What you Need in your Home Office (and what you don’t)

So you find yourself working from home. A lot of people are new to it but I spent years literally trapped at home and made it work by finding online gigs. So let me help you out now that nearly everyone I know is setting up a home office.

1. A lamp

Good light is key to a happy workspace in which you’ll feel alert and focused. I have a simple metal lamp from ikea. It’s aesthetically pleasing enough and it casts light over my entire desk. I went a step further and put a hue smart colour bulb in. This allows me to change the colour of my light with voice commands spoken to google, or from an app on my phone. Personally I like that I can have bright white light for zoom meetings but set more creative and fun vibes when I’m writing. I also often set it to automatically fade from one colour to the next. Sometimes simple touches like this can make you feel a lot more inclined to spend the time in your home office rather than sitting with your computer in front of the tv or elsewhere.

2. A Planner and Notepad

If you’re anything like me you like to write things down. I always have a notepad and planner open on my desk. This year I’m using the Living Well Planner. Writing things down, both in my planner on a schedule and in a notebook when I”m just making general notes, helps me to stay focused and work productively. These items house my ideas and translate the chaos of my ambitious thoughts in to workable plans. If you’re fully digital and don’t use paper products, but rather your digital calendar and note apps then go ahead and skip this one, of course.

4. A Google Homer Mini or smart speaker of choice

There’s so many reason to love smart speakers. Personally our house is currently set up with google homes and they’ve been working well. They’re reasonably cooperative with me as an apple user and they have a wide array of capabilities. One of my favourites that I use specifically in the office is “Hey Google, Good Morning”. You can set up routines in your google home app to have your google home complete a specific series of tasks for one command such as Good Morning, Good Night, I’m Leaving, I’m Home or whatever else you may think of. It can even include reading you a poem! In the morning when I greet google it turns on my office lights to my preferred setting, tells me of any calendar events I have in google calendar, shares the weather and then plays the news. Getting all this information while I”m setting in, waking up my laptop, reviewing my plans, checking my email etc. makes for great morning routine.

5. A Whiteboard (Maybe)

I’m a very visual person so I have two whiteboards on the wall in front of my desk. This means I’m always facing them and can easily reference the information on them. It’s a great place to stick quotes that will motivate you, key statistics if you’re monitoring social media platforms, reminders, ideas, to-do lists etc. One f mine is also magnetic which helps when keeping track of notes and papers that I need temporarily at my finger tips.

6. A Laptop Riser

We’re all just living in a zoom fish bowl these days and trying to hide the extra chins we’ve accumulated while snacking at home this last year. Dismiss the teetering stack of books, boxes and whatever else you have cluttering your desk and stacked up for every zoom meeting. I bought a simple laptop platform from Staples – my favourite part is that the place underneath is open so I can slide notebooks and whatnot in that space as I’m shifting through physical notes and materials during zoom calls.

7. Self Care Basics

For this, think of items like moisturizer, lib balm or even a brush, that you can utilize to give yourself a mini “brain break” without totally switching to focus on something else. It gives you an excuse to mull over complex issues without having your hands on the keyboard and feeling pressured to answer instantly. If you were in the office you might get up and go make a cup of tea, grab a bottle of water, or check in on a co-worker. You might still do these things on brain breaks but you might now so it’s good to have a back up way of stepping back and taking a deep breath.

What You Don’t Need

Avoid a lot of non-work activities – the book you’re reading, your craft project, your fave video game. One of the biggest challenges of working from home is that you have to create a sense of separation between work and home even though they’re both housed in the same building now. Let your office be your work space. Avoid piling too many items there that will distract you from your goals and productivity.

Also avoid the trap of buying a million things you “need” in the excitement about working from home more and more steadily. These might be things like oil diffusers, fancier then needed pen holders and tape dispensers. Before you know it your desk will barely have room for your laptop and a cup of tea!

What are your biggest questions or struggles with working remotely? Love it? Hate it? Wish you did more of it? I want to hear your thoughts!

