Wisdom on working from home, from one who knows.
#cbchq
Everyone is talking about working from home now. I mean, what choice do we have, if we have a choice about even having a job? Even if you lost your job—temporarily, we hope—you still want to be a productive human being as you unearth those pet projects, dream up a brilliant new business concept, learn to knit, or strategize madly about how you will proceed with your little life once this shitshow is over.
Not to be smug, but I was built for this. I am a Class A hermit introvert shut-in. You have to be when you’re a writer. You can’t need open-plan offices, ping pong tables and pointless meetings over Sweetgreens. You have to be okay with sitting by yourself in a room, alone, most of the time. I’m not going to lie: I am less okay with it when it is a government order, as opposed to a lifestyle choice, but even then, I am more okay with it than most.
I have a lot of experience when it comes to work isolation. With the exception of two years when I was a staff writer at a magazine in Manhattan, and the occasional on-site agency contract, I have spent my entire career working from home. It is joyful. To wake up every day and not have to report to work, is the dream. But only so long as you follow a few simple guidelines…
FOR GOD SAKES, GET DRESSED
Many years ago, I interviewed Nick Cave for a magazine story. When our conversation inevitably veered toward fashion, I asked him about his perfectly tailored suits. I wanted to know why he wears these onstage. I found out that Nick Cave’s iconic drag is not merely performative, but pragmatic.
This was the lede to the story, published on Metromix.com in 2009:
Maybe it’s the canon of depraved songs, the penchant for noise-rock or the reputation for heroin addiction and messy relationships, but it’s hard to think of Nick Cave as a nine-to-fiver. Yet he’s sitting in the café at the Husdon Hotel on a dreary Friday afternoon insisting his daily routine is no more exciting than a banker’s. “I get up in the morning, put on a suit, kiss my wife goodbye and go to the office,” says the Australian cult hero. The office is a room in his basement, his wife is former Vivienne Westwood model Susie Bick, and…wait, he wears a suit? Yes, he nods. Every day, really? “Well, what am I gonna do,” he retorts, “write a song in Bermuda shorts and a pair of thongs?”
It’s hard to picture Nick in loungewear, and that is by his own design. He doesn’t want you to think of him as casual in any way. So he gets dressed every day to do the serious work of a professional songwriter alone, in his basement office. My advice is to make like Nick and put on an outfit when you go to work, even if it’s at home. It makes a difference in the quality of work you do. And the world needs you to show up as your best professional self, now more than ever. Don’t be wearing sweats.
MAKE A WORKSPACE FOR YOURSELF
I happen to have a beautiful office in my home. You may have seen photos of it on Instagram under the tag #cbchq. It’s the result of years of carving out a realm for myself to be a professional on my own terms. When you are allergic to dogs and other peoples’ idiosyncrasies, office life is not an option for you. So you adapt.
I realize that many of you haven’t previously needed to take such measures. But you do now. Your setup doesn’t need to be fancy. You don’t need midcentury furniture and geode bookends to succeed in quarantine. I ran my first business out of the corner of the dining room in an apartment in New Orleans that I shared with two people. Those two people may have found it annoying, but I made a name for myself as a culture authority in that corner, at that Sauder desk, reading 9/11 analysis on my lime green iMac. Again, the world economy needs you to be the best you can be during this time. Can you really do that slumped in bed with your laptop on your thighs?
IMPOSE DRACONIAN STRUCTURE
“Discipline is freedom,” says my friend Jasmine Takanikos, founder of Brand Human. She’s absolutely right. It’s a bit counterintuitive. You’d think it would be better, especially for a creative professional, to keep things...free. But chaos is not conducive to creativity. Not now, not ever.
If you usually lean on the natural structure of an office workday, you’re going to have to create that framework yourself for a while. Pretend like your boss is watching. You are the boss now. And things are going to get pretty loose if you just go about your day letting resting hours bleed into work hours and vice versa. This was a much-talked-about problem before the pandemic, people taking their dogs to work and sleeping with their work phones. It was gross then, and it’s untenable now. Of course you have to be flexible if your kids are home and your life is upside down. But that is all the more reason to stay structured. You and everyone around you will be fitter, happier, more productive, comfortable.
GIVE YOURSELF A BREAK
There is a reason why “You Deserve a Break Today” is one of the top-rated jingles of all time. It reminds us that not every part of the day needs to be a grind, that it’s okay to step back, to sit down, to have a moment. It might be tempting to get lost in your work goals, be they company business or personal projects. Staying busy, in control of what you can control, is comforting. But your mind and body need to rest too. That’s something late capitalism wanted us to forget. Let’s remember. Remember that it’s springtime. Let’s go out and smell the fucking flowers.
ENJOY IT (IF YOU DARE)
This one’s the best, and most difficult, guideline for right now and for always. Do what no one else is doing and luxuriate in this time. Insist on the glamorous side of whiling away the days at home, away from the hustle and bustle, above the grind. Indulge in the elegance of isolation, of solitude. Think of it as an act of rebellion. When they tried to cut you off, you kept growing.