View from Today’s Office is a blog series detailing all of the fun and interesting places where I am able to work. As full-time remote worker AND a full-time live aboard on the canals of London, I am always cruising to new areas and finding cool places to spend a few hours on my computer. Follow along for all the fun!
Today’s office is Smith’s Coffee Company, located in Hemel Hempstead, England. My wife and I stumbled upon this location while jogging along the canal a few days ago. We were both struck by the delicious smell of roasting coffee, so we diverted our workout to investigate. When we located the front of the building, the window had a sign that read “Cafe Open,” so we went right in. Despite being rather unattractive in our appearance, the folks at Smith’s couldn’t have been nicer, so we agreed to come back later and spend some time at their facility.
And return we did. Lee, the office boss man, told us all about the company, their facility, and some of their cool side projects. He was even kind enough to give us some pointers on coffee preparation using our new french press. Of course, we also talked coffee brews and his team helped us decide between a couple of fresh bags to take with us. They ground the beans to our specification right there while we waited.
My wife and I spent a few hours chatting and working from their on-site cafe. Before we left, however, we had to check out the museum adjacent to the cafe. This small room is packed with hundreds of historical coffee pieces, from beautiful authentic Turkish coffee sets to antithetical stove-top peculators from the 70s. And they had plenty of funny coffee signage as well.
Overall, Smith’s Coffee Company was a great place to work for a few hours. The hosts were amazing, the coffee was delicious, and the setting was relaxing. I definitely recommend stopping in for a cuppa if you’re in the Hemel Hempstead area. Check out their website at: https://www.smithscoffee.co.uk/.
Where are your favorite places to work outside of the office? Any tips, tricks, or suggestions for staying productive while enjoying your workday? Leave a comment below or reach out via the Contact section on The Telework Guru. Thanks!
Getting the right things done at the right time is a challenge for everyone. And balancing the demands of work (projects, meetings, deadlines) and home (cleaning, kids, errands) is especially difficult for the teleworkers of the world. There are countless tools and endless advice out there to help, so I’ll throw in my strategy as well; everyone working outside an office should be using WIPS.
What is WIPS? Weekly Intentive Personal Scheduling. As the name suggests, this is a personal scheduling strategy done at the weekly level and, most importantly, done with intent. That means that those practicing this strategy need to commit to the schedule they keep; after all, a huge part of remote work is holding yourself accountable. Now, that’s not to say WIPS isn’t flexible, it absolutely is, but there is a framework to work within. But we are getting ahead of ourselves; first, we need to discuss how to properly use this strategy.
Part 1: Schedule Your Week
WIPS starts at the beginning of the workweek; Monday morning for most of us, Sunday evening if you’re really proactive. The first task is to set your high-level goals for the week. As I wrote in part two of my series Critical Tips to Help You Succeed While Working Remotely, this should be no more than three objectives that, once complete, will signify a successful week.
Once those goals are set, schedule the time required to accomplish those goals. I recommend using a digital scheduling tool, like the Outlook or Google calendars, but any old fashioned planner will do. Work around your previously-scheduled meetings and reserve this time in one-hour blocks. And be generous with this time; after all, these are the goals that will determine your success for the week. At the same time, be realistic; these goals are your most important commitments for the week, but not the only commitments. Lastly, choose the time slots where you’re most productive to work on these goals. For most people, that will be the early portion of your day, before any fires flare up that require your attention.
Part 1: Schedule Your Week.
Once you’ve scheduled time to accomplish your main goals for the week, pencil in time for those secondary objectives, like preparing for meetings and more routine to-do items. Stick to one-hour blocks to ensure that you have enough time to do quality work, but feel free to lump similar smaller tasks together, like “respond to queued emails.” Also, feel free to reserve “open time,” especially toward the end of the week. Workweeks rarely go as planned, so anticipating and scheduling time to fight fires and high-priority action items will reduce time swapping and the associated headaches down the line. In the rare cases where these timely action items don’t pop up, you’ll have some extra time to work on important future objectives or focus on your personal development.
