Let’s talk about morning routines for a few minutes in the life of a remote worker.
I’m someone who benefits greatly from structure. I do though perform really well under pressure, and I’m usually open to change, but I definitely feel I’m at my best when it comes to my work when I’m following a regular routine.
My preferred morning routine is:
- 5am wakeup and read my bible/pray.
- 6-7am kids wakeup, feed them, get them ready for school.
- 7-9am school run/I run.
- 9am coffee then work.
Where this has been failing massively is when I’ve been working late into the night – which has been a lot lately. There are a number of reasons why this has happened – some my fault, some because of the nature of timezones, some handling stressful circumstances.
The biggest problem with this has been that it’s knocked out my 5am wakeup and “quiet time” – and this really sucks 🙁 because to be quite frank, I’m less of myself when I’m disconnected from my prayer life. Simply put, I’m not awesome to be around!
This often produces a snowball effect into the rest of the day. And you’d think that after remote working for 10 years I would have this down to an art?
Ha, you are sadly mistaken 🙂
So why did I write this? In light of all the people heading into remote work with all this worry about COV-19, I thought I’d offer some perspective on heading into a much less structured work environment.
When I moved into remote work it was complex, but at least at Woo we had a slow descent into it over a long period of time so the change was less abrupt.
But also, if you do fail at your routine – don’t beat yourself up about it 🙂 it will happen! Just take it day by day and make adjustments as you see fit.
If you feel like me, that the start of the day is super important – then do your best to keep that going! Whether it’s a prayerful start as in my case, medication of some kind, exercise, or simply making a coffee – you do the thing that gets you that first “win” for the day!
Keep iterating just like we do when making software 🙂 It’s never perfect!
Also, if you are looking to get out of an office based environment and make the switch into remote work, we’re hiring!
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