think in when you first start working from home, people misdiagnose distractions and interruptions when really there are challenges with competing priorities and boundaries. And I say that because when you're at home, you're presented with

a lot of different things. Maybe it's kids that are at home too, or maybe it's another adult working partner, and you know, you're sitting there in the middle of a work block and you're like, oh, I need to get groceries and maybe I need to do laundry, um, And those priorities don't exist in a way when you're at work. And so really understanding that so much of the distractions and interruptions that you might be facing are really the shifting priorities that go on with you, triggered

by the environment to trans super super helpful. So one of the tips that I would put in place is that the very minimum recreate, re engineer their pre work, lunch and post work routines. Most people, whether they are intentional about it or not, do, in fact have a pre work routine. They have a lunch routine, and they have a post work routine, and those give the beginning, middle, and end of the day such that it turns that long what am I going to do today into coherent

blocks which you can use more purposefully. What are some examples of those types of routines that people could put in place when they're at home, Because when we're working, some of those things they're they're very clearly bookended by things like a commute as an example, as a as

a sort of enforced routine. But but we have a commute that allows us to transition absolutely, And so something I've worked with with people for years and it sounds crazy, Eric, but I will encourage people who are newly working from home to actually walk around the block one way at the beginning of the day, and then walk around the block the other way at the end of the day, and that creates a similar level of space and movement

that parallels the commute. And it also gets people to trigger into like, oh yeah, when I come home, I normally do acts and normally like scoop the loador box I normally do all these sort of things. And you can actually piggyback upon those native routines that you built, um, and so absolutely recreating your commute um, you know, not having it be the I wake up in the morning and I stepped six ft and I'll start working at

the table. It's a very good thing to do. Another thing that I've talked about with some people is, you know, if you've been making lunch for yourself and kids to take it to work, maybe keep doing that. Right, there's no reason that you can't go ahead and get all that set up in the morning, just the same way as you would if you were going to work. And then when it's lunchtime, you're not having yet another thing to do on top of eating lunch, and so you just eat what you pre made and what I want

to lean into here, or at least amplify here. Is that so many of these routines have a physical movement component to it, and that's really important. Macau. Not only does it give you space from the devices, not only does it give you space from the anxieties and the news, it actually recruits your body into helping you memorize, process,

move stretch, things like that. And so any of these routines that have a movement component are just going to be so much better for you than you know, sitting in a chair or sitting and sitting you know, on the couch all day because again, you don't have stairs to climb, you don't have parking around too, you don't have a bus you need to catch, um, and all those things do work for us at a lot of

times we don't see. Yeah, I think finding ways to to move is a challenge, and particularly so right now. Absolutely um. And you know, I'm fortunately I live in Portland right now and it's sunny and the weather is nice, and so I understand that there are other places in the world in the United States that maybe it's still

snowy and cold outside and unless it's super freezing. Um. That distance that the amount of times it takes you to put on your clothes and go outside and walk is actually really good integration and separation time from whatever maybe whole going onto your attention from the news cycle or from the social media cycle. Yeah, I'm in Columbus and it has been cold in wintry. We had surprising

amount of snow the other day. But I've been certainly making a point to get outside, walk, bundle up, just be outdoors and move some just because I felt like I've needed it for sure. Yeah. UM, another thing to think about as far as routines, or it's not quite a routine, but as close as making your environment work for you. UM. A lot of times our home offices are our home offices or kitchen tables, depending upon which

way you roll with that. UM aren't necessarily set up for us to be focused and you know, not distracted, not interrupted, And so maybe it's time to change. For instance, you know, if you have a TV room and entertainment room,

maybe it's time to sort of change that around. You know, co off that is your office, Maybe get the TV out, or if you know that there are certain things, especially electronics in your room that are distracting you, it may be worth taking time to remove those things completely rather

than fidgeting with them and fighting with them all day. Um. And so you know, while we have this general background anxiety because of the pandemic and a new way of working and social media cycle news cycle, last thing you need to do is fight with your environment too. And simple changes make a huge difference here. And sometimes it's replacing that you know, used chair that you've got six years ago at the good will store and actually buying

a for real office chair. And to this point, we've got to remember that this may not be a short term thing. It might not be three or four weeks where we're working from home. This could be three, six, nine months. And so your environment over the long term is going to matter way more than your willpower, way more than any sort of grit that you want to put into it. So it might be time to invest in some of those things that makes it work for you.

