Working From Home isn't Working for Me
Do what you can, with what you've got, where you are.
First of all, I’m extremely grateful that I currently have a job. This is in no way meant to come across as insensitive to those who have found themselves in very difficult positions recently.
The monotony of these four walls has got to me. I’ll go ahead and come straight out and say it: I’m fed up of the increased fetishisation of working from home.
If it works for you and you can manage to still be productive, fabulous; a better work-life balance and less commuting is undoubtedly a win all round.
It is not, however, a panacea. Now, more than ever, we’re not operating in a world of absolutes. The only thing that I would be comfortable in stating unequivocally is that everyone is in a completely different situation.
For balance, personally, I can’t wait to get back to the office. I don’t have a space in my home that I can dedicate to being purely for work. I get distracted and find it difficult to focus. Being in the environment of a workplace helps me get in the right mindset.
My commute – such as it was – may have been short but it still afforded me the opportunity to mentally prepare on the way to the office and also gave me some time to decompress at the end of the day.
I miss the opportunistic, random and casual interactions that happen in the corridor. I miss bouncing ideas off people in person. Somehow, any creativity that I may have once had now seems to be lacking. Say what you will, it is demonstrably not the same with virtual solutions.
This is not to say that I wouldn’t want to work from home in future, say one day a week. Yes, there are distractions in the office too but these are of a different kind.
Having the flexibility in place to accommodate those who may want to work remotely and the processes and practices to make everyone feel part of a team in a blended system is going to take a lot of thinking about.