One should not drag the working day too long and also make a real end of the day. Some in the home office tend to stumble from one break to the next and then sit there until ten in the evening because they have not done anything during the day. At the same time, when it comes to breaks, you shouldn’t be too strict with yourself: we know that people in the office don’t work productively for eight hours. We are really productive about 60 percent of our working time, in between we get coffee, printer paper and chat. So you shouldn’t be too strict with yourself
but also make it clear: it is not a vacation. So don’t necessarily cook extensively during the lunch break. Incidentally, this also helps the others with whom you share the household: determining when and how long a break is. Then you can say to the child, for example, I don’t have time for you right now, but I’ll take a break in half an hour.
Otherwise, the colleagues may be annoying, suddenly they are missing. What can you do there?
I would differentiate between friendly contacts at work that are missing and professional ones, i.e. the question: How well do you talk off? You should be talking on the phone shortly in the morning, exchanging ideas: Where am I right now, what am I going to do today? This also helps your own motivation to decide what you want to do in the morning and to adhere to it. If it is customary to talk to each other again in the evening or at least say goodbye, you should also do this to maintain normalcy in these uncertain times. One should not simply go offline in group chat but maintain normal courtesy formulas. But Skype, Whatsapp and so on also help to keep up to date privately: how are the colleagues, how do they get on with the home office,`
Some call for the sensible use of the extra time at home. Now you can finally start learning a language or doing yoga via an online tutorial. Doesn’t that just put you under additional pressure in difficult times?
Wanting to learn a language right now may be an exaggeration. But doing things that have been put off for a long time makes sense. Finally cleaning up your desk or desktop, for example. Approaching medium-sized projects, both professionally and privately, is a good thing. For example, I am currently taking care of my seminars and lectures, the garden and my social media appearances. So I don’t have the feeling of wasted time.
Does the crisis hold opportunities? For example, that employers could then be more open to home offices and flexible working hours?
I think that the topic of the home office is booming. Many companies are very reluctant to do so and are afraid of losing control of their employees. Where the home office is working well for weeks now, there will be no arguments to stop it completely at the end of this time. And that’s good. For one thing, those who work at home do not have to drive to the office. And shorter travel times mean more life and quality of life. On the other hand, this is accompanied by a change in the management culture: Home office means an advance in trust. And
a trusting management style with less tight control is beneficial for health. If this trust remains after the current home office phase, it would be good.