Totally makes sense. And I think that idea about trying to get our environment to work for us. It makes me think of wrestling with the news cycle or wrestling with social media. I found that it's been helpful sometimes when I feel like I'm not winning wrestling match to let my devices do the limiting for me. So there, you know, there's lots of tools on our phones, on our computers that can block us, can actually stop us,

like no more Twitter, Eric, like you're done. And so if if we are finding that, like we're setting an intention I want to spend less time doing that. I want to spend less time, and we're still not finding ourselves able to hold that intention, then it's really can be useful to use some of those tools to set some of those limits for us, because this is a hard time to set those limits, for sure, harder for

me than normal by a long shot. I absolutely agree. Um, there's an app called Cold Turkey Blocker that saves my bacon every day because it allows me to set up different applications and websites. And I also want to talk about environment here. So one of the things that you could do is rather than fight your phone in the distractions all day, like keep your phone in the kitchen

when you're working upstairs in your home office. And you know that physical distance, and there's plenty of research that shows that just having your phone in your work area decreases your i Q, decreases your focus and so it's not about what the phone is actually doing. It's about your relationship with the phone in its proximity to you. And so, for instance, my wife and I we have a cubby where our iPhones. So we walk in the

house the iPhones going to cubby. They stay there most of the day, most of the time until we intentionally go back and like, you know what, I actually want to check my test messages to see what's going on. And then we do that and then we put it back in the cubby and go on with our lives.

It harkens back to that time. Eric, you probably remember where we used to have to go to a wall where where they had a phone on it, right and actually answer the phone or go to the actual voicemail machine, do our business there and then go on with the rest of our lives. And so, um, that was supported for us then and turns out it's super supportive for me and Angela now excellent. Any other ideas for people, I would say that if you're newly working from home, Um,

something that surprises people. There are two things that surprised people. One is how lonely and isolating it could be. I might get to that in a second. The first is that you realize how much you can get done in a short amount of time without all the distractions from work, without all the people poking over your head and so and so forth. And there's this really awkward thing that

many new newly working from home people find out. It's like, wait a second, I could actually get everything done in five hours a day because I don't have nearly as many meetings if if your office is doing that, or you know, not nearly as many interruptions and distractions, and so I would be having a lot of conversations with yourself and maybe your teammates and co workers about what you do with that extra three or four hours where

you're not actually doing something productive, but you're kind of at the computer because you're supposed to be. UM. I don't have any super solid answers that that's going to be team dependent. But if you find yourself at two o'clock in a day and there's just not a whole lot for you to do and you're sort of itching and things like that, you haven't done anything wrong. It's just that there may not be nearly as many work

distractions and interruptions and meetings going on. Right now, and it's a really good time for you to maybe get caught up on some back objects, you know, maybe get caught up on some of those back emails. But also it could be a good time for for you to

connect with your other teammates who are isolated too. So in some of the work I've been doing with the organizations UM that are standing and remote, teams have had to remind them that, like, teams need time for just bombing in chit chat and the manager is always like, I'm not paying people to chit chats, Like, well, you've been doing it for years, um, it just hasn't been

demarketed as so. But like maybe you coordinate with some of your other teammates who are also during that low period, and you catch up with each other not just about work, but about how you're doing UM and you know what's going on in your life. And depending upon your team and your manager, that counts is work and again it's what you normally do, which is why working from home can be so lonely because you just don't have those

touch points right right. We do lose a lot of that interaction that we take for granted with other people, and it can be very isolating. And I think I had another guest we're talking about at this about how you know, when we're in person, there's certain things that we do. There's just ways of relating to each other that that express warmth and kindness and support and appreciation that when we go to all digital channels, particularly a lot of emails and stuff, that stuff just all gets

stripped out. And so it's really important to think about that stuff. And and I think for all of us right now, you know, one of the ways to deal with being under a lot of crisis is while not ignoring the very real challenges that we're individually facing, is also to ask ourselves, well, where can I support others also? And and I think this is an area that there's an almost unlimited amount to do in supporting the people around us and just connecting with people and seeing how

they are. Absolutely and it's small things that happen every day at work, like someone asking you if you'd like them to grab coffee for you while they're getting their own right. It's a it's a simple thing, but it reminds you that you're a part of a team and that people are thinking about you. And I care about you. Um, And when you're at home for a week and you haven't had someone to ask you if they like you to get coffee or if they like to get coffee

