HOW TO MAKE WORKING FROM HOME WORK FOR YOU
Long-term home worker Chris Szewczyk has good advice for the tech you’ll need to do it right.
Tips & tools to stay productive + save your job, health and sanity
We’re living in a world in upheaval, on a level not seen since World War II. The COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic is dominating world headlines with health systems facing unprecedented strain, the global economy taking a pummelling and financial markets in meltdown. Whether it’s work, recreation, social gatherings or travelling, it’s all in a state of flux as the world adapts in an effort to try and halt the spread.
One of the ways to minimise human interactions, and thus risk, is by having people work from home where feasible, whether by individual choice, company policy, or – in the worst case scenario – you are forced to self-isolate with symptoms.
It’s a dramatic change of lifestyle, though it can be perfectly feasible if you’re able to manage your time effectively and you have the right tools at hand to help you do it with minimal stress.
If you are going to work from home, you’ll need to be set up for the task. We’re here to give you the right advice, to help you with the tools you need to stay in touch with your co-workers and be productive.
In these uncertain times, it’s more important than ever to keep your income flowing so you can pay your bills and support your family!
A DEDICATED WORK SPACE
Working from home can be a shock for some. The sudden clash of home and work life can lead to a time management and productivity hit. It’s important that you have a dedicated work space, and that your family or house mates understand that you are mostly unavailable during working hours, at least as much as is possible. Try to keep the area free of unnecessary distractions. Work time is exactly that. Within reason, it’s not the time to play with your dog or cat or for that matter gaming with your friends or having distracting conversations. Children should also be aware of mum and dad’s work time and try to amuse themselves.
You may want to consider the purchase of a quality office chair that’s ergonomically sound. Your back will thank you for it. A spare dining room chair is a poor substitute. Perhaps your workplace might let you take your office chair home with you and bring it back when work resumes? Obviously you’ll need a desk area too.
Most importantly the area needs networking coverage. We’ll get to that in a later section but if your area has no Wi-Fi or the router is on the other side of the house, you’ll need to upgrade your networking or try to choose another work area.
A LAPTOP OR PC IS CENTRAL TO YOUR HOME OFFICE
It goes without saying that you’ll need a PC or a laptop to function properly. But if you’ve got an old clunker, it can be a severe bottleneck to your productivity. Things like critical errors, slowdowns, network timeouts or BSODs are not what you want when you need to stay connected with your colleagues.
You may wish to consider purchasing a new laptop or PC. If you’re in a position to ask, check with management or your IT department to see if they can advise. It’s possible there’s a system or laptop you can use. If you’re fortunate, your workplace might consider purchasing a unit for you. Alternatively, most work-related purchases can be eligible for tax deductions for some or all of the cost. That goes for everything mentioned in this article (disclaimer: this is not taxation advice. Check with your accountant for advice on claiming a work related purchase)
You won’t need a super powerful machine for
“With exceptions, it’s advisable to steer clear of gaming type laptops with high-end GPUs, particularly if you’re using general office type apps”.
most kinds of tasks. In some cases, even a fairly basic NUC will do the job, though you’ll want it to include an SSD. If you need a monitor, you could even consider going with two or three screens. Workers used to using multiple screens at work in particular will appreciate the ease of multitasking, where you might have a chat window open, email and office apps and then your main workflow application all at the same time. If you do go the multi-monitor route, you may want to consider a multi-monitor arm. Who knows, after the pandemic is over you could repurpose multiple screens towards a lovely gaming rig. There has to be a silver lining to all this, right?
With exceptions, it’s advisable to steer clear of gaming type laptops with high-end GPUs, particularly if you’re using general office type apps. They tend to have powerful CPUs and plenty of memory, but have low battery life and can be quite heavy, which is something to note if you plan on moving it between home and the office. Of course if you’re a creative professional, you’ll need something with a bit more grunt, whether it’s a high core-count CPU, a colour-accurate screen or even a professional graphics card in a dedicated workstation. If creative work is what you do, you’ll need more memory and storage than a typical work PC would have.
HARDWARE TO STAY IN TOUCH WITH YOUR COLLEAGUES
Of course, not everyone will need a new system, particularly if you’re looking at going back to your workplace in weeks instead of months. In many cases a few simple upgrades will be all that you need to stay instantly accessible to your colleagues.
