How to be a Rockstar When Working From Home This Holiday

The most wonderful time of the year is approaching! That is, unless you are busy trying to balance decorating, shopping for gifts and caring from your kids along with working from home. With so much responsibility straining on your time, it can be easy to become the Grinch rather than a jolly good fella. 

If you work in a hybrid environment, then the office is probably becoming pretty empty as the last few weeks of December roll around. You might be one of the lucky ones and get to relax and rest over the holidays while you work remotely staying at home. Or, if you are traveling and working remotely for the holidays, it could take a bit of prior planning to see success. Whatever the case may be, it’s good to be prepared well ahead of the holidays.

Tips for Working From Home During the Holidays

These tips will help give you some good pointers about what you should do to prepare for the holiday rush. 

Find Your Balance

Working remotely usually means you have some level of flexibility when it comes to setting your own schedule and work hours. You can take advantage of skipping your commute time, and instead use the time to get your work done. It’s helpful to plan out your days and look for extra little pockets of free time during your day to help you stay on top of tasks. You can even try waking up an hour or so earlier before your kids so you can start your day off right, prioritize the things you need to do or get started on a big project. By doing this you can still attend any holiday parties while still being able to meet your deadlines. 

Work Somewhere With No Distractions

If you want to get a lot of work done over the holidays in the middle of your family and friends, sitting right in the middle of all the action certainly won’t help you achieve that. You might feel like you can get your work done, however, if you had found somewhere more quiet to work from you could have probably finished your task in only a fraction of the time, which leaves you with more time to focus on your loved ones.

Plan Ahead

To fully take advantage of the flexibility that working from home can offer, you should take some time to plan ahead and plot out which days and times you will complete your shopping, wrap presents or send out your holiday cards. Making sure that you plan out your personal tasks will help you feel less guilty about putting your work on pause. This will then help you stay focused on your work without feeling stressed about all of the other things you need to take care of. 

Keep Your Calendar Updated

Planning meetings with others in your team can become tricky during the holidays, since some teammates could be online the week of Christmas but not the week of New Year’s Day, others might be on and offline every other day and some may not be available at all. While everyone is entitled to their own holiday schedule, it is important to let everyone else know when you will be available and unavailable. 

Ask For Help

If you’re becoming a little overwhelmed with the pressure of the season, you can and should ask for help from your loved ones. Your friends and family could lend you a helping hand for things like looking after your little ones while you get your work done. Your older kids can pitch in as well. For example, they can make post office runs for you and do some other errands like groceries to help your workday go a bit smoother. So take a good, hard look at your job responsibilities, and decide which ones you could potentially delegate to help give you a better work-life balance during the holidays. 

Remote Work Holiday Travel Tips

If you are working remotely while travelling, then here are some helpful tips to set you up for success.

Charge Your Devices

Before you leave, make sure that you charge all of the devices you will need while on your trip. Finding an outlet can be rare in some places during the holidays, and you might be too far to comfortably leave your phone or laptop connected when you’re not able to be nearby.

Use Portable Charges

Even if you do have fully charged devices, it’s always a good idea to consider bringing along an extra portable charger or battery bank. You might go through an entire charge depending on how long your trip is. These backups keep you prepared for whatever happens, and allow you to keep your important devices charged until you have arrived at your destination. 

Download Files Offline

Even with most airports, train stations, planes, trains and buses having WiFi, some might not have it or your connection might be spotty at best. This means it could be impossible to get your work done if you need to access presentations or files online. If you download them to work offline ahead of time, this can help you be way more productive than if you had a weak WiFi connection to begin with. 

Use a MiFi Device

If you absolutely must have an internet connection to complete your work, or if you will need to attend a lot of meetings, a good idea is to purchase a MiFi device which lets you create a personal hotspot anywhere you go. 

The holidays can be a great time to finally catch a break and destress from work, but the flexibility of working from home can start to blur the lines between the home and the office. Be sure to set some firm boundaries for yourself and your team and be sure to disconnect and spend quality time with family and friends away from your work devices. The holidays are the time where you have real facetime with the ones who matter most to you.

Get Your Training in Over the Holidays with 1Huddle

At 1Huddle, we offer cloud-based employee gamification software that can easily adapt to any employee training or gamification strategy you want to implement over the holidays. You can customize your content for a seamless experience and all of your employees will be able to access their training anywhere, anytime and at the push of a button. You can use our gamification platform to measure their performance and make key decisions on where you should take your gamification strategy next. 
Do you want to learn more about how 1Huddle can help you level up your own workforce? Request a demo today.