The Future of Work: Using Mental Fitness Principle to optimise Hybrid Work Environments
The right to work from home hangs in the balance; home office or back to the office?. The principles that support mental fitness are also the key to optimising your work from home productivity and career potential.
Environmental Matters
“Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.”
Our work environment is a silent partner in our daily grind, influencing focus and efficiency. By marrying the principles of Mental Fitness with the design of our home offices, we can transform our workspace into a bastion of productivity and a sanctuary of stress relief. This isn’t about a mere physical setup; it’s about creating an ecosystem where efficiency meets joy, and where the drag of a suboptimal setup is a tale of the past.
The New Normal – work from home – but for how long?
Work from home tuned by a Mental Fitness Practice - it’s the ideal; the time saved on commute is used to improve our lives and productivity. Not only should the boss be happier, but we should be happier as we embrace the opportunity to do more, be more and be worth more through constructive use of newly available time.
It’s the pathway to optimsation.
A world where our daily commute is just a wander from the kitchen to the home office, with our favourite cuppa in hand, sitting down in our work from home zoom attire, the day begins.
The Compelling Arguments for the Hybrid Work Model
But WFH and hybrid is under threat
Despite the clear advantages, the stability of hybrid models is under scrutiny. Challenges of productivity and visibility are straining the trust between employers and employees.
But workers young and old are saying “Uh uh, I’m working from home now and you can’t make me come into the office.” In some cases that’s proving true.
The wildcard in all this is the emergence of AI and not what jobs can it do better, but when will it do them better. Unlike every other workplace revolution, AI will target white-collar jobs. If you don’t want to leave yourself at risk.
Make it your own responsibility to optimise the environment
“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”
It is our responsibility to take the opportunity to optimise ourselves and the environment to seek ways to continue elevating our performance.
Put simply, those who are visible and try new things and get different results will advance their career faster than those around them. There are two main elements we can control in optimising our environment:
- changing the cadence of our work when we are at home
- optimising our physical space and activity through the homework day
What work do you actually do?
“Wherever you are, be there totally.”
I run three different companies across four different countries regularly utilising the skills of 10 different people, from home.
So if I optimise the environment and processes for these practices, I will be more productive.
Working at the desk
If we stand up whilst working we move more, we are more productive and significantly de-creases the chance of cardiovascular and musculoskeletal issues. There are the basics like a comfortable chair, good multiple screens, fresh air natural light and a regular workspace.
Walking away from the desk every 40 minutes to do seven minutes exercise and breath work literally resets the mind and body for another burst of work.
The zoom call
It is not natural to engage with someone who is only 45 cm away from our face. It is exhausting, overwhelming and is bad for our eyes. Screen use in general, especially close up, increases our stress levels.
Conversely, when we step outside and engage our panoramic vision an we can d “mellows” our response to fight or flight. Similar happens when we move the screen away from us.
I zoom with an old flatscreen television 3 m away from a stand up desk. It gives me space from my colleagues who now appear life-size and I treat them more like a person.
To layer the good habits, I stand on a wobble board and have kettle bells handy for when the camera goes off to watch a demo. For those without the space that I’m lucky to there are some awesome mobile, stand-up desks that roll around the house. A USB extender cable to an external camera mounted on your television and boom, you can have your own stand up zoom studio.
The phone call
Put my phone down, take my socks off and walk onto the grass, 30 to 60 seconds of a stand-up stretch before hitting dial.
This is “grounding”… some “nice suggestive science” but doesn’t seem “proven just yet”. What I do know is when I feel the grass (or sand) beneath my toes I do feel more, grounded.
With panoramic vision engaged, I am less distracted and able to focus on the person on the other end of the line.
Real meetings
It doesn’t happen as officers it used to, but sometimes people still want to see me in person. I have to put on a nice shirt. Often I’ll make them a cup of tea and we will sit on bean bags in the garden, looking out at the plants as we solve the world’s problems.
Crafting a Work-from-Home Environment That Works for You
“In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.”
The journey towards optimizing our work-from-home setups is marked by small yet significant shifts in how we approach our environment and tasks. These changes, rooted in mental fitness principles, promise not just an improvement in task execution but a transformation in our work-life balance. It’s about continuous improvement, one day at a time, leading to a more productive, satisfying professional life.