Work from Home - From Last 5 months

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Its been almost 5 months that we all have been working from home at least in India for the Coronavirus Pandemic. We all miss that chit chats, coffee breaks, lunch gossips etc, but still let me say that we all are fortunate that we can work from home. There are a lot of people who all are out of a job and the numbers will go up in the coming months. o nothing is permanent as of now.

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PC: Pixabay.com

Now coming back to the topic, what I have learned working from home about the tech which we use every day because it is all about what we need to have good working experience. Let's go through some of the basics about tech which I think is actually essential to have to make WFH little productive. When we have started working from home, people used to say that they were productive because they don't have to travel much, but in my opinion, it was not the case.

When the WFH started everyone was so overwhelmed to think that they can spend more time with their family, less travelling time. When we asked other team members about it, almost everyone said that productivity has increased but actually that is not the case. Productivity might have increased but the actual work done as a team is not being great because of the multiple meetings and a lot of tech issues.

So few things which are mostly tech-related which are actually needed to have good work from home setup along with Desk and chair are :

Wifi is very important - Most people will say that is obvious, but it's not. Managers have to convince a lot of team members to actually have Wifi because they are mostly relying on the phone 4G. Though 4G seems to be good in certain areas they are not reliable. And in crucial meetings, you have to have a good Wifi connection to have meetings and other things. Though Wifi can also sometimes is bad, but it's very less likely. I have faced that issue where once or twice the Wifi was a blackout and I could not connect, but in last 5 months it was only twice but with the phone the bad connection is almost every day.

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PC: Pixabay.com

Even if your wifi connection is good, there might be an issue with your router, so whatever is the case this is very important for having good productivity which I think because then you have faster connectivity to have good voice meeting or if you have to find our something over the internet. If your router is good and you have a good connection, then also if you are getting bad connectivity then the best thing to do is to connect through the cable. Trust me it does wonders.

Good Headphones is essential too- What the use of good connectivity if the other person cannot hear you clearly. It happened with me so many times that the other person's sound could not be heard clearly. Along with that, the crappy headphones will make the echo which is equally bad, because that will make your meeting not fruitful. If you are into Video Calls then lighting is required too, though for us it was not needed as we were not into video calls. But I heard that a lot of people do video calls on a regular basis.

Try to Avoid Background Noise - Though sometimes it's not in our hand because of families and other things still we can try to minimize it as much as possible. Though a noise cancellation headphones can work for you it's not sufficient because while you speak the noise will reach to other people in the call. So what I actually do is when I have an important call I tend to isolate myself for time and thus try to minimize the noise as much as possible, though I know it's not always happening.

Take a Break - This is obvious, though people don't realize it. The pandemic we are in, people are afraid of losing the job but that does not mean that you have to risk your health on doing it. Taking a 5-10 minute break every hour is what you need. I actually walk for 5 minutes after every 1 hour and thus it helps me to reduce the stress a bit.

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PC: Pixabay.com

This is all about what I think is a basic necessity after working from home from last 5 months. Though I think it's not over and we might have to work for another 4-5 months at home so do take care of every other thing which you need to be productive.



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4 comments
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its gonna take a loooong time still before offices will be abck to normal, so might as well make your home office a good one!

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This post goes so right about the basics and the unavoidable situations. For me wifi and the background noise and frequent interventions are the things that actually are concerns. Wifi, the place where my parents live does not have a good connection. Background noise from the near by mosque is an irritation to death. Small things but not small things.

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Yeah the problem I face the most when there is a power cut, since we dont have a power backup, it is such a bad situation. Noise we cannot do anything about it

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