April 9, 2020: The Many Types Of Work

Apr 9, 2020

Good morning,

Today my goal is to spend the entire day without seeking out coronavirus news. Yesterday I made it until 2 pm before I cracked, so wish me luck.

On to the update.

The Many Types Of Work

At the office, there are different spaces for different types of work. Your desk for (hopefully) focused work, the meeting room for discussion and coordination, the cafeteria for casual conversation, the whiteboard for ideating, the boardroom for decisions, the all-hands room for communication. You get the idea.

These different spaces help us do each of these types of work, both physically (e.g. a whiteboard) and mentally (e.g. of course decisions are made in the boardroom).

At home, many of us are lucky to have even one space dedicated to work. So how does that one space support the many types of “work”?

I’ve seen people create mini transformations of their desk, sort of like a murphy bed. Here are some ideas to get you started:

Ideation: Clear everything off your desk and use sticky notes for brainstorming.
Coordination: Zoom or other types of video chat, sitting at your desk.
Focus work: Standing at your desk.
Joint Decisions: This might be hard, but maybe there is some other document you could have on your screen at the same time as the video to help remind yourself.
Casual Conversation: Phone call while talking a walk, or while laying on a comfy carpet.

Give one of these a try, especially if you’re finding it hard to do some types of work while at home.