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Let’s Read Together This Year

Well if you’re near me, in Ontario, or if your area is similar to ours, then you’re back in lockdown. This time is a little different. We’ve been through this before and we’re better prepared to cope with the realities. Along with our own improved coping abilities the businesses in our communities have the experience to thrive. They’re improving their curb side pick up protocols and they have a better understanding of how they can tailor their products and services to this reality. For example, providing take-home kits to fuel your creativity and pre-packaged bundles that will allow you to spoil yourself and support local.

There’s still a lot of empty time to fill, though. So what better time than now to join a book club? Reading is a truly independent activity. Unless someone is reading to you then you’re on your own as you work your way through a book. You control the pace and you can pick the moments you need to read most. A book club just creates a little social aspect, knowing that in your own cozy corner curled up with the book you’re not alone. It gives us some common ground to meet on and ideas to discuss. Reading may be totally independent but book clubs create a connection.

So, this is the official launch of the Tea with Books book club!

Each month we will meet with a zoom meeting and enjoy some tea & socialization inspired by our book of the month. Since I’m making this official today let’s set our first meeting for somewhere around February 25th or so – once I have a better idea of interest we’ll work out the ideal day and time for our group =)

I’d also love for people to share their developing thoughts on the Tea With Carmen social pages by posting to the Facebook community, commenting on instagram or tweeting me!

Without further ado – what should we read first?

Didn’t See that Coming by Rachel Hollis starts off talking about a major unexpected (and unwelcome) life event – an experience you may or may not share. She’s using that experience to talk about the bigger picture and recovering – in her own words – “when your world falls apart”. It’s safe to say that regardless of how kind, or unkind, the pandemic has been to you personally we’ve all experienced our lives falling apart in one way or another as we’ve transitioned through various lockdowns and whatnot. So I’m hoping this book will be a great place to start our year and our book club.

If you’d like to make sure you’re totally up to date on all things related to the book club please email teawithcarmen@gmail.com to be added to the list.

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Optimism for 2021

It’s hard to feel optimistic about 2021 because many of us might feel like we kind of got tricked by 2020. We remember this time last year, when we looked with such anticipation to 2020. We had many plans, hopes and dreams. Places we wanted to visit, people we wanted to see.

Then it all went sideways so fast and the challenges 2020 brought have dragged on for months, and months and months. Certainly longer than most of us could have expected. Back in March when Ontario entered its first lockdown it was hard to imagine that we’d still be talking about lockdown restrictions at Christmas.

So what now?

How do we recover? How do we recapture the optimism and hope we felt a year ago and bring that kind of light with us in to 2021?

The most obvious part is that it’s going to look very different from before. We have the advantage of knowing that 2021 will continue to bring us new and previously-unimagined experiences. So we already know that 2021 will be different from any year before it, and therefore so will our thoughts, resolutions and plans going in to it. Our ideas about what a successful 2021 will be are going to be shaped by what we experienced in 2020. Even though that seems like a let-down, here’s why I think it’s similar to any other year, and can have some serious silver linings.

Other years the way our current year has shaped our resolutions might have been more subtle, and more individual. We might have moved and therefore created a resolution to finish perfecting our new home with paint and renovations. We might have gained a little weight and so created the resolution to lose it. We may have created resolutions that were specific to our job, or our relationship, or our finances. We looked back on our year and figured out exactly what we wanted to do differently in the coming year. It was a personal reflection process that was unique for each of us.

It’s all different, but also so familiar

We will do those things again but we’ll relate to each other more closely than before because so much of our hopes and resolutions will come from what we experienced in 2020. For example, we might be focused on diversifying our income or creating a more robust savings due to the struggles we experienced this year – and anyone in that boat has to know they’re not alone. It’s been a record year for professional and financial instability.

We might create resolutions about building home offices and home gyms. A vast majority of us have found ourselves significantly increasing how much time we spend at home – and the way we spend our time in our homes has changed. It’s now the office, the gym, the yoga studio, the video studio, the music studio, the content creation hub and the table at which we have tea with our friends (albeit in front of a laptop).

We might resolve to embark on a journey of self-improvement. Read more books, take some online courses, and reflect on how we can grow, change and improve our skillsets to respond to our changing goals and challenges.

Then again, it’s also worth resolving to be good at and commit to self care. With so much change and instability you’re giving a lot of energy to keeping up with what’s going on around you. It’s more important than ever to find moments of joy and moments of peace. Bump up your skincare routine for a little built-in self-love daily. Perhaps finish your day with a gratitude journal or take a part of your lunch break to do some yoga or a work out (especially if you work at home and stay seated and still throughout the day, like me).

