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Sticky Learning Lunches #1: How to Be More Productive Whilst Working From Home
Find out how to manage yourself better with ‘M’ – The first of 7 best practices from the M.I.N.D.S.E.T model for working remotely and how to be more productive whilst working from home.
You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:
Nathan Simmonds:
Amazing. So we’re just, we’re a couple of minutes early, we’re just seeing who’s arriving. Let’s make sure we’re setting ourselves up for success. Give this a few minutes just while other people are starting to come in. This is the first day back from the Easter weekend. I definitely feel like it’s the first day back at school. Good to see you guys coming in. Like, as I’ve said before, let’s make sure we’ve got drinks available. Let’s make sure we’ve got clean notepads and pens before we dive into this.
Nathan Simmonds:
Gonna make sure I’ve got some pens in the pockets. Colin, great to see you again. Andy. Thanks for being here. Few of the last people coming in. 30 more seconds. I’m watching the clock. 30 more seconds and then we’re gonna dive into this and cover some key things around your workspace, especially when you’re working from home. There’s gonna be some key points here that you may not be thinking about.
Nathan Simmonds:
There’s gonna be some things that you know you might be thinking about and we’re gonna try and tweak those and, and make them a little bit more, um, a little bit more clear for you and take ’em off another level to really support you, that you are getting the best out, the spaces that you are working in, right? I said drinks, pens, and papers. We will do questions through this. First of all, first question, while we’re waiting for any last couple of people to join in, did everyone have a good Easter?
Nathan Simmonds:
Yes. We’ve got some yeses coming in. My question box is not working very well. Bear with me. Real thanks. Yeah, no, thanks for asking. So I appreciate it. I had a glorious one. The weather here was phenomenal. We’re down in Hastings and it was beautiful for some reason. I have, I can only see one question. It’s doing weird things on my question box. So I may have some challenges with that later, but we’ll work that out later.
Nathan Simmonds:
Yeah, so I spent the, uh, a couple of days on the vegetable patch, growing vegetables and, and tidying things up, right? We’re all here. I think this is good to go. We’re gonna go in, gonna share some ideas. Welcome all. This is the Sticky Learning Lunches from Nathan Simmons here at MBM Making Business Matter. We are the home, well we are the leadership, uh, and soft skills providers to the UK grocery and manufacturing industry.
Nathan Simmonds:
And right now, while we’re in this lockdown situation and we’re working from home in these changing dynamics in this brave new world we’re in, we’re gonna be sharing 20 minutes of learning with you every single workday, uh, for as long as you guys need it. And sharing some core concepts and leadership skills that are gonna help you to be the best possible version of yourself while you can be while you are working in these new spaces.
Nathan Simmonds:
Bear with me just trying to find, fix some final elements of my question boxes. ’cause it is not playing the game. Right guys, let’s do this. I’m gonna come off the screen share. So you’ve just got, uh, the background of me
Nathan Simmonds:
And dive into this. Come on, play the game, right? We’re good. We’re live, we’re in. So today what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna continue to focus on the mindset model. Last week we already picked up on, um, managing some of our routines and our, and certain elements of our working from home. We also talked about isolation. The, the symptoms of cabin fever. We talked about work wear, how to make sure you are dressing for where you are mentally and physically. And also talks about deliverables.
Nathan Simmonds:
Today what we’re gonna be doing is we’re gonna be focusing in now on our space and about how you can make sure that you are getting the most out of where you are working in the nicest possible way. We didn’t choose to work from home. We’re being forced into this space. What it’s about is maximizing what it is you are doing, where you are working, and how that’s working for you. For the first part, number one, he says
Nathan Simmonds:
The spelling might be out. I think, uh, association, we’ll work that out later. The law of association. What does this mean? This means that when you do something and you build a habit over a course of time in a certain environment, you’ll start to associate that environment with that behavior.
Nathan Simmonds:
Often when people are being taught meditation, they’re taught not to meditate while lying down in bed. Why? Open question to you guys. What’s the one thing we do most of the time in our beds? And I say most of the time to make sure we keep the answers clean in the chat boxes. What do we do? I’m having a terrible time technically with this
Nathan Simmonds:
Sleep. Exactly this. If you start to relax and you start to meditate and bring your breathing down, actually when you are laying, laying in bed and starting to do this, the natural reaction and response is to fall asleep. Okay? This is a great meditation. However, you’re not reaping the full benefits of uh, focusing your attention on that. So when we’re doing our work, we have to create a space that we can associate with our work. Now, depending on the environment you are living in, that the space you’ve got available will depend on how you create that space. Okay?
