15 Sep Working From Home
Keeping Spirits Up and Staying Productive While Working From Home
Once again, we find ourselves under Level 4 lockdown restrictions. As we head back to our household bubbles to break the chain of transmission in the community, many of us find ourselves in the position of working from home. With the flexibility that IT provides as an industry, working from home has been an option for a long time before it became a necessity. That being the case, between our students and staff we’re relatively accustomed to working from home. As lockdowns have come into effect, we’ve adapted to work through them without skipping a beat. We hope our experience can help you too.
Talking to our staff and students, who are used to working through lockdowns, the team was happy to share what they’re doing do to keep lockdowns fun, both work related and not. Some ideas will work for everyone, others fit more around individuals or locales, but we think all of them are great! First, we’ll look at the more general approaches that the team feels have been of benefit, then we’ll go through some of the more unique ideas. These are all based on our teams experience so if you find a different approach works better for you that’s awesome and we’d love to hear it too!., Ultimately lockdown is a different experience for everyone.
A huge one for most of the team is setting up a routine. Working from home means that it’s very easy for the lines between work life and home life to get blurry. A solid routine can help this. By setting up specific “office hours” for work or study it becomes easier to draw a firm line and create the structure that’s so easy to lose in lockdowns. This also allows for some flexibility as you can decide anything from when to log on and off from work to meal and workout times depending on your inclination.
Another great tip that’s come from our team is to stay connected to family and friends. Especially now having to stay physically distant from everyone, it can be very easy to feel isolated and alone but that doesn’t have to be the case. Modern technology in the form of laptops, webcams and smartphones allows us to stay connected even while spending time apart. The extra benefit here is that not only will you feel better for it, whoever you’re contacting will likely be more than happy to hear from you.
Exercise is a massive factor in keeping spirits up and staying on top of your game. This can be anything from going for a walk or run around the block to get some fresh air, to a variety of home workouts. The benefits of exercise are numerous, everything from physical fitness to helping maintain your mental wellbeing. Everyone is at different levels, and there are so many ways to stay active and it’s a lot of fun so, we hope you find something that works for you in lockdown.
Finally, where things get a little bit more individual is keeping up with your interests and hobbies. Lockdown can limit these so, depending on your hobby you may need to get a little creative. If you’re a music or TV fan, now can be the perfect time to find some new albums or series. Many of our staff and students are gamers and found extra time for various games while on lockdown. We have the foodies who have used the time to experiment with making new dishes. Parents are spending time with their kids and pet owners are spending time with their pets. There’s even a student or two taking online dance classes and a staff member giving martial arts lessons within their bubble.
We know lockdowns can be a difficult time and no two people have quite the same experience. We’ve been here before, and we know what works for us. There are plenty of ways to make lockdown work for you and we hope you’ve found something here that helps.
How is Techtorium operating during a lockdown?
Through all of the lockdowns we’ve experienced, staff and students haven’t skipped a beat. As the situation has changed, we’ve been able to shift our working situations with it. Our Software Development and Computer Engineering students have been able to continue full-time studies and classes with our exceptional trainers, all online and on track to completing their Diplomas. We would like to thank all of our training staff for all the hard work to ensure all our students are able to continue their studies without disruption. Everyone is stationed at home and if you do need to contact us, you can! Call us on either 0800 529 7523 or email us at loveit@techtorium.ac.nz.
Although we are operating our classes online, it doesn’t mean we can’t have a bit of fun while we are at it. Here are some images of our students and trainers keeping the spirits up with filters and costumes of their favourite characters and settings from across videogames, TV, movies and anime.