for you, then it's easy to feel forgotten. Another thing that I was talking about with my wife earlier is that when we switched to virtual working, a lot of times we switch from a verbalization um or a lot of us talk at work, we chit chat with each other like physically talking, and then all of a sudden, in remote work environment, things are reading and reading and writing centric, and not all of us are reading and writing centric, and some some of us struggle with getting

our thoughts down in words right, and then we come across caustic and we lose our warmth and things like that, and so um, that's another challenge people find when when working from homes, like, oh, I have to do a lot more writing and reading than I'm used to that I care for, and then I don't really know how

to do it could be super frustrating. So again, with those checking moments that I mentioned earlier, maybe instead of spending seventy five minutes writing emails and slack updates all all day, you get on the phone and talk fifteen minutes with your teammate in the way that you normally do and get out of all that jazz. That's a great idea. Well, Charlie, thank you so much for taking a couple of minutes to share some of these ideas with us. I really do appreciate it, and I know

it'll be helpful to the listeners. Eric, thanks for having me, and thanks for your leadership and making this happen my pleasure. Coming up next is Chris Bailey, who we had on episode number two four four and Chris, we're in a yearlong productivity project where he studied and ran experiments on the subject. In that episode, we discussed his book hyper Focus, How to Be More Productive in a World of Distraction. Hi, Chris, it's good to have you back on. Good to be

back on. Man. How are you holding up over there in Ohio? Holding up? Okay? I think, like everybody, a lot of uncertainty, for sure, how about it? Yeah, It's it's so crazy because you can't even talk about what's going on right now because between now and when this episode comes out, the whole world will have changed again. But we're hanging in there. We just got done with some travel and now we're we're just chilling at home and waiting things out. I guess, which is what people

are saying to do. Yep, yep, us too well. I wanted to get you back on and have you share a little bit with our listeners some tips about how to transition to working from home. So many of us are finding ourselves working at home now that may be new for a lot of people, and so I just was wondering if you could share some ideas and strategies

for how to make that transition. Yeah, for sure. You know, I think it's important to preface any of these strategies saying that this isn't really a normal time, because we we all have so many more distractions than we usually do. And so i'd preface this advice by saying, you know,

just reminding folks, basically, you know, I study productivity. I kind of have a somewhat of a grasp of what gets in the way of our focus, of our productivity, and I should preface all this by saying that it's okay to not be as productive as you normally are right now. Um, It's okay if you find it impossible to focus or to make sense of the current situation

or to understand what's coming next. You know, productivity is the very last thing on some people's mind, especially during a global pandemic that's shutting down a lot of the world. But that said, you know, I'm I'm happy to help where I can because we still do have, you know, obligations to bring forward to the front of our consciousness

with our work. UM And so maybe you know, I put together a couple of notes here for for listeners of the podcast um both to to not only be productive but while working from home, but also to be productive and kind of a crisis mode if you will, if you think that'd be helpful. Yeah, I think the goal isn't necessarily like, you know, how do we get people to maximize their uput. It's just really this is a strange time, and I think some people are finding I'm working from home and and all I'm doing is

I'm just working. And other people are saying I can't get anything done, I can't concentrate, you know, And so just some orienting ideas in this time, yeah, for sure. So my approach to productivity, as you might know, is there's not like a one size fits all things. So I'll give a few bite size pieces of advice, that kind of a buffet of advice that folks can choose from. Number one, don't keep chips in the house. That this

is my number one rule for working from home. I will eat an entire bag or two of chips um in in one sitting. And so that's that's step zero. But once you get that part, what's that I said, Chris is probably gonna edit that part out, but hopefully he'll he'll keep it in. But yeah, keep it in for it. Yeah, if you get if you're trying to get it down to time. But but I would start by suggesting that people give themselves a bit more time to settle into into important tasks and just be patient

with yourself. So if your mind is busier right now, it's going to be a bit more difficult to focus that than usual. So give yourself a few more minutes than usual to settle into important tests that require a bit more concentration. You'll probably just need that time so your mind can settle down a bit. And another thing to mention is because we're not commuting when we're working from home, we we do have a bit extra time

at the beginning and the end of our day. Um. And something that I know you talk a lot about on the on the podcast. Something I talk a lot about two is to find things that you're able to a saver or slow down with. And this is so important. We we have so much news bouncing around, not only in the world but in our own minds after we consume it, while we're trying to to process the things that we consume. So maybe even in the morning, before

connecting to the news, you can do something slow. You can cook a nice meal, take a walk, UM, do a yoga video on YouTube. Do you know, run on your treadmill, go for a run around the neighborhood if if you're able to do so while keeping up the social distancing um. You know, see that amount of time that you would normally spend commuting as time with which you can invest in your mental health a little bit and and overcome any anxiety that you might have around