Nathan Simmonds:
So one of the first things I’m gonna recommend is an absolute categoric. Do and do not is don’t. If you have the option, make that workspace in your bedroom. Okay? Something I learned from homeschooling and working with children is very often as parents, and I know myself and I’d love to hear from you guys, when we got home from school with our homework, we were told to go to our room to do our homework. So we were out of the way.
Nathan Simmonds:
What happened though is we started to associate that place where we’re meant to be resting with doing the work. So either the work didn’t get done because we were relaxing or we weren’t relaxing ’cause we were too busy focusing on the work. We didn’t create the divide for ourselves.
Nathan Simmonds:
This is the same for your work as well. Working from home. Do not do that work in the bedroom. If you have a choice, go and create an individual space, whether it’s in the corner of your lounge or the corner of the kitchen or the edge of the dining room, whatever it is, separate the spaces out. So it might be that if you do have a dining room area that maybe that becomes the home office just for a little while, while you’re doing this and the kitchen becomes the eating space. Recommend there.
Nathan Simmonds:
Separate your dynamics out so you can get focused on your thinking. The other side of things, what’s gonna happen into your relation or it’s your own health. First of all, if you’re going into those spaces and you’re always thinking about work where you would be relaxing, think about what’s gonna happen when you try and go to sleep.
Nathan Simmonds:
If you are working in in your bedroom, it’s gonna have a really disruptive effect on you. It’s called the law of association. Now what are the things that we can do then to support this? The next elements over here, one separate. Separate the space. Absolutely key. Two, set up a desk if you have space to do this. As I said, if it’s the corner of the kitchen, if it’s the corner of a dining room, create a little pocket of workspace for yourself, okay?
Nathan Simmonds:
Make sure you, and then get your own setup there. So remember the things that you had on your desk while you were working in your office and maybe you have a cacti, maybe you have a plant, maybe you have some of your stationary. Create that little section of where you work in. So when you go there, you can do the thing you need to do.
Nathan Simmonds:
Get your own kit, get your own stationary available. Make sure it’s accessible to you. I’m lucky because I have an office here. I have desks, I have drawers, I have all my own equipment, I have everything I need so I can grab it when I need to. I’m not distracted, I’m not worrying about it.
Nathan Simmonds:
I’m not trying to order it. It’s there. It’s available for when I need it. Do not disturb. This is vital. I have a 7-year-old who here has got children who here have got their children getting involved in their work. Gimme a yes, yes or no in the box. They see who here has got children available.
Nathan Simmonds:
What I do know is from myself, the wife is the biggest issue. Kids too busy on. Yes. Why? Because there’s a novelty to being here and being available. There’s a novelty to being con you know, a hundred percent available in proximity to your children rather than at work or working away or whatever it is we’re doing as a result of this. It’s very easy for those children or our partners. They have a question. Um, something else will come out or they just want a hug.
Nathan Simmonds:
You know, I might be sitting here doing work, my 7-year-old daughter and we, you know, we have great relationship and she’ll just come up ’cause she wants a hug. She just wants to say hello ’cause she knows I’m here and she’s got the opportunity to do it ’cause I’m not working away from home. At the same time though, I’m delivering content right now, so I have to have some sort of, um, a boundary, almost an expectation.
Nathan Simmonds:
When the door is shut, do not disturb. It means I’m working. I also create spaces where they’re clearly aware of when I’m doing live broadcast or when I’m doing interviews with, with, with some of our connections, our network so that in the nicest pop possible way, poppy doesn’t get involved in those recordings. So we can, we have to have that do not disturb so we can get focused on our work, get into it and get the work done. A couple of other elements here that are really important.
Nathan Simmonds:
One, get a wifi booster. I’ve found that as soon as I close my door, it’s, you know, it’s not a thick door, but as soon as I do that, my connection drops down. It makes it harder for me to do work. Speak to your internet provider, they can give that to you. The other one is making sure you’ve got plenty of natural light.
