How to work productively from home: a creative’s cheat guide

Work from anywhere but the said home office desk. This means you have the freedom to work from your couch. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • What is worse is opening your emails with, “I trust this finds you well.” This opener was dying before they had us working from home.
  • A styled desk will rescue you from a creative slump no more than a camel dancing the shaku shaku will.

If they allowed me to squeeze an image in here, I would have sketched you a graph of how our collective productivity of working from home has behaved since mid March. The axis will be time against productivity.

The graph will take on a bell shape, telling us that productivity was first at a low then it climbed up steadily before peaking at some point over the last few weeks.

Then it dipped again. Now it is erratic, taking on that zigzag shape of a heartbeat, the sound it makes when displaying on a heart monitor.

This heartbeat shape is not a metaphor for a new lease of life – it is a prelude into a rabbit hole, not one of us can predict where our little graph will go next. But whichever way it does, you need to adjust your expectations.

If you are a creative – a writer, copywriter, photographer, graphic designer, painter, content creator – consider this a cheat’s guide to working from home:

#1. Drop the idea of ‘being productive’. The year 2020 has redefined it for every creative so that it is no longer the North Star.

Productivity is such an ambiguous and fluid term that asking it to be the definitive metric of your day’s scorecard is somewhat regressive. I operate within a five-day workweek (four full days and two half days).

The questions I ask myself now pivot about these two questions: have I done what I needed to? Have I completed whatever I started this week? Everything else that surrounds this is a myth.

#2. It made sense at the beginning to set up a home office. It didn’t end there; we went ahead to obey the interior decor stylists when they told us to make our work desks more inviting by accessorising it with a desk succulent, funky coasters and a humidifier for those essential oils.

All that effort now counts for naught. You sometimes look at your home office and you consider setting the damn thing on fire.

Especially that silly humidifier. A styled desk will rescue you from a creative slump no more than a camel dancing the shaku shaku will.

Now it is down to the basics. On most days, you make it through by sheer will. Brute force. You negotiate with the rocks so that wherever you strike will crack open that stream of water. Embrace this brutality as the new order.

#3. You need not take a shower every day. Enough said.

#4. At some point you will have to write copy – a tweet, an Instagram caption, a Facebook update, a client report, an email.

We already have enough to deal with so for everyone’s sake, avoid such jaded colourless terms as, “We are living in uncertain times.” “These are such unprecedented times.” “We’ve found ourselves in trying times.” “This is the new normal.”

What is worse is opening your emails with, “I trust this finds you well.” This opener was dying before they had us working from home, now it has been eulogised and buried. Spare us an unnecessary resurrection.

#5. Work from anywhere but the said home office desk. This means you have the freedom to work from your couch, propped up on pillows against your bed’s headboard or from a nook on your balcony.

You can also work from your toilet. I am writing this from under a tree with my laptop balancing in the crook of my crossed legs. The sunshine is making me spongy.

#6. Work in anything but your regular work clothes. I don’t have the word count to establish what counts as regular work clothes and what doesn’t; I will leave that to your imagination.

I know you are wondering and the answer is yes, you are allowed to work in the nude. (Fine print: the nude option is only if you are social distancing from your home alone. Having a housemate will make you come across as a freak.)

#7. I would suggest you get something besides your work to care for, but getting a pet – or a baby – right now is like getting into a complicated relationship with no way out in sight.

Besides, who wants to constantly be thinking about this extra mouth to feed? You already have a migraine thinking about feeding yourself on a regular schedule.

Get yourself a houseplant. They thrive on being loved from a neglectful distance.

#8. It’s OK to fling aside everything they told you about making your bed first thing in the morning.

#9. Now more than ever is the time for some mad scientist experimentation. I hear you ask, ‘I’ve eaten so much cabbage that I’m beginning to look like a cabbage, does that count as mad scientist experimentation?’

Usually I would say no, but who am I to say what sort of magic a cabbage can create given the chance.