Most laptops come equipped with a webcam and this can be utilised by whatever software you have; desktop PCs don’t usually come with webcams, so you’ll need to consider a stand-alone one. It may or may not have a microphone built-in, so you may need a headset too. Pretty much any headset will do. Perhaps you have a gaming headset you can utilise. Alternatively a set of regular audio headphones will do the job and you could consider the purchase of a microphone if it’s not built in to what you have.
Other options include a VoIP phone. Though its use at home is not as easy as dialling extension 555 like you might at the office, it can still be utilised by various applications.
You may need a printer or a scanner, with the latter important if you need to send signed documents. Most all-in-ones are quite capable these days, but be aware that many printers now ship with next to no ink or toner included, so it’s advised that you buy a spare cartridge so you don’t come to sudden halt when you least want it.
If you’ve got a laptop you move around frequently, consider buying a dock. They generally connect via USB and add a lot of connectivity options that a standalone laptop, particularly an ultra-thin, may not have. Look for
one that suits your needs; for example if you plan to run multiple screens, need extra Type-A USB ports or require 3.5mm headphone and microphone ports for some headsets.
NETWORKING
Staying in touch with your workplace becomes a whole lot more difficult if you have poor networking at home. If you’re fortunate to have a decent NBN connection then you’re halfway there, but your home networking can be a major bottleneck depending on the layout of your house. You may need to upgrade your router or network switch. If you live in a large house, you may need to consider a mesh network or range extender so that you have a good quality connection everywhere. Perhaps something as simple as a long network cable will do the trick.
A decent router will also have some traffic prioritisation capabilities. If your family members are all data-hungry with constant Youtube viewing or Netflix streaming, then you may want to consider some form of traffic management, allowing things like a video call to go uninterrupted at the expense of little Jimmy’s latest torrent download.
YOU’LL NEED
THE RIGHT SOFTWARE
Having the right software is critical to any workplace and doubly so if you’re working from home. In many cases it may not be feasible to come up with the money for some of the applications you need. Some proprietary software can run into the thousands of dollars. In this case you’ll need to liaise with your workplace to determine the best course of action for your specific needs.
If you have something like a work intranet or email server, you’ll need to make sure you have the right permissions to access them remotely. It can be more complicated than just having a simple password. You’ll need to arrange this through your workplace.
There are plenty of ways to remain productive without spending a cent though. Google Apps is a terrific way to get everyday tasks done. Word processing, spreadsheets and slideshows can all be created and shared with anyone. Collaboration is also possible so real time changes can be seen by your colleagues or team members.
Instant real time communication is vital for any workplace. While good old email is still perfectly viable, when working from home it’s difficult to replicate the environment of frequent in person conversations you have all the time at the office. You’ll need software to stay in touch. Simple instant messaging programs like Line, Whatsapp, or Skype have evolved to allow text, audio and video calls either on a PC, laptop or phone and this kind of app may be sufficient for a worker who simply needs to keep in touch.
You might want to consider something like Google Hangouts. It’s a fairly simple communication tool that has the advantage of being integrated with the rest of the Google ecosystem. It allows you to do things like group video calls, chat, and screen sharing.
Perhaps you already have a collaborative solution at work, where team members can see what other team members are doing. If so, adding that particular app to your home system could be very simple.
One of the more popular communication apps is Slack. It allows teams to text and call, share and collaborate but it also has support for commonly used 3rd party applications such as Google Drive, Microsoft Office, Dropbox and Github amongst many others. It’s a powerful app but it could be overkill if you’re planning on going back to work in short order. The free version of Slack is recommended, it can do a lot and handle large groups.
ABOVE ALL STAY SAFE!
The whole purpose of being asked to work from home is to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus between colleagues, the wider community and your family. The most important thing is to be smart and stay safe. We all hope these disruptions are short term only. Perhaps there is a silver lining though; you may find working from home to be a productive, rewarding and less stressful experience, not to mention the bonus of the extra time you’ll have in your day by skipping your commute. If you’re set up with the right hardware, software and workspace, perhaps you’ll really enjoy working from home, instead of it being something you’re forced to do.