To German Version
You’re working at the home office now? The kids walk all over you? The partner does nothing, as usual? You can hardly see where work ends and your private life begins? Corona is annoying? Then here are the ultimate tips on how to make things worse in no time, or: how to drive yourself into despair in the home office as effectively as possible.
Overlook your environment!
- Especially if you have children, you should urgently strive to do everything at once. A good idea is, for example, to read your emails early in the morning (Smartphone if necessary) while you are preparing breakfast for the children, cleaning up spilled cocoa, announcing your divorce to your partner and starting the descaling program of the coffee machine. Then the day will start in a wonderfully efficient way.
- For God’s sake, don’t take fixed times for your children. It should be easy for you to take care of them at home and to do all the child care and schooling on the side. Make sure your partner does the same, especially if he or she also works in the home office. Under no circumstances coordinate with each other. Start a 30-day multitasking challenge to find out who gets more shit done.
If you get out early in the morning, don’t get the idea of working hard while the others are still asleep. Try to lie in bed for a while and imagine how you’ll be doing everything at once again today. You could also use the time to write a to-do list for today for your household members. You’ll think of something.- If possible, find a place to work from where you have a good view of the hustle and bustle around you. The family dining table is ideal as a control centre, where your children or your partner can store their work equipment. Scatter everything that doesn’t fit there in other rooms of the apartment and don’t forget to put some things near your bed. Maybe you have flashes of inspiration at night – it is really important at the moment to always be ready.
- And never, never lose sight of what the other family members are doing. If you live alone, keep an eye on the neighbors and make a list of when they’re yelling at their wayward brood again. If the child welfare office needs a witness, you’re certainly prepared.
Discipline!
- Don’t take any breaks. What’s the point? You always have everything under control anyway. (Besides, home office is like a permanent break anyway, right?)
- If you have stress, don’t talk about it with anyone at all, in order not to damage your good reputation as a super(wo)man. Don’t get mentally hung up! Never forget: Whoever becomes a dope in a crisis has generally lost control over his life.
- Never do something just for yourself, you surely have better things to do. Thinking of yourself in times of crisis is a sign of great character weakness.
- Never allow your family to eat frozen food, snacks or stale warmed food at this time. Also, the gambling times of the children are to be meticulously observed RIGHT NOW! What is to become of the little tramps? Whoever reduces requirements loses. For sure.
- To motivate yourself, keep in mind every day that everyone else has the situation under control as well.
- You live alone? Great, then after work the point has come to hang out on the sofa and have a few long drinks as short as possible. Under no circumstances go out! Who knows what’s lurking there? Don’t call anybody (except the pizza service).
- Health tip: always breathe shallow. Especially in pandemic times, deep breaths into the abdomen can have undesirable side effects (keyword: aerosols).
The most important tip: always be ‚on‘!
- Never stop working properly. There is no need to shut down the computer at all, the sleep mode is quite sufficient. This gives you the opportunity to check a few more times during the evening without much effort.
- When you leave home, make sure you have ‚Teams‘ installed on your phone and make sure that all notifications are enabled. Under no circumstances should your brain realize that it is the end of the day or even the weekend.
Good luck!