the current time. And you know, if you do feel anxious, do work that doesn't require a deep level of concentration and thinking. Um. But it's worth doing the focused work strategically too. So we have kind of these two types of tasks that we do. We have the things that require a greater level of focus of concentration, and then we have kind of the maintenance things, you know, organizing folders on our computer and keeping up with email that we can do when our mind is in a bit

more of a frenzied state. Um. And so I would suggest doing those strategically, such as the deep work tasks right before you even check the news in the morning, maybe used connecting to the state of the world and what the heck is going on right now as a sort of sell that or reward after you you do

your deepest tasks. That's a great idea. And I think a lot of people are, you know, connecting to the news and trying to figure out I know, I'm trying to figure out what's a reasonable amount of that, when to do it, how much to do it? And uh. I'm also finding with myself and coaching clients that using some of the technology that exists to set the limits for us can be really helpful right now because I'm finding myself setting a limit and then going right past it,

setting a limit going right past them. So I'm finding it helpful to sort of let my phone say nope, that's enough. You you're blocked well, and this is this is a period of time in which you should be really paying attention to how the news makes you feel. Um So, we're we're not connected with this enough during normal periods of time. But notice how your mood changes

after consuming the news for a little bit. If you're watching a stream of cn AND online, or you're or you you have the news kind of turned on in the background, or you're do some some anxiety scrolling and refreshing Twitter throughout the day, really notice and reflect on

how your mood changes before and after that experience. Um And, if you find that it's affecting your mood, take steps to defend your mental health, especially um so if you can at all tend to those distractions intentionally rather than just whenever you feel a bit stressed out. And like you know, like this is kind of the ironic thing about the time that we're in right now, is that by consuming the news, we feel a bit more in control of our situation because we are more knowledgeable about it.

But at the same time we realize how out of control some things are, which may ironically lead us to feel less control over our life overall. And so by scheduling it, something that I've been doing is start the day. I realized, Okay, I need to get my most important things done first thing in the morning. Um, I'll do them.

Then I'll treat myself to a bit of news at ten or eleven in the morning, usually when our Prime Minister here in Canada has this daily press conference, and then I'll go back to it, and when I feel the need to check something, I'll write down the thing that I want to check. Okay, I want to check the New York Times. I want to check the wall streets. Okay, I want to check the globe and mail. And I'll make a little list to tend to during my next scheduled period of time during which I need I want

to distract myself. And then I have the to do list that I that I usually have the rest of the time, so that I can have kind of a balance and maintain some modicum of mental calm throughout this busy time right now. Yea, yea, those are great ideas. Other ideas about working from home, Yeah, so track your time. This is a great opportunity to really see how you're

putting in your hours every single day. Um, you can just keep a little I have a little notepad here that I'm flipping through right now in a pen, and I just write down how I spend every fifteen minute block of time because it keeps you accountable on a minute by minute basis um. And also the that idea of anxiety scrolling is is key. Keep that to a minimum notice when you're doing it. Have rituals that you

you depend upon as well. So one of the biggest pieces of advice that that that I'd usually put at the top of this list of of advice if we weren't in the current situation that we're in, UH is to have a dedicated workspace in your house and and have rules if you're sharing your house with other people.

So my wife and I were both working from home right now, and we have little stickies that we attached to the outside of our laptop saying working with a smiley face when we don't want to be interrupted when we're when we're focused on something. But headphones are a great social signal for that too. And one of the biggest things that I can recommend, ironically, sometimes the best way to calm our mind is to do something active, and so getting exercise every single day, especially if you're

forced to self isolate. This is out of anything on this list. You know, take a few of these things. Take the ones you think would work for you. But exercise is not really a suggestion, it's it's almost a requirement because we have less activity when we're just staying at home and working from home. Um, and so we need to compensate for that. So all right, I guess to recap. So take your time with tasks. UH. Take the time that you'd spend commuting and do something slow

with it. If you feel anxious, do something that doesn't require deep concentration or deep thinking. Do focused work in the morning before connecting to the news. Perhaps, um maybe if you have a kids at home, take a split shift with your partner if you're there alone. Maybe be strategic about their screen time when you're in important calls. Don't keep chips lying around the house. Have to do list every day. UH, schedule some news and distraction time.

