Time to Make a New Routine...And Put All My Previous Advice to Others Into Practice

My newest co-worker is not quite into this entire "work from home" routine yet. To be fair, this is day one, so neither of us is quite sure what the next several days will bring us. At this point, though, my co-worker is spending more time socializing than working, and that is going to be a problem for this introvert and person attempting to focus.

If you haven't figured it out by now, I am joining the pantheon of music therapists who are generating synchronous and asychronous music therapy treatment and resources as a formal part of my job. On Monday, our schedule was changed for the seventh time in eight months, and therapists now work two days on campus and three days off. During this time, we are continuing to create work for our clients, but we have no direct or live client interactions. This is a significant change from the other times that we have been through. I've been one of those outliers who has had live and in-person interaction with most of my clients throughout this entire time. We managed to avoid the virus for eight months - not easy to do!! We now have to deal with it, though, and this means changes in how we educate and treat our clients.

Now, I have been talking to interns about how to create "work-at-home" routines and finding the life/work balance when both things happen at home, and now it is time for me to put those ideas into practice for myself. Now, to be honest, I never took credit for these ideas and always presented them from a "this is what others recommend" viewpoint, but I now have to figure out what will work for me. Today's task is to set up a dedicated filming corner for the videos I need to generate. I also need to create three videos to post to my newest YouTube channel and start the choice boards that I will be sending to my clients so they can choose things. I have daily meetings with my interns, so I will be logging into Google Meet for those meetings at noon.

Some of the recommendations that I have seen and have decided to try are these (by the way, I have no specific resource for these ideas...I should probably look for some...):

• Set up a space for work that is different from spaces for other activities.
• Keep as many routines the same as possible - for example, if you wear a uniform to work, wear that uniform when you work from home.
• Identify the tasks that need to be done daily.
• Prioritize tasks to assist in scheduling them into your work times.

I am currently wearing one of my facility uniform shirts and will see if that is enough to keep my focus on work tasks or if I need to do the entire thing - pants and shoes - to keep me in a work attitude.

For now, I am going to focus on the first part of this. I do not have a space that is dedicated to what I need to do for virtual work. This will take some time, energy, and rearranging today, but I have ideas on how to accomplish this essential task. I have been thwarted by Google's authentication system, but I will figure out what I need to do and will get that done next week when I can return to the facility. 

Even in the past 30 minutes, my plan for this week has changed. I guess this is the new reality, so it is time to embrace it and keep moving forward. After I finish this post, I am going to make something for breakfast and then get started on making my video space. I will be able to keep my tripod set up and ready for any of my cameras in that space for the duration of time that I will be working at home. After the video space is set up, I will start filming short TMEs for my clients to access (after I get my authorization straightened out next week). After getting some filming done, I will start making the choice boards that I want to have ready on Monday. Let's see how that goes before I put more onto the list.

I have my list of priorities, my timer, and my co-worker to supervise and criticize. Here I go. If you have any tips to help, I would LOVE to know! Leave them in the comments below!!