Senior content designer Turi Henderson-Palmer explains how she’s finding ditching the commute and working alongside her husband in their two-bed flat
As the new power couple of content designer and UX designer, remote working is not just possible for me and my husband, it’s common. What’s really new and exciting, though, is both of us working at home at the same time, for who knows how long. Having to figure out this new normal with another human to consider has its challenges.
Having both freelanced, we’re well set up for technology and all its accessories. We’re also fortunate to have a small second bedroom in our wee flat that already serves as an office, which leads me to my first observation: identifying your corner and going to it for the “working” is essential, and if those corners have doors it’s even better. In our case, husband has taken control of the office, while I hold forth from the sofa in the sitting room. It’s like he’s not even here, really, except that sometimes he brings me tea.
We’re trying to not interrupt the other without reasonable cause, so we’re making good use of the Slack we’d already set up for ourselves (what?! We’re a modern couple!) to avoid barging in to ask if someone needs tea. And to share funny animal videos and gifs, obviously. Things I’ve learned: we drink a lot of tea when we’re at home during the day. Also, we’re pretty good at just hunkering down and getting things done separately.
At the outset, we said we’d stick to our normal routines. And then we laughed, and didn’t take our showers until two in the afternoon. But… we really are. On the upside, not commuting for an hour twice a day means we can sloth about in the morning with our coffee and check the headlines from bed rather than from the train, and then are magically already home when we stop for the day. Otherwise we’re typically up and at it by about the same time we’d normally be hitting our desks. We might not get around to our morning ablutions until midday, and there’s definitely been some housekeeping here and there, but keeping to our normal schedule has been really helpful in separating “work time” from “life time”.
So it’s almost like a regular workday, except we have lunch together. In our own kitchen! We’ve realised we need to plan for lunches differently, and by that I mean he’s still eating his usual sandwich and I have to find something that’s not from a food truck because I forgot my lunch. This means we’re shopping a bit differently, but since we don’t eat loo roll, we’re managing reasonably well.
One of the beautiful things about working from home is the opportunity to zip out in the middle of the day to run errands, and we’ve turned this into a chance to just get outside. Even with the lockdown, going out — especially as the weather starts to improve — will continue to be an important part of our physical and mental health. We may need to stake our respective territory claims in the back garden, though, which could get dodgy.
We’ve both realised we miss the workplace connections that typically get us through a work day, so it’s Slack to the rescue again! We’re maintaining not only the professional connections through conference calls, but keeping up with the friendships that make our jobs amusing and supply us with funny animal videos and gifs (and recipes, sympathy and nonsense). I really miss those loonies.
We’re relative newlyweds (just two years last January!), so completely unsure how this will all pan out for us. I think, though, if we continue to be respectful of each other’s space and work needs — and stay clear on the work/life parameters — we’ll make it through with our partnership and sanity intact.
Read more from our #ZoneWorksFromHome series:
