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SELF-ACCOMMODATION: We have had ample time to discover how we are disabled in various way by WFH: in tripping over obstacles we didn't know we had removed at the office, we experienced failures and frustrations. Now we can move forward. How? Read on. 1/12
Probably, you were unaware of how much you had optimized your work processes and environments to support your best functioning. Step 1, then, is figuring out what the elements of optimization were in the Before Time. Be specific. Say WHAT and HOW and WHY. 2/12
For example, to make sure I got my prep done, I always used to do it one hour before class: the hard deadline motivated me, and I knew that was ample time, and I didn't worry about procrastinating, and it was a stable ritual. 3/12
Next, you try to attach your WFH fail points to the lack of access to your usual way of doing thing--often, what you think is what's missing is not actually the problem. Be specific. 4/12
For example, in remote teaching, I sometimes forgot to prep, or was late with prep, and it's because there was no "class" that met all together at a specific time. So my "one-hour-before-class" optimization ... didn't obtain. 5/12
Next, try to reproduce the EFFECT of the workplace optimization in the WFH condition: you can't exactly replicate it, but since you know how and why it worked, you can create a NEW way of achieving that effect. 6/12
For my prep, I gave myself an arbitrary deadline of "Monday" but that didn't work. It was too amorphous and there was no external prompt. I pretended there was a "class time" but there wasn't and I didn't really believe in it. 7/12
So now I have an actual scheduled thing, that I want to do (a walk with my husband) and make my teaching prep deadline something that has to happen before I can do that thing I want to do. And I tell him that, so I'm accountable. THIS works much better. 8/12
This is the trick. In regular work, I don't need to get my husband to confirm my prep is done before he will let me go outside for a walk. But in pandemic times, this is a strategy that reproduces the effect of "class is in one hour" and now I can get the work done. 9/12
YMMV: the idea is that you have to audit pretty thoroughly what your pandemic-work fail points are, reverse engineer how it came to be you never failed at those things before, and create new, pandemic strategies and routines to re-optimize your work. 10/12
We can't just shift everything online and work the same way. It's not the same. But we can't just complain that we can't access our usual supports: that doesn't improve our lives. We need to re-imagine and re-optimize. It's work up front, but it's worth it. 11/12
Know thyself: HOW did I support my own success, WHY did I do it like that, WHAT was the magic in it? And then: HOW can I achieve the same effect, in my own house, by different means. 12/12
Bonus: I have started printing hard copies of all my course webpages, because I was getting so lost clicking between all the tabs and using up spoons on working memory for nothing. Printing everything has made everything waaaaay easier. For me.
Bonus: I shower at night now, because with no hard morning deadlines to focus me, I can drag the morning routine out until 11am still in my pajamas. If I shower at night, it's way less to force myself to do in the morning and I'm dressed and at my desk before 9.
Bonus: I wear work clothes (um, jeans and a shirt) during business hours, and then put track pants on at 4, and pajamas at 9 to mark real separation in my day so I can be who I need to be when I need to be.