Nathan Simmonds:
It’s gonna be super important. It’s gonna help you to think the moment that light level starts to drop down, you then find the melatonin starts to kick in and you start to get more sluggish and sleepy, especially if you’re looking at your laptop for long periods of time. Natural light, keep yourself focused, keep your attention. These are the important parts where we’re going to next. Keep moving.
Nathan Simmonds:
Number two, we’re gonna be sitting in some awkward positions. Yeah, not all of us have the luxury of having ergonomic setups, um, you know, back support chairs and all this sort of thing. And we’re gonna find that we’re gonna start sort of hunching down and our shoulders are gonna start coming down.
Nathan Simmonds:
I’m a big guy. I’m six foot six, I’ve got my desk set up. I’ve got, you know, a laptop riser, but I’m still finding that I’m hunching. I’m still finding that I’m sitting down for long period of time and it’s putting more pressure on my lower back, which is causing me more problems. Pomodora timer, again, we teach this at MBM when we’re doing the, the learning, the learning to learn methodologies. Set your timer for 20, 25 minutes, get up, make sure you’re stretching.
Nathan Simmonds:
Do some stretches that really focus on the back to keep your spine moving and not setting in new positions, which are actually gonna cause you long-term pain. Who here is experiencing right now? Yeses and noss in the comments? Who’s experiencing some more aches and pains, potentially ideally Backaches. Good suggestion there from Colin about tin four around the back of the router. Well, I’ve learned a valuable lesson about making sure my question box opens up completely. Found out how to make it so it’s vital.
Nathan Simmonds:
If we’re sitting in the same position, we’re gonna cause more pressure on my spine. I’m not a chiropractor, I’m not an osteopath. What I do know though is from working from home, we get these pain. Get up, get moving, stretch, open your chest up and move your spine. Roll, touch your toes, do all the things that are gonna give you that momentum. But sitting in the same position is not gonna help.
Nathan Simmonds:
If you’re doing phone calls, if you’re doing video calls, if you can do this while walking around, get up, move, put your Bluetooth earplugs in, put the phone down, walk around, get, you know, create more thinking spaces. You’re creating your own movements. This is gonna be super important, especially if we’re gonna be doing this for a few more weeks, which is very likely. Number three we’ve got up here,
Nathan Simmonds:
I’ve just typed helps. And what do I mean by helps is all the tax and, and elements that we can put in place that we might not think about. One, get a laptop riser if you can. If you are working on a small laptop, if you can get a riser just to lift it up so that you’re not hunching over it a little bit more. Do it. I’ve got mine there. It is an IKEA one. I think it’s big. I’ve got a 17 inch laptop. It gives me a little bit more height and, and forces me up other elements.
Nathan Simmonds:
Another great element to support in the back back support. Guys, I know this is gonna look a little bit strange, but this just helps to pull my shoulders back. I’ve found from working from home, even on a, a high desk with the riser that my shoulders still come forward and I’m starting to hunch wearing one of these super cheap, you can buy them from any good online store.
Nathan Simmonds:
Pulls his shoulders back. You may have seen some of the guys, uh, dev I think was wearing ’em on at least. Um, in the last series of, of strictly come dancing just creates the posture, holds us in that position, stops us from, and just helps to build the muscles at the front of the chest so that we’re not, um, pulling forward. Another useful tip, blue light, um, uh, glasses as well.
Nathan Simmonds:
Again, if we are, we’re spending a long time in this space focusing on what we’re doing. Cut out the blue light as much as possible, especially later in the day because you want to create more rest. This space needs to be focused and attentive absolutely as the day progresses on. Um, and if you’re working later in the day, get blue light glasses. Uh, they, they cut out the focus on this often yellow or orange in color.
Nathan Simmonds:
Help to diffuse the light so it stops mucking around with the, the, the, the brain mechanisms and it allows you to sleep a little bit faster when you’re going to bed as well. Another suggestion guys. And by the way, if you’ve got suggestions here, I’m gonna open this up to you guys as well right now while I’m talking to you.
Nathan Simmonds:
Any other suggestions that you’ve got to help with mobility? Any other suggestions you’ve got to help with comfort from working at home that I dunno about, that we don’t know about? Share them. Get in the questions box in the chat box and start sharing any suggestions that you’ve got right now.
