BONUS | Heather Fletcher - Quick Tips for those New to Remote Work

Heather's article:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/6-tips-new-remote-worker-heather-fletcher/


Heather's Linktree:
https://linktr.ee/heavenhealing


FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Mitch: (00:05)


Hey everybody. Welcome back for another bonus episode of Count Me
In. I'm your host Mitch Roshong. And today I'll be bringing you
right up to another conversation on how to best manage working
from home. This time Adam talked to Heather Fletcher, a
freelancer and candidate manager who looks to offer some quick
tips to help anyone who is new to working from home for another
perspective that'll help you settle into today's new norm. Let's
listen to the conversation now. 


 


Adam: (00:37)


So there's a lot of people who are finding themselves in an
extended period of working from home. And, we wanted to reach out
because, you know, you have a great article on LinkedIn and we
just wanted to see, you know, do you have some tips on how people
can be successful and kind of stay sane as they find themselves
in this new world of probably having kids home from school and
having to work full time and just trying to balance all those
things. what's the advice that you can give them? 


 


Heather: (01:03)


Oh yeah, I mean, I feel like it definitely depends on what things
are happening that are important for you. Like people with kids,
obviously their type priority is figuring out how to juggle work
and taking care of their kids at the same time. I've already seen
people post articles on this as well. It seems like some of the
best tips that are for almost everybody is to get yourself on a
schedule. It's really easy to be like, well I can sleep in, I
don't have to drive anywhere and deal with traffic and then all
of a sudden you're just kind of lollygagging around the house
until it's time to start working. So keeping to a regular
schedule really is a big help on that one. I feel like that's
probably one of the top tips I can give you, but it's also still
really important to get a lot of sleep to take care of yourself.
So you're keeping your immune system up, eating healthy instead
of snacking all day cause you're at home. I really feel like
planning your meals, if you already do that, keep doing that
because you're going to find that as cool as it sounds to cook
yourself a fresh breakfast, lunch or dinner, it takes time to set
up, prep, cook, serve, and then eat those things. So if you've
already got a few meals planned for you, it's going to help your
day go by a little more smoothly without stressing about how long
it's taking you to chop vegetables, that's for sure. 


 


Adam: (02:29)


And then if you're making food for other people as well as
yourself, then it gets even more complicated. 


 


Heather: (02:33)


Exactly. Like, yeah, like people that with the kids, maybe your
spouse is home at the same time too. Maybe your roommates are
home. If that's the case, and you've got all those people home.
Another tip I would like to share is to try and find a space that
doesn't have all those people in it. Maybe a place that you can
shut the door on those people for a short periods of time if you
need to. Cause it's, it's really easy to be distracted if you're
sitting in maybe the, maybe you're sitting in the dining room and
your kids are watching TV in the living room and then maybe
somebody else is in the kitchen doing stuff. So especially if you
have to talk to other people, those distractions that are nearby,
it really helped get you off course without even, you just don't
even notice it until an hour has passed sometimes. 


 


Adam: (03:19)


Definitely. So it's talking about, speaking of talking with
people and speaking with other people cause she coworkers or
clients or whatever your, whatever your job is, what are some
technologies or some tools that you've, you've learned to use
over with your experience working from home? 


 


Heather: (03:35)


Oh yeah. Our company uses a specific one called Nextiva. That's
going ti be a bigger program for a bigger company. Perhaps you
might not be using that already, but Skype is super easy and it's
free. So you can call anybody. That way. You can use video chat
or not use video chat, whatever works best for you. you can still
use your phones. You still need to keep in touch with people.
Email is probably going to be one. People are going to just
remember that communication gets a little more difficult when
you're not face to face with somebody. So give a little leeway
for the person that you're talking to. Give them the benefit of
the doubt. If you maybe misunderstand what they have said cause
it always makes sense to yourself when you're saying something.
But sometimes from the other person's perspective it doesn't come
out that way. So our first reaction can sometimes be defense or
offense and give yourself just a little bit of leeway to call
that person and clarify ahead of time before you react one way or
the other. Because more often than not, it's just going to be a
small misunderstanding that you can clear up with a quick phone
call. 


 


Adam: (04:48)


Now as you give that example, I feel like there's a, I feel like
there's a personal experience in that. You want to share a
personal experience where the communication didn't go as well and
you had to clear that up. 


 


Heather: (04:58)


I feel like, honest to goodness, it probably happens once a week
for me. I have another coworker that I work with, she's got the
same name as me and we talk a lot. We're really interfacing quite
a bit, but every now and then I'll send her a message just
thinking I'm sending her like a quick message and it will sound
offensive on the other hand and I'll need to give her a call and
apologize and let her know that's not what I meant. And then I've
got her back 100%. Because when you start to let those like
little seemingly trivial things slide, they build up a bit and
the sooner you can clear up that misunderstanding, the sooner
you're moving on with your day with a clear head and clear
heart. 


 


Adam: (05:42)


Definitely, definitely. It's always good to get it out in the
open right away and not let things fester because as human with
friendships or with family, if you don't communicate clearly and
then if the other person doesn't understand it quite well and you
don't clear that up, you know that goes into 20 years of never
talking to a sibling. 


 


Heather: (06:01)


Exactly. It's a big problem with text messages in general. I tell
all my friends and family, the second your text messages bring up
in emotion, stop and call because a text message is for like,
yes, no thank you. I'll be there. Be there. This time when you
start to get into these like quote unquote like deeper
conversations that have meaning to them, you really need that
tone to set the stage for what you're saying with somebody. 


 


Adam: (06:33)


Definitely. And it's even important to use something like a
webcam because when you're saying something to somebody, you may
not see their facial expressions and how they're looking. And so
how has a webcam been important in your experience? 


 


Heather: (06:47)


A webcam has bee...