The current situation surrounding the COVID-19 issue is completely turning all of our lives upside down at the moment. Contact bans, restrictions to the most necessary and home office. This is what everyday life looks like for many of you at the moment - and for us in the team as well. We at recemo would like to do our bit to help contain the virus and are currently doing without commuting to work wherever possible. But how do you make the time at home as productive and varied as possible? We've been thinking about that a lot over the past few days and discussing it with our team. We have collected our best hacks for productive teamwork in the home office to give you an insight into our current everyday life behind the scenes.
1. create an oasis of productivity
Even though there is always an open and stimulating atmosphere in our team, this cannot be compared with the current situation where the spatial boundaries between work and leisure time suddenly blur. This is why our product developer Olli finds it most important to set a clear start to the working day in the home office. So get out of bed, have breakfast and go for a run. One refreshing shower later Olli is sitting at his workplace, ready for his first task. He has deliberately sat down in the separate study, because a spatial separation of the work and leisure worlds can also help concentration. In the style of loci or memory palace theory, we link knowledge and processes with the places where we learn and apply them. A separation of work and leisure space also helps to avert unaccustomed distractions and to be able to concentrate better on work.
"After a break, it helps me to sit back at my desk so that my head can get back to work and I can concentrate."
Photo by Jason Strull on Unsplash
Photo from rezemo
2. plan the day
Especially when the structure of the office workplace is missing, it helps to invest the first 5-10 minutes of the working day to roughly plan the day and give it a structure. Every morning, our marketing campaigner Carolin asks herself a few important questions before she plunges into the working day:
- What are the results I want to work on today?
- How long will it take me to complete which task? (Schedule buffer)
- Which tasks require my special concentration? (schedule deep work phase)
- Which interfaces do I have today with whom in my team?
- When do I take breaks?
"Just by investing 5-10 minutes every morning, I get an overview of what's coming up and save myself valuable time in coordinating tasks".
3. create routines
People are creatures of habit. By switching from office to home office, certain structures and habits that the daily work routine has dictated fall away, such as the daily commute to work, listening to music on the train and, in our case, above all, the regular coffee breaks in the rezemo team. In order to be able to organise working time productively, it helps to build certain routines into the daily home office routine. Our founder Stefan always gets up at the same time, has breakfast and gets to work on time. It is also possible to have a coffee with the team, because they are in the same situation.
"A short walk after dinner helps me to clear my head and to get new energy for the afternoon with the beautiful weather of the last days."
The Greek Analyst on Twitter: https://twitter.com/GreekAnalyst/status/1239625582482251777
Photo of Nick Morrison on Unsplash
4. deep work phases
"Good working days are those when I make great progress in my tasks, finish things off, or come up with a good concept and sketch it out for myself."
... says Julian, one of the founders of rezemo. To achieve exactly that, deep work phases are important. As the name suggests, "I pick out an important task that requires a high degree of concentration or my full thinking capacity and work on it - and only on it - for 60 minutes", says Julian. The important thing is to devote yourself solely to this task, sit in a separate room, block the deep work phase in the calendar and let the team know that you are not available during this time. A similar method is the Pomodoro technique, in which deep work phases alternate with smaller breaks every 25 minutes. Here it is important to find a method suitable for oneself and to integrate it into the working day.
5. taking breaks and maintaining social contacts
After a successful deep work phase it is part of the process to relax the body and mind - only then can you return to concentration. For this purpose, you can consciously leave your workplace in order to maintain the connection between your workplace and work. Go out onto the balcony for a moment, get some fresh air or arrange a virtual coffee party with your colleagues, so that you can return to your workplace fully concentrated afterwards. Because especially in the home office the motto applies:
"It's the result that counts, not the time I spend at work"
Our rezemo Coffee Edition 5 is perfect for a short virtual coffee break with your colleagues.
The rezemo team at the online coffee party