Work From Home: Mindset – N is for Neat
The third letter of our mnemonic M.I.N.D.S.E.T. specifically designed to help you work from home better is ‘N’, Neat.
N – Neat Best Practice
Select your working at home, work clothes. Put these at one end of your wardrobe. Don’t mix them up with the other two ‘wardrobes’.
Read the main article: How to Work from Home Effectively – M.I.N.D.S.E.T. – Adopt 7 Best Practices.
My son Jack is 16. Last year he started college. He’s studying film production and wants to be a Film Director. Good luck to him. The day is September 16th. He comes down the stairs. He’s wearing his best ‘gear’. The Fila tracksuit top he saved hard to buy from his job at the coffee shop in the summer, and his best Adidas trainers, we bought him for his birthday in August. He looks ‘neat’ and I told him so. He wanted to look his best for college. Impress his new friends, and no doubt, the girls too.
(Click on the image below for the extended version)
So what was the problem?
Roll-on 4 weeks later the College honeymoon period is over. Jack is loaded with ‘homework’. It’s Saturday night and we want to go out for a family dinner. He’s getting ready, ‘What’s the matter son?’. ‘Dad, I’ve got nothing to wear’. We all saw it coming. He would not be told in the first few weeks of college. He had to discover it for himself. If you blur your clothes, you run into a problem because you blur your mind.
Working at home can be the same. Our clothes are one of the keys to our mindset. If we allow the worlds to collide between home and work, by interchanging what we wear, then our mind will follow suit. Not only do we need the proper workspace we discussed above, but we also need specific working from home clothes.
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In essence, you need 3 wardrobes.
A going out wardrobe. You have your glad rags on, as my Mum says. Or going ‘out out’, as Micky Flanagan would say. You feel good. That’s wardrobe 1. Wardrobe 2 is your relaxing and chilling out clothes – Jeans, sweatshirts, and trainers. That sort of thing. The things you wear when you are watching tv. Wardrobe 3 is your new wardrobe. The things that you wear when you are working from home. You might have a fourth wardrobe – Things I wear when I go to work, as in the office. Though this might be 3 and 4 wardrobes combined.
By having a separate set of clothes you wear at home, this will support a mindset that is conducive to working from home. You put on your working from home clothes at the start of your working day, say 8 am, and you change at the end of your working day, say 6 pm. The physical activity of changing is what we call in learning, ‘Bookending‘. We stop one activity. Pause. Reflect. Then start the next. Like adding bookends to a bookshelf.
N – Neat Best Practice
Select your working at home, work clothes. Put these at one end of your wardrobe. Don’t mix them up with the other two ‘wardrobes’.
6 M.I.N.D.S.E.T. Best Practices
Read the main article: How to Work from Home Effectively – M.I.N.D.S.E.T. – Adopt 7 Best Practices.
M is for Manage: Learn how to manage yourself working from home.
I is for Isolation: Find out how NOT to isolate yourself working from home.
D is for Deliverables: Find out why you are on the payroll and where to start investing in you.
S is for Space: Getting your own space when you work remotely is very important. Find out how and why.
E is for Emotions: Read about why you need to articulate how you feel.
T is for Technology: Technology is the foundation of your productively. See how to ensure that it is up to the job.
