Hi all,
I wanted to follow up and provide some resources that may help guide you as you figure out what working from home will look like and how you might go about making goals.
First, Aimee (CBIO grad student) provided some excellent tips for how she is trying to establish a work environment at home:
1) Make the bed so you don’t get back into it.
2) Find what works for you. (I can’t do distractions other than light instrumental music.)
3) Try keep a schedule. Having a plan helps.
4) The app Forest has been a big help. It stops you from using your phone for the number of minutes/hours you tell it to lock your phone for. I try to do 25/5 minute increments. 25 mins of work and 5 mins to just be lazy and check facebook/Instagram etc.
Second, Biological Systems Engineering Graduate Student Association is hosting a webinar today at 4:30pm (3/19/20) to go over student wellness and motivation. You can attend via this zoom link:
Next, here are a variety of articles that provide strategies, methods, descriptions to make remote work productive and enjoyable:
(1) 5 Habits for remote work and the ultimate guide to productivity with descriptions of strategies for goal setting and productivity, including “SMART method”, “The Eisenhower Matrix”, “Eat that Frog”, “Time Blocking”, etc
(2) An article on goal setting and developing clear metrics while working at home.
(3) This article showcases responses from employees at Stack Overflow that are now working remotely. They provide tips on schedules, routines, communication, and tools to use to make remote work effective and enjoyable.
(4) This is the article I shared on the chat with 8-tips for working from home. It includes suggestions on how to set up your space, how to manage distractions, and the importance of staying connected
(5) If you want to read more about remote work strategies, check out this post that links to 12 more articles to guide your transition.
There are 3 things that have been recommended to me by different faculty/staff that I think we should all consider:
(a) working remotely is a feasible strategy that can be executed by making a plan to stay productive and also sane. Develop a routine and stick to it, that way you can demonstrate to yourself that you are working.
(b) if you absolutely have to go into the lab, talk with your lab mates and develop a schedule for minimizing contact with others. Recommendations say to stay at least 6-feet away from another person, and some lab groups are facilitating this by having no more than 2 students in a shared space at one time. If you can push experiments until later, talk with your advisor and do it. Lab groups across the country are suspending wet lab activities and focusing on other types of work in order to do their part to minimize spread of this virus.
(c) Make clear, transparent expectations between you and your advisor.
There is plenty we can be doing from home. I have included an image (attached) that mentions some of the things we can do that will help us maintain progress and also keep ourselves and our community healthy and safe. If you are not sure what to say to your advisor, reach out. We can draft emails and brainstorm action plans and work together to get through this uncertain and difficult time.
Two of the most important things to remember while we move to working remotely:
(1) we should stay connected while working remotely. We might want to do this by setting up weekly zoom/skype/facetime meetings where we can catch up and do something fun together, like play a jackbox game (quipplash anyone?) or watch a movie. We could even just call each other up and have a drink while we talk about how our work from home is going.
(2) we should take some time to write down goals/expectations so that we have a guide for achieving tangible "progress" while we are working remotely. This will help each of us see that we are doing something to continue our PhD training and will also give us the opportunity to show our progress to our advisors. Working from home does not have to be a barrier, instead we can take advantage of this time and develop our skills in a different way – think about how remote model may translate to future collaboration opportunities and can help us practice our time management skills. With that perspective in mind, working from home can be a really awesome opportunity.
-Ashley