Work from Home

Karen M. Basangan

Nowadays, if you’re working from home whether permanently or it is just temporary because of the pandemic, you’ll consider yourself very lucky. You don’t have to brave the streets just to put food on your table. Especially now that we have 5,000 – 7,000 positive Covid-19 cases daily or sometimes higher. Luckily for us teachers, teaching nowadays can be done at home. It’s like hitting a jackpot! we have a job at the comfort of our home and at the same time we are safe from acquiring the virus from outside.

But those are not just the benefits we obtain from working from home. Take a look at these ways your life can be different when you work from home or remotely.

You’ll save money! - Of course you’ll see an immediate difference in your wallet when you don’t need to bear the costs of commuting. But you’ll also find savings in other areas.

You can also save on food costs since you’ll easily be able to whip up your own lunch and coffee if you work from home.

You Save Time - Working from home eliminates your daily commute, allowing you to take advantage of those extra hours, whether for extra sleep or extra time with family and friends.

Lower your Stress For many education professionals, working in a traditional school environment can be a source of chronic stress. This chronic stress contributes to irritability, problems with concentration, low morale and a decline in work productivity. The good news is, for many, working from home can help reduce some daily stressors just by changing how your daily routine works. This includes:

?Eliminating the Stressful Commute – Rushing through the morning to get out of the house only to battle traffic to get to work is anything but relaxing. And after a long and stressful day, the commute home only adds more stress. Working from home allows you to say goodbye to the morning rush and the stressful commute and start your day with less stress.

• Improving Your Health – To combat stress at work, experts recommend taking breaks, walking during breaks, regular stretching exercises at your desk, and eating a healthy lunch. Unfortunately, in a traditional school setting, these options aren’t always possible. At home, however, they are. No more having to grab a quick lunch or snack out. At home, you can make healthy snacks and lunches. You can have a 15-minute walk during break time. While focusing on your work you can also focus on you.

• Better Balance of Life and Work – Working from home offers more flexibility when it comes to your schedule. In many cases, you can work your schedule around home and life responsibilities.

• Controlling Your Work Environment – Working from home allows you to control your work environment. Classrooms filled with fluorescent lights and neutral colors can affect workplace productivity. By working at home, you can create a workplace environment filled with personal touches, such as soft lighting and even a spot to do yoga stretches! Also, adding plants to your workspace can help reduce stress levels by as much as 30 to 60 percent.

Engage Effectively With Students - Today, technology plays a key role in everyday lives, and this is especially true for students who have grown up with technology. For this reason, many traditional schools incorporate technology in the classroom to better engage their students. As an online educator, you can use technology to draw students deeper into specific topics. Whether using things like Photoshop to encourage arts or virtual trips to NASA and museums, you can bring their lessons to life in a completely different way.

You Can Actually Have Enjoyable and Effective Meetings - When you work remotely, you can also be much more effective. With just a few clicks, you can have 10 people on a video call that’ll probably last just 15 minutes instead of 45. And you can use the chat function in the video call to quickly share docs or to add important comments without interrupting anyone.

You Can Keep in Touch More Easily and Maybe Have Some Fun Doing It! - Most people are afraid that they’ll be lonely or left out when they work remotely. But, as there’s a huge range of communication tools for remote workers available now. Some will even let you have a little fun together with features like emojis, chat room “bots,” or silly effects in video chats. With them, you can celebrate a colleague’s birthday by putting on a virtual top hat and monocle in your Google Hangout.

You Can Keep in Touch More Effectively - Because you don’t have everyone physically around you all the time, you become much more aware of the importance of keeping in touch. Instead of just knowing that you can always visit them in their classrooms or pop around the corner to chat whenever you like, you know that you need to write them or at least have a video chat. So, either in the process of composing your message or planning the meeting, you’ll refine your thoughts and questions and end up saving time for both of you when you do have that discussion.

You Can Stay More Focused - With some willpower and a steady routine, you’ll soon learn to avoid being distracted by the TV or your next load of laundry. And, in fact, you should find yourself getting more done when you work remotely.

That’s because you can control your working situation much more— you don’t have to worry about co-teachers stopping by to “just ask a quick question” (and 20 minutes later...), or obligatory socializing inside the faculty room. When you’re remote and need to really concentrate, you can just change your status in the group chat to “do not disturb” and buckle down.

You Can Avoid Office Politics - There’s the old saying about relatives that “You can’t choose your family,” and the same goes for your co-workers. You might not be best friends with everyone when you work remotely.

But, because idle chatting and time just hanging around the faculty room isn’t possible, remote workers tend to skip the gossiping and posturing that happens in traditional work settings. And that’s a huge bonus for everyone involved, isn’t it?

Thank God! All these things are possible thru work from home!, but we are all aware and praying that these things will all passed and everything will be back to normal because nothing can compete and compare to face to face classroom setting and we are all praying that in the near future we will be talking and smiling with each other face to face.

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The author is Teacher III at Mapina Elementary School Magalang North District, Magalang, Pampanga.