Work out, Please work out to maintain your mental health, and have some rituals that that you depend upon and track your time. That's a lot of stuff, but things and the ones that work for you, and leave the rest but just a bunch of suggestions that hopefully folks find helpful. Thank you, Chris. That's wonderful. I really appreciate you taking a couple of minutes, and that was a very good summary, and listeners will know I'm on board with the exercise. It's kind of key to my mental

health in all times and feels especially important now. And it's so important. It just is. Yeah, you can do every single exercise in the world with a resistance band, and you can always adjust how intense it is by grabbing the band at a different place. It's like ten bucks for one. It's a great investment right now, and just investing in you right now is is a good investment right now. Indeed. All right, Well, thank you so much, Chris. I really appreciate you sharing some of these ideas with

our listeners. Thank you for our fine guest. We have Liz fosse Line, whose work has been featured by The New York Times, The Economist, and NPR. On episode three and ten, her and Eric discussed her book No Hard Feelings, The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work. Hi, Liz, Hi, it's a pleasure to talk with you again. You are a guest on the main episode of the One You Feed.

But what I'd like to talk with you now about is just to get some ideas from you on things that people can do, some some short actionable advice on how to make the transition to working from home and how to do that more effectively. Yeah, thanks, Eric, that's a great question, and I'm sure a lot of people are making that shift right now. I think the first thing is really just to acknowledge that it's okay to

feel feelings at this time. It's an unprecedented time. Um, I think you know, there's not only work to do, but there's just a lot of emotional labor that we're all doing, sort of showing up to meetings, trying to be normal, trying to focus when there's obviously the world is shifting in major ways. So the first is just to give yourself some space, be kind to yourself, that kind of thing. Yeah, that's a really good one, because I do think everybody is having trouble concentrating and focusing

right now. It's pretty endemic. Okay, So we give ourselves sort of permission that it's okay to feel the way we're feeling about what's happening. Yeah, And then I think that goes for managers as well. So if you have one on ones, you know, maybe add a few minutes to the beginning or to the end to check in on how people are doing. Also just being cognizant, especially if you know that your people have good intentions and

work hard in the office. Right now, they might be dealing with their kids, might be home to which obviously can be distracting. Um, but just making space for those kinds of conversations, uh, and allowing maybe for a little more flexibility with hours too, if it's easier for people

to shift when they're working or when they're online. And so one thing there that you can do is maybe meet as a team or send out an email thread and say, like, what are people's preferred hours and can we agree on like a chunk of four hours when

we're all available. And then the rest is sort of do your work when you can spot it in And so, what are some tips for people about how to think about working for home because it is a very different experience, right, We've got our routines in the office, we get home, it's like the distractions are almost endless. Yeah, So I think it's important if you, especially if you love your routines in the office, to set up routines for yourself at home. So one thing I'd recommend is actually having

a designated workspace and keeping that workplace tidy. When you wake up or when you're going you know, quote unquote going to work, put on clothes, get out of the pajamas. It's really easy to just you know, snack all the time or stay in your pajamas. But I think it can help you feel a sense of normalcy and be more productive if you're still keeping up some of the

habits that you used to have. And then also I think one of the things too that actually I've been receiving a lot of emails from people because I've been asking what are you dealing with in this time of transition as you're working from home, often for the first time. And people also say it's really hard to remember to

take breaks. So take a lunch break, maybe make it virtual, get together with some coworkers and set aside an hour to eat and talk about not work, because when you're home, you're not getting up to grab a cup of coffee with people, You're not having people swing by your desk, and so you might be just like hunched over your computer for many hours, and it's just as important to get up, walk around keep your mental health up as well. Yeah,

I think that's totally true. And then I think there's also, you know, the opposite that some people have, which is they find it hard to be very focused at home and they're kind of all over the place. And I think another approach for that is is kind of like you said, to to think about like chunks of time that we're going to work. There's a way of working called pulse in right, where you do very focused junks

of time focused you know, followed by brakes. And this can be really I think can be really helpful at home and you can actually then some of your breaks can be things that you don't normally get to do at the office. They can be brakes where you see the dog, see the cat, you enjoy some of the things around your house. If you if you sort of structure it in that way, your brakes can actually be more enjoyable breaks at home if you plan it out

that way and think about it. Yeah, definitely, And if people are really having a hard time focusing, I think it can often help at the end of each day and your quote unquote work day by got a list of, let's say, three things you want to get done the next day, and that can help you when you come to your desk and you sit down, Let's say you just had your cup of coffee. Maybe you just get in the flow and if you knock out those three things right away, then it's you know, not as big

