hello Socratic and friends hello Socratic friends we're here to help you work from home we know a lot of you are working from home these days even at Socratic oh we're trying to work remotely I can't go into the studio right now but we're still making videos for you we're figuring out how to make this work even though we're kind of trapped on opposite sides of the city we can still have video chats send email share documents so we're doing everything other than filming in the same room together thanks to our viewers who are keeping us going with your kind messages and thank you so much to our patrons on patreon your support means so much to us we asked our Socratic friends in a poll about your challenges working from home and you had a lot to say today let's talk about what we've learned about working from home and how do not lose your mind in the process this is not to say we're experts at working from home we're going to share what's worked for us but if you have other suggestions please leave them in the comments we can all learn from each other try to suggest something that isn't already in the video that means you need to watch until the end of the video to see all of our suggestions before you leave a comment right right the first thing I have to say is you have to be kind to yourself you're not going to get as much work done as you usually do and that is just going to have to be ok it's a huge adjustment if you're used to working at a certain pace right now you might be feeling disappointed in yourself yes you and I are both pretty self-motivated and we're always reading writing researching and since working from home we've both had to kind of calm down a bit yes it's true for Michael as well at first we were feeling pretty guilty we weren't getting more done and it seemed weird we weren't getting the same amount of work done because we basically always work from home I mean we built our own little studio and so it's not like we commute into an office we just mosey over to the studio and start work so in that respect our days aren't that different except yeah a few big exceptions number one we can't work with our so normally Liliana and oka would be coming over and we'd be collaborating on some very fun film shoots and that's not happening so we need to talk about how to deal with isolation yeah loneliness that's a huge issue we have to remember what we've learned from research about blue zones those places on earth where our people live very long healthy lives like Okinawa Japan and Sardinia and Italy along with a very healthy diet they have meaningful social life they might have tea every day with the same group of five friends their whole life emotional ties with people are very important for your health and well-being so that's our first tip do what you can to maintain your social networks I practically never talk on the phone I'm more of a texture but I'm making an exception during this time I'm doing more video chats I'm sitting across the driveway from my neighbor and talking to her face-to-face maintaining distance yes we're like 10 feet apart but we're still checking in with each other in our neighborhood we all go for walks every day so you can see all the dogs and the little kids and we're doing that too we stay far apart but we're all waving at each other and saying hello each day how about you Liliana how are you maintaining social ties I've been having virtual coffee and tea time with friends all over the world through Skype zoom what's that all of that I call people more often now and to keep my sanity which used to be kept in check by spending free time in museums and libraries I now do it virtually touring museums online and piling books and books from my local library on my Kindle I've also been watching theater and dance performances online I risk saying I'm more engaged culturally now than I have been before many silver linings in this situation yeah art and stories are very important things to keep us motivated and sharing these with my friends and family have helped keep us all connected there's no certain way oh thank you for those that makes a huge difference a little bit of beauty it helps relieve the stress now those things like museum tours musical performances that's what we are doing when we're not where so next let's talk about how we actually are getting work done the most important tip we have like always is the Pomodoro Technique if you're not familiar with the Pomodoro Technique we have a great video all about it linked below it's basically the idea of working for a short amount of time like 20 minutes you set a timer like one of those little tomato kitchen timers that's where it gets its name when the timer goes off you have to take a break this is great if you've been trying to sit at your desk for eight hours and you're miserable and your neck and your body in your eyes hurt we actually heard that from a lot of our viewers that they just can't sit still in front of their computer for that long and they shouldn't know you can get DVT deep vein thrombosis mm-hmm that's when you sit too long and you can get a big blood clot in your legs that can then loosen and lodge in your lungs and kill you you have to get up and stretch and move around regularly it's also not good for your eyes to be reading on your computer screen for that long time you need to give your eyes a break sue so we use the Pomodoro Technique it socratic a' all the time I use it for literally everything in my life writing a script takes me about four Pomodoro's laundry one Pomodoro cooking dinner two Pomodoro's editing a video about fifteen Pomodoro's I have a pile of books on reading and online classes I'm taking and I reserve at least one Pomodoro for each every day using the Pomodoro Technique has kept me on track during this weird time I said still and do what I can't doing one Pomodoro and don't wander around during that time looking for something to distract me it helps a lot to know that it's not a very long time it's 20 minutes that's one of the best things about the Pomodoro Technique is that if you are easily distracted this is a way to stay focused it's a lot easier to send your brain a message to stay focused on this task if you know it's only for 20 minutes and a break is coming up compared to if you think you're just going to work eight hours straight which is impossible I will say that one thing I'm doing differently is I give myself a much longer break between Pomodoro's usually I do 25 minutes of work and then I take a 10-minute break and at the end of that 10-minute break I'm ready to get back to work nowadays I use a little bribe I need to look forward to something is it chocolate actually it's opera the Metropolitan Opera in New York is streaming an opera free every day and so what I've been doing is working on a video for 25 minutes and then I take a break and I watch one act or one scene of an opera usually about 20 minutes so I'm working about half the time it's hoping me stay cheerful how about you what are you doing during your breaks I haven't grown herbs and planting things and trying to make healthy treats and meditating and making sure to hydrate we tend to forget that a lot and messaging friends and family during breaks to feel connected to the world out there are you taking time to exercise I'm trying my best to do so one of the things I found most helpful are the yoga classes by yoga with adriene all three or so many of them and after sitting for a while I tried to her neck yoga as well to really stress from sitting and not being so active if we love yoga with Adriene Adrian if you're out there we really want to do a video with you for our study tip series let's do a collaboration about yoga for students like yoga in your dorm room I started yoga in college I was there to learn how to be a scientist but yoga was actually one of the most important things I learned there I kept it up and I found a wonderful teacher when I was in grad school I want to give my thanks to my beautiful inspiring teacher faith Conger I carry her messages with me she's here in my heart and when I do yoga with adriene it reminds me of her so yeah I do yoga every morning and I hope I can continue doing it the rest of my life now is the perfect time to learn something new like yoga or Tai Chi where you don't need a gym or any equipment really and you can continue to do it even as you get older and your body starts falling apart it keeps you from falling apart you exactly that's that's why it's so useful especially at times like these so this is basically how we are working we are keeping our mind and body together what else should people do to have a better time when working from home remember we made this video about organizing your workspace at home that's really important right now you shouldn't be calling in to the office in your pajamas from bed that's right clear out a corner of your room and dedicate it just to work when you sit down there you're just lucky this is part of a bigger picture I think getting into the work mindset even at home and part of it is establishing a routine get out of bed at a regular time and start your day it doesn't have to be at the crack of dawn I am NOT a morning person and that has been one of the best things in my life about working from home I can finally get the right amount of sleep and wake up when it feels good I will never attend a 7:00 a.
