How to Be Productive Working a Hybrid Schedule
In 2021, after a full year of working 100% remotely, I moved to a hybrid schedule once vaccines rolled out, and people wanted to once again spend time with humans from outside their household. I continued to implement time blocking and time estimations for creating realistic to-do lists as I’d done before COVID.
In last week’s post, I shared my top three tips for working from home more productively. All of those tips also apply to working from home when you work a hybrid schedule. As promised for this week’s post, I’ll add on four tips that should be considered when transitioning between the office and home when working a hybrid schedule.
1 – Decide on your hybrid schedule.
You could go into the office each day to work a half day and work the other half at home. This will give you the opportunity to attend meetings in person, have important face-to-face communications, and alleviate a fear that many people suffer from: not being seen leads to being forgotten. (So far, there’s been no proof of this.) However, if your commute is more than 15 minutes each way, you might consider consolidating your onsite hours to two days per week in order to save time and money by not commuting on the other three days.
2 – Set up two offices.
If you must constantly carry supplies and work materials back and forth, this just adds to your to-do list, plus it increases the probability of forgetting or losing something. If your work materials are files, go digital as much as possible to avoid misplacing important documents.
3 – Keep your schedule consistent.
If you can work the same days from home and the same days in the office each week, that will cut back on shuffling. Additionally, if at all possible, keep your same daily routines whether you work from home or in the office. Whether it’s a consistent weekly schedule or daily schedule, this will save you time. Your colleagues won’t be constantly scheduling you for meetings or making requests that clash with your schedule or location. When this happens, it costs you time when having to reschedule or make alternate arrangements.
4 – Specify your location on your calendar.
To help support the concept of the previous recommendation, especially if you don’t have the option of consistency, be sure to somehow notate your location on your calendar so colleagues will know where you’ll be instead of messaging, texting, Slacking or emailing you to ask you for that information, which will cost you time.
For details on how to better manage your time whether you’re working from home or a hybrid, check out The Inefficiency Assassin: Time Management Tactics for Working Smarter, Not Longer.