After a month out of the office, we’re pretty much world-class experts at this now – so here’s a collection of insights and recommendations that we’ve compiled.
Find yourself a soundtrack
As we talked about last week, what you listen to now might be completely different from what you listened to before. Many people have switched to calming electronica or low-fi hip hop because they need something chilled and background – and to block out the noise of pets chewing, families chatting, or the neighbour… we don’t know what they’re up to. Constantly moving furniture? Running a marathon on the spot? Building a warship?
Try something new! Ask for recommendations! Read ours!
Wear what you feel comfortable in
RHA has never been a stiff shirt, tie and uncomfortable trousers place to work, but joggers/sweatpants/running shorts has taken the experience to a whole new level. Wear what you want to work in – whether it’s a might be a nice shirt, a favourite tee, your graduation gown or a full kilt. We’ve enjoyed the unspoken escalation of band t-shirts on video chats. Just think twice before standing up.
Download some video call backgrounds
Novelty for days. Our favourites are Sesame Street, the cosmos, and macro footage of ants and spiders. Just remember to turn them off before calling people who you want to take you seriously, like your parents, or the HR department.
Block out the noise
We’ve written about this before. Achieving silence is one of the most important parts of enjoying audio, but – fundamentally – it’s one of the most important parts of getting any work done. If only there was a Glasgow-based company who made noise isolating in-ear headphones...
Encourage your pets to use another room during video meetings
This also might apply to the other people in your home. As much as having a large cat run across your keyboard during a weekly development meeting might have some novelty, you won’t be laughing when they press ‘Send’ on the diplomatic email you’ve been working on for an hour. This also applies to mouth-breathing dogs during voice calls. Everyone wants to know what that noise is, and nobody wants to ask.
Stop taking advice from blogs
Your experience is going to be different from every article-writer, and every article-reader, on the planet. Maybe you’ve done this before, maybe you haven’t. Maybe you have kids, maybe you have pets. Maybe the world outside your window is quiet, maybe it’s chaos. Maybe most of the people offering advice about remote working and setting up your home office have somehow forgotten to address other things that are happening now: big and noisy things that are invisible and silent. So maybe take their advice with a medically-inadvisable pinch of salt (or not at all).
Take your time! Find your space. Enjoy the silence, and the noise. Find things that make you happy and calm – and maybe, once this is all over, keep doing them. In the meantime, enjoy our weekly playlist, and some other resources that might help you find a bit of peace:
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