It’s week five of lockdown, how are you getting on? We’re all working from home and if we’re honest the first couple of weeks now seem like a distant memory. However, you may be finding that the ironing board desk you’ve set up in your spare bedroom really isn’t working any more, or you might also be looking for some helpful tips to keep your team motivated during these odd times.
Slack
Slack is one of our favourite tools here at Super Digital, we use it daily to organise our thoughts and keep in touch with one another. Like Skype or Teams, Slack offers a FREE (up to five team members) platform for you to use. With its channels feature you can split up projects, have a big team chat where people can post things throughout the day to bring some sort of office environment to the working day and speak with colleagues 1 on 1.
Sunlight
Sunlight is good for a few things, tanning is one… however more importantly, we are talking about positivity. Make sure you open up your windows to get the fresh air in and the sunlight beaming through. When it’s grey and cold it doesn’t help things at all, so while it’s sunny out there make the most of it! Even work in your garden for half an hour, switch things up from time to time.
Routine
If you normally have team chats in the morning don’t stop them now! Keep them going on platforms like Zoom or Teams or Hangouts or Skype. Make sure you stick to these things and keep them going throughout the lockdown, keep them fun too – we like to do a weekly theme for our zoom meetings (check out our social for more). Beyond work, make sure you take your daily exercise, a few of us have found that going early in the morning before work has helped our productivity throughout the day!
TAKE BREAKS
First off, you’re at home and not in an office that probably makes you feel a certain amount of guilt for not being physically at your desk, your routine is broken and suddenly you’re working from your sofa. If you have children, having them be around you all day while you try to work, can be distracting and tiring. However, you must take time to step back from that keyboard, stretch your legs and even pop out into your garden for 10 minutes to recharge. Staring at the same four walls all day without any breaks isn’t going to work for your mental capacity and your brain will thank you for taking the time to step away and re-charge. Once you’re back at your desk you’ll find that your mood will have improved and you will become more focused. Well, works for us anyway!
Don’t read the news TOO much
The first few weeks had a few of our superheroes hooked to Sky news, it was NOT a good thing. There’s a heck of a lot of grim news at the moment, even if it isn’t all about COVID-19. Make sure that during the day you limit your exposure to the news and social media. People are quick to share or forward things which may not necessarily be true. Fake news has increased like a sonic boom as of late, so be careful where you get your news from. ‘Karen’ on Facebook doesn’t really know a lot, despite claiming to know somebody who knows Boris!
You will find much more happiness from TikTok!
We hope you find these tips helpful, we sure have over the last few weeks and have so far allowed us to keep going as the same old team of digital marketing superheroes you know and love!
Stay Home. Stay Safe.