Just Don’t Call During ‘The Price Is Right’
Photo Credit : Wylie Derryberry
Working at home used to be such a pipe dream and now it has become the norm. I’ve been lucky enough to have been working remotely on and off since the early 1990’s. Back then, I was an associate editor of Impressions magazine and my husband’s job moved us to Boulder, Colorado.
No one was doing it at the time, so I went to my editor armed with a plan on how I would buy my own computer and we could make it work. And we did for four years until I moved back to the Dallas area and went back to the office full time.
Back then, e-mail was in its infancy and we all had AOL accounts. Faxing was all the rage and I can remember getting edited copy back from my editors with changes I had to make off of that fuzzy, greasy fax paper that was so hard to read. My, how far we’ve come.
After another 15 years in the office full time and faced with a four-hour daily commute that tried to be the end of me, I started working at home again full time in 2013. This time it was a much different technological world that I have seen advance in leaps and bounds as I waited for the rest of the world to catch up with me and start working remotely.
Enter the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020, where a majority of corporate America transitioned their employees to remote positions. As of April of 2021, many still remain at home with no plans of going back to the office atmosphere. And surprisingly, it works. For the doubters who thought you couldn’t get anything done working at home…we’ve proven them wrong.
And while it’s tough — especially for the parents also trying to remote school their children — you can prioritize your day to actually get more work done than you would have at the office.
Gone are the chatterboxes who want to stop by your office or workstation and review last night’s episode of “This Is Us.” Gone are the distractions of trying to be on the phone during a sales call and hearing the people in cubicles around you try to conduct their own business. Gone are the meetings where people always seem to get sidetracked on a tangent and it takes longer to get to the matter at hand. For some reason, Zoom or other call-in meetings seem to stay more focused, thus making them more controlled and shorter so you can get back to work.
But it still is important to remember that in-house employees do need outlets and fun energy during the workday, and often times those are the small talks around the office or tangential meetings. And out of the traditional office environment, it's even more important to take time for yourself. The new normal may mean some weird hours or work, but it also opens up opportunities to break free from work for a bit. Whether that's catching an episode of daytime tv or going for a walk outside.
If you’re an entrepreneur like I am, you can have planned breaks in your day and work different hours than the typical 9-5. I often have weird sleeping habits and will do a lot of my writing during the wee hours of the morning, saving my daytime work hours for meetings, emails and phone calls. But I also take an hour or two to do the things I need to get done; like changing out the laundry or unloading the dishwasher.
One thing I’m adamant about is not working during “The Price Is Right.” I know…ridiculous, right? But ever since I was a child and would stay home sick from school, it was a rite of passage to get through my day. I can’t get enough of it.
My point is that you can successfully work remotely and get more work done than you used to at the office if you apply yourself and make sure self-discipline is part of the daily plan. Then, if you do work for yourself and take an hour to win the Showcase Showdown in your living room, it’s okay. Don’t beat yourself up. Just don’t call me from 11-12 Eastern time.