Part 2: Regularly Review, Re-Prioritize, and Reschedule
So you’ve dedicated the 30-60 minutes needed to set your goals and schedule your week; that means you’re done scheduling until next Monday, right? No way. In Part 1, you’ve built your ideal week based on the inputs available on day one. During the week, new inputs are constantly streaming in, which means that you need to review your weekly plan and make the necessary adjustments. We do this by weighing the priority (‘importance’ x ‘time criticality’) of incoming items against those that you’ve already scheduled.
Say that you’re in the middle of a two-hour block of time reserved to accomplish one of your three weekly goals; a critical time for the success of your week. Zooming in on your email comes an ALL CAPS email from your boss requesting that an excel sheet be put together and sent over immediately. In the WIPS system, you don’t blindly redirect your attention to this new shiny object, however important it may be. Since this system is based on commitment, you must first determine the new item’s priority, evaluate its impact on your weekly schedule, insert it where appropriate, and adjust the remainder of your schedule around it. WIPS allows for adjustment, but you must still commit to the schedule you keep, before and after adjustments take place.
In a situation like this, I would probably redirect my attention to this timely task and reschedule the work I had been doing for later in the day or the next morning, reshuffling any other tasks that may be affected as appropriate.
Part 2: Regularly Review, Re-Prioritize, and Reschedule
That’s the beauty of the WIPS system; it’s a balance between setting rigid goals for the week and flexibly responding to new requirements as they come. The value of this system is that it’s built on informed decisions. While building your schedule in Part 1, you’re setting objectives with the full context of your competing priorities at the time. You’re doing the same thing in Part 2 as new items emerge to challenge those established priorities. Without this system or something like it, most people will chase the newest, shiniest item that comes across their screen. This diverts attention to fighting fires, while also distracting people from the truly important items.
When done right, the WIPS system will help remote workers:
Focus on the right things
Dedicate the appropriate time to each goal
Effectively gauge capacity and commitments
Stay focused on professional development
Appropriately accommodate personal time
What do you think of the WIPS system? Ever tried anything similar? How did it work out? Drop a comment below or reach out via the Contact section.
View from Today’s Office is a blog series detailing all of the fun and interesting places where I am able to work. As full-time remote worker AND a full-time live aboard on the canals of London, I am always cruising to new areas and finding cool places to spend a few hours on my computer. Follow along for all the fun!
Today’s office is Cassiobury Park, a 200-acre park located in Watford, England. The Grand Union Canal cuts along the western edge of the park, so I moored my boat here for several days. Add in a couple of folding chairs, a WiFi hotspot, and a fully-charged laptop, and I was productive for several hours while staying nice and relaxed.
View From Today’s Office: Cassiobury Park’s lavender plants.
During my breaks, I took a couple of walks through the park and the nearby golf course. The UK is great for hikers/walkers in that much of the land, including most golf courses, is open for people to explore. A farmer’s field near the park had a lovely trail running through.
View From Today’s Office: A field near Cassiobury Park
Within the park, there’s plenty to explore as well. There are loads of walking trails, picnic areas, and open space for the dog to run. The main pavilion, which is surrounded by a small water park for the kids, includes a quaint cafe called Daisy’s. The snacks aren’t anything mind-blowing, but it serves coffee, has plenty of outlets, and isn’t overcrowded; a winner in my book!
View From Today’s Office: Cassiobury Park pavilion.
Although it can be crowded, especially on the weekends, there’s enough space in Cassiobury Park to be plenty peaceful for a day’s work on the laptop. Check out the park’s website here. If you’re going to make it out, I recommend also walking through some of the surrounding land. That means packing your comfortable shoes and setting aside a few hours.
Where are your favorite places to work outside of the office? Any tips, tricks, or suggestions for staying productive while enjoying your workday? Leave a comment below or reach out via the Contact section on The Telework Guru. Thanks!
Working from home has countless benefits, but realizing these benefits takes forethought and planning. Creating your home office is no different. Here are five tips to maximize the benefits of your home office:
Create a dedicated space. This one was #1 on my series Critical Tips To Help You Succeed While Working Remotely for a reason. If you have the means to create a dedicated home office, I highly recommend it. One of the biggest challenges facing remote workers is separating “work life” from “home life” — and having a dedicated home office will go a long way in helping you overcome it. Having the ability to close the door on your day (literally and figuratively) will provide a subconscious cue that work has ended and me time or family time has started.
