Take Control of Working from Home Temporarily

Build productivity amid sudden change
Version 1.3, updated May 14, 2020

Working from home for the first time, especially with no advance preparation, can be a tough rock to roll up a hill. This book takes insight from many long-time home workers—remote staff, regular work-from-home employees, and freelancers—to help you equip your space, set boundaries, and use new tools and techniques.

Take Control of Working from Home Temporarily is a free 61-page book tailored for the sudden onset of telecommuting. It's our way of trying to help.

We advise you on how to stake out a space to work, how to equip it either with material you already have or what to buy if you can afford to invest in the space. Do you want to stand or sit? (Get a better chair or a laptop or monitor riser.) Should you get an external monitor if you don't have one? (Yes!)

The book delves into furniture and hardware setup, including the right kind of audio input and output for calls and videoconferencing, as well as looking at security, collaboration, and communication software tools you may be unfamiliar with or might set up for your team or company.

Part of the difficulty in working from home is creating a separation—physically if possible and psychologically—from the rest of your home life. This can take as much effort if you live alone as if you have a partner, roommates, or an extended family. We delve into strategies for staking boundaries, working around others, and trying to communicate limitations to your work that arise from this necessary period of isolation.

For parents, we know that you may have school-age kids at home for weeks or months, and there's a chapter with suggestions on how to juggle those obligations with your work requirements.

And we remind you to be kind to yourself, take breaks, and not replace an absent commute with simply more work. A little tea or coffee, some stretching, and a brisk walk around the block while maintaining social distancing can go miles towards boosting your mood. This isn't easy for anyone—it's OK to admit that.

We're all navigating this new world together, and we want to help. Author Glenn Fleishman, a veteran freelancer, who has spent the last decade working full-time in a home office, solicited advice from dozens of Take Control Books authors, contributors to the Mac publication TidBITS, and friends and acquaintances who have hundreds of years of collective remote work experience.

If you're like us—Glenn and Take Control Books owners Joe and Morgen—you feel somewhat helpless in the face of forces beyond our control and with no clear path forward, just that there is a path forward. We contributed our time to this book to provide a little light from our experiences and those of many others who donated their tips and observations.

We welcome your feedback and wish you all the best in managing this transition.

In this book, you'll learn more about how to:

• Stake out a physical space, even if it involves setting up a curtain or moving a bookshelf
• Pick or adjust a chair if you plan to sit
• Figure out the right mic and headphones or speakers for your needs
• Add a monitor for efficiency, or use software to turn an iPad or other devices into a second display
• Stand while you work without necessarily investing in a new desk
• Set working hours to avoid never being off the clock
• Put up a sign or otherwise signify when you're working to those around you
• Invest a tiny amount or a lot into noise-canceling headphones or earbuds
• Use videoconferencing to replace meetings and casual conversation you miss from an office
• Adjust your expectations and that of your employer to how much work you can produce, initially and in the long haul
• Take regular breaks to avoid burnout, but if you get in the zone, you can stay there, too
• Juggle the simultaneous burdens of full-time home parenting with home working
• Remember to eat lunch