It’s also possible we’ll collectively resolve to be less materialistic, to shop small business when we need things, to use more sustainable products. Bonus points if you buy your sustainable products from small local businesses! In this perhaps we’re resolving simply to help each other. To support our community members, friends and neighbours.

We’re Going to be Alright

So, as we have in other years, we’ll all look at how 2020 went and develop goals that reflect what we can and want to do better. Our goals are personal and individual to us but they’re also likely to have similarities to those around us. After all, as isolating as the pandemic has been, it’s also been a collective experience. That means that the resolutions we’re setting are similar to other years – simply more reflections of changes we feel empowered to make – but it’s also more communal than previous years. This year we also have the major advantage of knowing a lot more about what the year will ask of us and being better prepared.

Exactly what it is that will shape and define 2021 may be unknown but we are better prepared for surprises than we were going in to 2020. We’ve developed new coping skills and found opportunity in chaos. Let’s keep doing that, keep getting better at it, and make 2021 unique, collaborative, and better than ever.

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2020 Is a Year for Goals

This time of year you’ll see almost everyone talking about their resolutions. Some will advertise what their resolutions are while others will be intentionally vague about what their resolving to change in 2020. Even more so, you’ll see the advertising bonanza making good use of everyone’s good intentions.

Did you watch anything about New Years Eve in NYC? Planet Fitness literally sponsored it so a good portion of the broadcast was yellow and purple with Planet Fitness written all over it. You couldn’t even celebrate midnight without marketing from a gym.

From gyms and weight loss products to money management and career improvement programs to fashion changes, skin care and everything in between advertisers will be looking for your biggest insecurity and vowing that, in exchange for your hard earned cash, they’ll wipe all those insecurities away.

That’s why I find goal setting more practical. Goals aren’t a commercial venture. Goals don’t have to be about the things you don’t like about yourself or the things you want to change. They are more likely to be tied to new projects or about measuring progress and milestones without discrediting what you already accomplished in past years. And it’s a lot harder to sell to someone’s goals than it is a classic resolution. Goals are about our own commitments and actions, not about what products we buy.

Even the simple or common resolutions sound better translated from resolution language to goal language. Try weight loss, for one. Instead of “my resolution is to lose weight or get down to this certain number on the scale”, say “My goal is to cook at home 5 nights a week and be at the gym 3-4 times a week.”

We all know that if you’re eating at home, you’re likely eating healthier than if you ate out and if you are also going to the gym there’s a good chance you’ll be losing weight. If not losing, per se, you’re definitely getting on track to a genuinely healthy lifestyle. Health is a better pursuit than weight loss for the sake of weight loss, anyway.

It’s also easy to scale and personalize goals so that they make sense for you and where your current challenges are. If you’re really good at eating at home every night but you struggle with gym motivation then maybe you’d modify the above goal to read “My goal is to cook healthy meals 5 nights a week and go to the gym 2-3 times in the next 6 months and 3-5 times a week in the 2nd half of the year.”

And oh – that’s my favourite part.

Even though this time of year we talk about how fast 2019 went by, how the previous year seemed to go by before we could even process what was happening, how we don’t know where it all went and feel like we can’t even remember what we did…. it still feels like a year is a big, huge, impossible timeline for a goal.

Simultaneously we’re feeling that 2019 was fleeting and impossible to hold while 2020 is massive and the end of it, along with our goals or resolutions, is entirely too far away to think about.

Funny how time plays these tricks on us.

So break it up! Don’t focus on “the year” as an oncoming storm. Focus on the first 3 months, the first 6 months, first. Think about what a quarter of the way, or half way to your goal will look like and correlate those milestones to next month, to March and to June. This gives you the most important things of all, a place to start and a path to follow.

All this, really, to say that it’s a great idea to embrace the good intentions behind resolutions and reflect on what you want to do differently in 2020 but if you’re doing so it’s also time to figure out how those resolutions, goals and plans become reality.

Here’s to avoiding any further New Years Eve’s where we feel like all of a sudden a whole year escaped us.