If you work from home you have much more time to be productive for your company and for yourself. You can still be productive for yourself in the corporate office, but greater awareness and care needs to be exercised.
Be aware that some companies monitor your movements on your computer to enforce constant productivity. This is inhumane. You should attempt to find a new remote company to work at while employed at your hostile, big brother job.
Right now the corporations control us. This is not the way.
You can achieve all of your work for your company while still learning and being productive for your paths at home. You should seek out a position with freedom and trust that allows you to complete your tasks how you wish; as long as you meet or exceed your objectives.
Monitoring another individual is borne out of a lack of trust. If your company doesn’t trust you, don’t trust them. You shouldn’t trust companies entirely anyway, as they are soulless entities created to make profits for shareholders. Companies are not here to give you a sustainable way of life. They exist to make money for shareholders. This comes before your family, your well-being, and your self-interests. Monitoring performance closely is for the new and the struggling and it should not be viewed as a healthy or normal default state.
Below are methods to learn more while working from home. Some of these may work in the office as well. If you have additional ideas share them and we will update this article.
Don’t follow this advice or any advice blindly. Think for yourself. Make sure you’re in a position where you can do these things before doing them. Sometimes it is better to beg for forgiveness rather than ask permission. Sometimes, the other way around is superior.
Interval breaks
Use timer cubes and take a mental break every 30 minutes, or other interval for learning. We said 30 minutes because that duration is when you’re advised to get out of your chair and move around a bit. You could even have your main work desk, and then another smaller desk, or table, with a stand-up desk converter to learn or study whatever you’re working on while standing for a few minutes before you get back to your main job.
These cubes are nice to have because it’s easy to set multiple timers a day, compared to doing it on your phone over and over. It may be beneficial to consider using a timer cube, or other timer to get up every hour for some mental, physical, and spiritual stimulation. Or set a repeating alarm on your smartphone or smartwatch. You can do a Duolingo session in a few minutes and get back to work. Or read for a little bit.
Audio Visual Learning Options
Listen to podcasts. Listen to audiobooks. We’ll give you one audiobook for free.
Audiobook curations:
- The Movie of Me to the Movie of We | Raghu Markus, Duncan Trussell
- Meditations | The Emperor Marcus Aurelius
Think about how many books you can “read” in a year if you listen to audiobooks while you work. Biographies and stories are better for audiobooks compared to technical content.
Watch YouTube videos related to your paths on your phone that is charging and sitting on your desk. This keeps a layer of privacy between you and your employer, just in case. As opposed to watching videos on your work computer. This should only be done if the content is strictly work related. This is easier working from home, but you can still do it at work. Wear some earbuds made for working and for your smartphone setup, whether iPhone or Android.
Know that whatever you do on the company computer can and will be used against you.
You can get a phone mount that mounts on your monitor or desk so it appears that you’re looking at your screen when you can be watching some kind of content relating to one of your paths. This can be useful to watch content while you’re working if you can do both and still achieve your goals.
Consider watching, or listening to content in another language. This can help you immerse in a new language even if you are not actively practicing it. This could be listening to a foreign language podcast, watching a show on your screen with the mount, or listening to a beginner training language lesson.
Instead of listening to a beginner language podcast, just watch videos or listen to podcasts in that language. Unless you’re consuming content of scientific, financial, or another more complex field, most of the words will be basic. Radio shows are good for this. The content may be dramatic, or not of the learning variety, but you will learn words of a new language.
Morning/Afternoon readings
Set up a feedly account(free), and at the end of the day and the beginning of the day, read articles related or unrelated to your profession that add value to body, mind, or spirit. You can make a reasonable case that this helps you be better at your job and you aren’t dedicating a large part of time to it. If you’re unfamiliar with Feedly, it’s used to aggregate blogs and other content sources in one place; you can use it for this site, too. Just search what you’re interested in, or plug-in publishers you already follow.
Lunch focuses
Use the lunch break to read, take a course, or do Khan Academy content; It doesn’t take a full hour to eat. This is also a good time to go on a walk which can help you learn later when you’re off work. You should have your meal prepared in a way that eating takes as little time as possible so you can do something for yourself.
So you could eat for 20 minutes, walk for 40, and get a strong amount of cardio training for the day. Or you could eat for 5, and then study, or work on a side project, for 55 minutes. This can be a good time to take care of tasks that don’t move you farther down the path but need to be completed nonetheless; emails, setting up a doctor’s appointment, bills, etc.
You can have a setup routine for the lunch hour.
You don’t need to go out with your workmates every time you eat lunch. Be aware that there is a balance between going out for lunch every day with coworkers and being invisible because you don’t associate with anyone outside of professional requests.
Keeping a journal
Keep a digital or physical journal within reach at all times. These Paperage Journals are fantastic and cheap. We never know when a valuable idea or notion will come to us. We want to reduce the amount of ideas we lose. Keeping a journal will allow you to track thoughts and notions that will prove valuable later. You may also be able to write down things you learn at your job that will help you off the path. If your job is not connected to your path, it’s important to find methods of learning while on the job that do not threaten your source of income.
Certifications And Continued Education
If your job is connected to your path, you can spend time at the end of a work day when things are quiet learning more about your paths or profession. If you get caught at work working on something that will make you more valuable to the company, it’s an easier conversation than being caught watching gaming streams or something else unrelated to progress in this space. You may even be rewarded for it and seen as someone who is in development and wants more responsibility.
“I wanted to spend a little time each day making myself more valuable for the company.”
Consider working on certifications or acquiring outside knowledge that will increase your value within your company or outside of it.
Make work time valuable for the company and for yourself.