Nathan Simmonds:
Next useful tool for creating focus. You won’t be able to hear this, but just outside my door, we have a white noise generator and we were using this when our daughter was young so we could cut out the noise, the background noise of cars, um, as she was going to sleep. I now use this to help cancel out the noise of the neighbor standing the floor or the dogs barking outside or, um, my wife and daughter moving around downstairs as they’re doing the homeschooling.
Nathan Simmonds:
It just helps to, to cancel out that noise so I can just focus on what I’m doing. If you haven’t got a white noise generator, download one of the white noise apps you can get on on your phone. Often parents, new parents have done this and you may find this yourselves. Download an app. It plays white noise so it just helps cancel out the, the background noise so the child can go to sleep and you can use it as the same thing.
Nathan Simmonds:
Put it on your phone, put it next to you, press play and away it will go on a continuous loop of background noise just to give you that background, um, to cancel out the distractions for you. What are the suggestions? Have we got? Miranda said, my audio has disappeared. Can everyone hear me? Yep. Loud clip. I could. Miranda, that might just be your audio there.
Nathan Simmonds:
Good. So that he is not getting, uh, the, the back aches because he is exercising every day. Yes, it is an upside. Good Colin says about putting tinfoil around the back of the, the, the router to help boost the signal, especially in the direction you’re facing. So face it the way you’re going. Put the tin fold out and then focus that the, uh, the signal in the direction you want to go. Fresh air.
Nathan Simmonds:
Definitely agree with this Colin. Making sure the spaces you’ve got, your well-ventilated as well. Thank you for bringing this up, Colin. Deeply appreciated. The moment that you are starting to feel yourself lagging is, you know, potentially you just need to reoxygenation shift your physiology. Stand up, open the diaphragm and take, you know, three to 10 deep breaths in through the nose and right into the belly.
Nathan Simmonds:
So diaphragmatic breathing, push the air right the way down, so not inflating the chest. Get it right the way down in the belly there and really oxygenate your system to create that focus. Get up, open the door, go outside, refresh the body, refresh the thinking, come back to what you’re doing.
Nathan Simmonds:
It’s super important that we get this right. Um, no, not gin. Um, got one suggestion here. Natural light water or gin and gin. Friday may be Monday, Tuesday. No, let’s not do this. So, um, making sure you’ve got the hydration in your space as well. We’re setting ourselves up for success here. That’s why at the beginning of this session I said, you know, we’ve got a clean notepad page and we’ve got a drink.
Nathan Simmonds:
So we wanna make sure we’ve got the right element so we can just do what we need to do rather than getting caught in the procrastination and creating an excuse or a distraction so we can walk away and do something else. Get everything available there so you can create good work and get super productive in what you’re doing. Okay, so what do we cover today so far? The law of association.
Nathan Simmonds:
Think about where you are working and where, where and the environment you’re creating that work. So create the space. Two, keep yourself moving in your space. It’s very easy if we do get trapped in good work that we hunker down. Um, we get lost in that and we don’t come outta it. And when we do, actually we’ve locked in that position. Think about your yoga stretches.
Nathan Simmonds:
Think about your, how you are moving, how you’re twisting, and how you’re keeping yourself going. And three, we’ve covered some helpful hints. Get the right setup, elevate your laptop back support to create the posture. Blue light, um, glasses. Also white noise to minimize the distractions that you’ve got going on as well. So you can mute your white noise app or generator to give you some, um, to, to neutralize some of those background noises, which may be a distraction to what you are working on.
Nathan Simmonds:
Tinfoil exercise, a new whiteboard pen. Yes, agreed. The purple one is running out. I am gonna be ordering some in the next 24 hours. Guys, in the comments, what’s been useful from today? ’cause these are super short learnings. What’s been useful from today? What are you taking away that is useful? Let me know what’s worked in the, in the chat.
Nathan Simmonds:
Just also seen a, a post, uh, comment there from s again, the clutter. Agreed, absolutely eliminate all the waste clear down the rubbish every single day so it’s not sitting there, uh, accumulating. My, my office is busy. I’ve got a lot going on here ’cause we’re working very intently at the moment, but at the same time I’m still clearing down the, the, the direct vicinity of my laptop. So I’ve got fresh notepad, I’ve got fresh ways to be working on
Nathan Simmonds:
Reminder on the right noise. Absolutely use it. Get the app. If you haven’t got the app, get the app. If you’ve had kids and you know what the app is, go and grab it. Just get it on the background. Good. Colin Colin said that his head is aligned with top tips. Someone’s done unconsciously. Good. Make it conscious. Share these ideas with people. There are gonna be plenty of people out there that don’t know any of this stuff consciously, unconsciously, and are sitting there giving themselves a backache.