A dedicated home office will lead to higher productivity and better work-life balance.
Choose a setup that will maximize focus and minimize distractions. When designing my first home office, I had a vision of man cave meets worldly professor. The two focal points of the space were to be a large flat-screen TV on one side of the room and a wall-sized world map on the other. Turns out, I find both of those things terribly distracting, so I removed them both. In their places went simple works of art that I enjoy looking at, but wouldn’t unduly distract me. Choose colors, furniture, and artwork that you enjoy and bring you calm, but won’t serve as competition for your attention.
Simple decor and calm tones will help maximize concentration.
Consider comfort and ergonomics. Like any office, your home office is one in which you are likely to spend the majority of your time sitting. So choose a comfortable chair. And not one that’s soft, choose one that will be supportive over several hours and will position you at the proper posture. Also, align your desk to maximize long-term comfort. Ensure that it is low enough to comfortably write and type and position any computer monitors at eye level. Making the desk surface low and monitor position high can be difficult, so use some vintage wine boxes or an aesthetic storage container to prop up the screen; your back will thank you!
Ensure your home office has a proper chair and ergonomic setup.
Design the space to be versatile. I love changing up my workspace every few hours; the slight environmental change helps keep me focused. I’ll often lead webinars while standing, placing my laptop on an elevated surface. If you have the means, definitely invest in a standing or convertible desk; they’re all the rage and the health benefits are real. Additional pieces of furniture, like a couch or an armchair, can serve as temporary oases from your desk during slower periods of the day. Even sitting on an exercise ball for a couple of hours can keep you on your toes and improve posture at the same time. The point is, your home office doesn’t have to be a stuffy, static environment; design it to be agile and versatile to support whatever you might need during the day.
A versatile home office will allow you to adjust to the pace of the day.
Turn to nature. Studies have shown that having live plants in a room makes its inhabitants happier. So add some plants to you home office; a standing plant for the corner, a cascading plant for the top of your bookshelf, a potted plant for your desk. Add flowers for a splash of color and pleasant scents. Also, if you can, choose a room with a view of exterior greenery. Move your desk near the window with a view of your neighbor’s old oak tree or position your monitors such that you can see the nearby park, but not the buildings below. The more time you can spend in proximity to nature (physically or mentally) the less likely you are to feel penned in, one of the major side effects of working from home. A window with a view of nature is also a good place to take a break and daydream for a few minutes, something that’s critical to maintaining productivity over the long term.
Working indoors doesn’t mean you have to be separated from nature.
What are some additional tips that you have for setting up a home office? Did something you try work out really well, or very poorly? Share your ideas and feedback in the comments below or reach out via the Contact section!
View from Today’s Office is a new blog series detailing all of the fun and interesting places where I am able to work. As full-time remote worker AND a full-time live aboard on the canals of London, I am always cruising to new areas and finding cool places to spend a few hours on my computer. Follow along for all the fun!
The view from today’s office is Camden Market, one of London’s most popular areas for visitors. The area has over 1,000 separate shops, stalls, and eateries and is a hub for the city’s eclectic and hipster crowds.
I spent most of the day dog-sitting in my friend’s flat located directly above Regent’s Canal, which runs through the area. Yet another benefit of working remote: I get to help out a friend and see some new sites while still fulfilling all of my professional obligations!
On my breaks, I took the dogs for a walk through nearby Primrose Hill and grabbed lunch from one of the market’s many food stalls; it was a burrito and it was delicious.
Overall, I enjoy Camden Market in regular but measured doses. It wouldn’t be my first choice to live permanently, but it’s a great place to explore and pick up a bite, a beer, and a souvenir. For more information or to plan a trip to the area, check out the official Camden Market website.
Where are your favorite places to work outside of the office? Any tips, tricks, or suggestions for staying productive while enjoying your workday? Leave a comment below or reach out via the Contact section on The Telework Guru. Thanks!
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