A few thoughts for those working at home today. There’s lots of great resources out there about this but our top tips are:
Make sure you know where you’re going to do video calls from and make sure it’s lit well and comfortable for you – always check out how you look on the screen whilst thinking about the impact you want to have (warm, professional, clear, focused) and adjust accordingly – watch how you sit differently when you say you want to be focused!
Plan video calls according to the outcome you want, rather than the scheduled length of the meeting – calls and video calls benefit from more structure than a face to face dialogue in our experience.
Dedicate a part of the meeting to checking in/being a nice human, however briefly – it’s hard to make someone’s day worse by smiling at them.
Self-awareness is your best friend when working at home – work out what stresses or distracts you, and make a plan for what you’ll do when you notice this (obviously, this wouldn’t be any of us, but a friend we know struggles to get back to concentrating on work after a break, so she sets an egg timer to 5 minutes and she has to work for 5 minutes, no choice…after the timer goes off she can either carry on or go and make a cup of tea. 9 times out of 10 she’s sufficiently into what she was doing to carry on…and on the days she isn’t, she has a cup of tea instead!)