Nathan Simmonds:
So by the time they actually do go back to work, they’re gonna need, uh, a medical assistance to actually make sure they’re doing that in the most productive way. Sitting down is gonna be one of the biggest killers, or is currently one of the, is becoming one of the biggest killers in office spaces due to lack of movement and also how it’s, um, messing with us, uh, in the muscular skeletal fashion.
Nathan Simmonds:
Wifi plugs works very well to hardware yet if you’ve got the access to those ports, do this as well. Guys, I hope that was useful. What questions have you got for me right now around today’s session or any other this, any, any more of the sessions that we’ve so far covered? What questions have you got from me that I can help with, um, that’s gonna help you improve the way that you are working from home?
Nathan Simmonds:
Just looking and see where these questions are coming up. Good. Yeah, do share some of these things. Good side, yeah, go back and share some of this stuff. Any of these key tips that help your guys share it. I’m not fast if you credit me or not or you go and take all the credit for it, just share with me if it helps them and helps them to work better with deeper attention, please do it.
Nathan Simmonds:
Absolutely. Another suggestion here from Colin. It’s nice whether us to hang out the washing, stretch your shoulders, get you bending, agreed. Just making sure I’m getting in, getting all these comments that are coming through. But something about setting realistic goals for each work session.
Nathan Simmonds:
Yes, whatever you are working in or working on, set yourself a timer for it and be realistic with what you’re getting done in that space. At the same time, managing the expectations. I need to get up and move every 20 to 25 minutes to make sure physically and mentally I’m refreshing myself to set yourself realistic objectives in that. Okay, where do I wanna zero out the distraction? How do I wanna make sure it’s done? What am I gonna get done in the next 20, 30 minutes? Okay, work on that.
Nathan Simmonds:
Set your milestones now. It is, it is, it is like one of those stair climbers. We’re gonna take one step at a time to make sure we get where we need to get to. The moment you start overreaching and going for two, three stair climbs up, you’re gonna be overstretching yourself mentally and physically and it’s not gonna become, you know, you’re not gonna be able to get the tension you need in order to make that next step really clearly. Break it down into clear chunks. Good suggestion
Nathan Simmonds:
Guys, ladies, gentlemen, I really hope that this is useful. We have another training. We’re gonna do this every single day until we know, until we come out of this situation tomorrow. We’re gonna be focusing on the e from the mindset and mnemonic. It’s gonna be about emotions, how to deal with your emotions as they come up. How to talk about those emotions as they come up, how to process ’em so you can make the most of them.
Nathan Simmonds:
We’re gonna be covering off emotions tomorrow if you haven’t registered. Please dive into the registration page as soon as this finishes and register for your place for tomorrow’s session as well. Um, where we’re gonna be covering fif 20 minutes of, of core learning around emotions. Also, if this content is useful, tell your friends, tell the, tell your colleagues, get them connected into this ’cause This is, if this is useful for you, then in the elements I’m sharing, it’s gonna be useful for them as well.
Nathan Simmonds:
It’s live, it’s free. Get them involved. Registration link is right there in the chat box for you to connect with. The other thing as well, which I’ve talked about in last week’s sessions as well, is you can pick up your coaching queue cards. Now we’ve got ’em on. Uh, the MBM shopping page is there. If any of you are leaders, if any of you are starting coaching, if any of you wanna support your own personal development, there is a deck of cards there with 80 questions that are gonna help you start to finish set goals, work out where you are, work out how you’re gonna get there, and then take the action and make it happen.
Nathan Simmonds:
Right now those cards are currently sitting at five pound, huge value for 80 questions. Click through. You want to pick your copy up, your your, your pack up there. Please do. I’d love to hear your feedback on the session from today. I would love to hear your feedback on the session of the coaching cards as well and find out how they are helping you be the best version of who you are. Everyone, have a lovely rest of your day and I will connect with you guys again at one o’clock tomorrow. Looking forward to it. Cheers. Bye.
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