m.
meeting again if I have anything to say about it that's one of the really messed up things about normal work life and school life the whole world seems you're a morning person I am guilty as charged but now everyone is something like a quarter of the people are morning people will corner or night owls in half around in the middle of the way I swear the tyranny of morning people I'd like to see them show up for a meeting at 10:00 p.
m.
and see how well they do I would be half asleep at a 10 p.
m.
meeting ok so you wake up at 11:00 roll out of bed and and get yourself cleaned up change out of your pajamas into your work clothes did you hear that Walmart is selling a lot of professional-looking tops but not bottoms it's because of all the people appearing on webcams from work they're pulling a ray bradbury away okay so when I was growing up I used to see Ray Bradbury every year at froman's the independent bookstore in Pasadena he'd come and read to us from the Halloween tree he's a huge hero of mine I loved him so much forever anyway he'd be sitting at a table quite formal suit jacket and tie and underneath the table he'd have on shorts and sneakers you know that's okay the suit jacket still counts as dressing for works pick your version of the suit jacket that means business when you're wearing your work clothes you're working and change out of them at the end of the day that's another really good tip because you're working from home you might be tempted to work all day and all night set some reasonable hours for yourself including when you're going to clock out for the day they call that work creep that if you don't set boundaries you'll work creeps into all hours of your life if you let it green here's something we're not doing that we normally do going out to cafes in the library to work that's right under normal circumstances I would say a change of view can be really helpful we get some of our best writing done in places like that maybe we should think about how we can incorporate that idea but in a safe way they should set up a live webcam in our favorite coffee shop you say that some of my friends who are fellow edgy tubers do these hangouts together and we call them coffee shops we're all working writing or editing videos not really talking to each other very much but it still gives us the sense of camaraderie almost like when you go to a coffee shop it helps that it's not complete silence Malcolm Gladwell recommends working from coffee shops I wonder how he's doing we should invite him to our next coffee shop hang out yes Oh what about pitfalls what could go wrong when you're working at home for me it's getting caught up in all the busyness like I'm not allowed to stop like I must be productive I must do do do but instead of actually doing work I get caught up in everything that needs to be done in the house don't something that pops up that calls your attention it's harder for me to focus working at home I hear this from Michael a lot that even in the best of circumstances he just doesn't get as much done at home as he did when he was working in an office like at Google I think honestly there's a little bit of a myth here I don't believe that anyone actually gets eight hours of work done if they go to work well maybe if you're working on an assembly line but like office work I see a lot of wasting time I'm shopping online talking at the watercooler you should see it at Google it's so hard to get work done there everyone's huddled their desks with headphones trying to avoid distractions those open office plans are terrible for getting anything done other people can be very distracting what do you do when it's your family distracting you hmm you might have to go into a room with a door that locks and work out an agreement that when you're in your home office you need to work uninterrupted I remember Joyce Carol Oates saying that the biggest enemy for writers isn't that you struggle for ideas it's that people keep interrupting you when you're trying to write this also gets back to the need for socialization as weird as this might sound you probably have to schedule time for socializing even with your family yes honestly I'd write a short to-do list and include play a game with family and walk the dog on it and then also you get to see what you actually got done each day it might be more than you realize crossing things off is such a good feeling I also heard recently that some people make done lists instead each time you finish some small task you write it down so you can see your list of accomplishments like that you don't see this big list of things that you didn't do yeah we could try that one last thing I wanted to mention something I heard about from Michael and this kind of gets back to being kind to yourself it's called walk versus run the idea is that if you're running a marathon and you run out of steam at some point you don't stop dead in your tracks you walk for a while and then when you get your energy back you start running again you're still making progress even when you're right so sometimes Michael will say I'm having a walk day today and I get it you might only accomplish one thing but it's still one thing you did rather than giving up altogether it counts that Michael is a smart guy I know right okay Socratic of friends we need to get back to work let us know how you're doing stay home stay safe [Music] you [Music].
