Icon: enlarge
Home office (symbol picture): Try a few new life hacks for work at home
Photo: CocoSan / E + / Getty Images
Of course it is a privilege to be able to work in a safe environment.
And to have a job at all.
But you can still be annoyed by working from home - if you have a toothache, it doesn't mean that someone else has broken a leg.
Where the annoyance is great, the helpful also grows: We have all learned how to do video conferences, we can organize virtual meetings and we know, at least in theory, what kind of leadership is needed now.
There are no detailed surveys that tell us how much we miss our colleagues (two thirds of all those who work from home miss the social environment - by the way, men more than women, according to this survey) and how many want to go back to the office (almost all, at least temporarily, according to this survey - well, an office furniture manufacturer commissioned them, but still).
Here are just a few tips from my own long-term home office practice and from many professional contacts whom I have asked to tell me what really helps them.
Virtual lottery drums and six other tips
There are a lot of nifty tools for companies that want to take a little bit of money into their hands: Gather, for example, maps the company in a kind of closed second-life cosmos - including the bank outside the entrance, which you can go to with your lunch can put in the sun.
If you want to talk to someone, you have to move your avatar to get within earshot.
It feels surprisingly real, as reported by this barman, for example, who used the tool to relocate his bar to the virtual room - and who may want to maintain the offer even after the corona pandemic.
Many companies (including SPIEGEL) have had good experiences with virtual raffle drums that colleagues arrange to meet for coffee or lunch breaks.
You can do it online or offline.
And, as many office workers in different companies agree, raises the mood considerably.
Because what we all noticeably lack are the little chance encounters that do not materialize, the expanded sociotope.
But even if the company does not provide any additional tools, everyday office life at home can be made more enjoyable.
Tip 1: scroll down.
Further.
In your chat program you have a list on the left with the most recent contacts.
Most of the people upstairs have a permanent seat there, right?
Scroll all the way down and invite the person standing there for a tele-coffee.
Because: The quiet colleagues just do their work.
The louder ones make sure that they have enough contacts.
For some it is just a little bigger than for others to take the first step - if it is easier for you, in my view it results in something like a moral obligation in the team: Take care of yourself.
This is not just a matter for the boss.
Tip 2: the lovely photo
I found this tip here (at the bottom of the text).
But you can't tell him enough about it.
Because it is like this: We all stare all day long into this camera eye that soaks up our life energy.
A small black hole at the top of the laptop screen.
That's not what we humans are made for: Who has a black dot made happy?
Rachel Greenwald's suggestion: put a picture right above the camera that you really like, that lifts your mood.
A photo of a squirrel.
A picture of the person you are in love with.
Your favorite vacation picture.
And then just watch it during video conferencing.
Whoops, you look friendly and happy, and that makes for a pleasant atmosphere.
And at the other end, you can't see that you're not looking closely into the camera - it all looks natural.
Tip 3: the thing with your own picture
There are two contradicting findings from video conferencing research: First, that it motivates us to see our own image.
On the other hand, that it makes us unhappy and makes us feel uncomfortable.
If you imagine a normal conversation situation, it would probably alienate us if the other person keeps looking at a small mirror in his hand.
But that's exactly what we do with video conferences. Tools such as Skype or Zoom therefore offer the hide-myself option: This can be used to switch off the small hand mirror at the bottom right of the picture.
If you use teams, that doesn't work (although users are committed to it, because it can be annoying for sign speakers if relevant parts of the conversation are covered by their own image).
But there is a low-tech solution that works too: boldly put a post-it over your own picture.
If afterwards you somehow feel a bit more liberated and energetic, then it was the right thing.
If it doesn't make a difference to you or bothers you, take the Post-it back down.
Experiment.
Tip 4: silent coworking
Students know: It works particularly well in the library because you are not distracted, but you work in a busy environment - and above all: not alone.
It's similar in the office.
Ideally, a concentrated atmosphere helps to keep things going.
You can meet up with colleagues via Zoom or Teams to work quietly or use a tool like Focusmate, which can enrich your day with new encounters.
You register, decide on a time slot and are assigned a partner for the quiet work.
As I write this, a Berlin web designer who was randomly drawn to me is working on his new project on my second monitor.
At Focusmate the rules are clear: At the beginning of the 50-minute session, you tell each other very briefly what you want to achieve during the session, and then you start.
Whether you leave the microphone on or not is a matter of taste, but it really helps a lot if there is another person on the monitor who also wants something baked.
And the fact that in a good three quarters of an hour he'll ask whether I've done my job is surprisingly effective.
The decisive factor is the clear rules: At the beginning of the session, say what you want to do in less than a minute, then do it and give a brief report at the end of the session.
In those 50 minutes you can really get rid of something.
Three sessions per week are included in the basic account; if you want more, it costs around five US dollars a month.
If the employer does not want something like this on the work computer, simply put your private cell phone down - you can also work together silently using chat apps such as Signal or WhatsApp.
Tip 5: come around for a while
No matter what we do and with whom, we always sit in front of the same screen and mostly in the same room.
At least the latter can be changed.
When you're taking a coffee break with a colleague, unplug your laptop and take it into the kitchen or living room - and when you're there, sit on the other side of the table.
This small simulation of a joint change of location helps you to separate the spheres in terms of content and the break situation is different from the work setup - this can help to address other topics and to experience the working day as more structured.
Tip 6: be a little silly
Corona time is full of video conference stories like the one about the lawyer who couldn't turn off his cat filter.
Even if you have a better grip on your digital life, you don't have to do without a bit of entertainment.
I put a small disco ball at my desk to add a little glamor to my favorite ideas in not-so-formal rounds.
Instead of the digital hand lifting function, you can hold scoreboards in the camera if the team is having fun: All you need is pieces of paper with the numbers from 1 to 10, which is more haptic than if everyone just wrote the digits in the chat and one has a mood picture at first glance).
What has also proven itself: Having a hand puppet close at hand - one or the other often has a child with them in a video conference, and it is a friendly gesture that does not cost any time when a little badger or an owl waves back.
Icon: The mirror