a deal if you're less focused. But that's a good way of holding yourself accountable and just having a plan every day when you wake up. Yep. Any other ideas that you want to add that you think are really helpful for people in this time, Yeah, I mean I think the two others that I'd add are so like I said, I'm based in San Francisco and we're being asked not to go to the gym where many of them are closed. So just putting time on your calendar to get some physical activity. Um, I really love it's

called the seven Minute Workout, which is on YouTube. But just remembering again, it's like these regular routines that also keep the blood pumping and keep our mental health up. And the last thing I would say is while so many of us are making this shift to working from home, being cognizant and recognizing that not everyone can do that. So health care professionals, um, people who are delivering food

or cashiers, they cannot work from home. And so if you do go out, you know, social distancing, wash your hands, thank them for what they're doing. I think this is a time when we just need to be really thoughtful and supportive of one another. That's a great point that not everybody is able to do this, and yeah, it's a it's a wild time. So I think a little kindness goes a long way right now, It does, it

does for sure. Did you have one other Yeah? So I think one other thing that gets lost when we're working from home is praise. So there's a lot of research that shows when you're communicating digitally, so emailing, slack, messages, whatever sort of your digital communication platform is, we often get into efficiency mode where we're just hammering out, like this is what needs to be done, here's the bullet point.

Can you check this over for me, and we forget those little spontaneous moments which often happen when we're walking to the bathroom, we're walking to a meeting together, when we'll say like, oh, you did a really great job in that meeting, or I so appreciated this other thing

you did for me. So just emotionally proofreading your messages, making sure that you're being explicit about praise, that you're thanking each other, That these sort of informal gestures that go a long way towards cultivating relationships in a sense of belonging, that you're not dropping those just because you're

no grow in the same location. That is a really good one, because yes, so much of our digital interaction, like you said, it's just efficiency, it's just boom boom, boom boom, and all tone gets lost and all warmth tends to get lost, which we know is really important. Yeah, and this is a common thing that remote workers say is just feeling like they just don't get the praise

that they that they feel like they deserve. And so I think now that we're so many of us are working from home, really keeping that top of mind can go a long way. How are you coping working from home? Do you do it often or is this a relatively new thing for you. So my company is a policy where you can work from home one day a week, which is drastically different than all the time. Um So, I'm definitely I think for me, I've found it hard

to focus. I get sucked into the news or like I just have to avoid Twitter because I will just be on Twitter for an hour and then start panicking. So I've actually set myself some pretty strict limitations around news consumption. Um I have ten minutes in morning and then ten minutes at lunch and ten minutes in the evening, and that helps me feel like I'm on top of things. I know what's going on, i know what I should be thinking about, but I'm not sort of spiraling into

reading every single firsthand account of a scary situation. Um So, really trying to protect my mental health and then as a byproduct, focus and productivity. Yeah, I think that's such a challenging dilemma right now, which is how much information is enough? You know? How do I then turn that off and get back to the other parts of my life that are really important and just not get lost in that rabbit hole, because it's really easy to do

right now. Yeah, I think the best thing we can all do right now is protect our mental health, be kind to others, emotionally proof Fred your messages you know, just um as much as possible, try to stay calm and maintain some sense of normalcy, even though obviously much much easier said than done. But I think really of making it a point to do that can help everyone get through these next few weeks wonderful. Yeah, and I

loved the point about exercise. It's such a useful thing I've and I've been sort of using the opportunity of like not going places to exercise so much as opportunity really be outside in nature a lot. And the combination of moving my body and being in nature has been really nice because nature it's just kind of going about its business right. The trees are getting ready to bloom there doing their thing. The squirrels or they seem to be just perfectly doing what squirrels do. It's it really

gives me. Uh, it's it's comforting, and it's just a it's a change for being in a gym, but it's been a pleasant and a welcome one for me for sure. Yeah, I love that. I think that's a great suggestion, and I should start taking walks more regularly. The natural world is always I find a very good touch point when the human world seems insane. Yeah. Absolutely, Well, thank you so much for taking a few minutes to share some of your ideas on how to handle this new working

from home that a lot of people are doing. I appreciate you spending some time with us. Yeah, and thanks for helping raise awareness of issues and then helping people find solutions. Doing our best. I think we all are. Yeah, thanks again. Okay, thanks everybody. We hope you've got a lot out of that episode. There was a lot of great advice in there and a lot of great things to think about. We will be back, as Eric mentioned on Tuesday, by