Unless you have been spending your days under a rock you have heard about the new coronavirus COVID-19 that has been spreading around the globe. It has made its way to both coasts of the United States and it is a matter of time until it arrives in the York area, if it isn’t already. One of the fears about this is that the wheels of commerce will come to a halt as workers will be forced to stay home rather than going in to work. As a freelance worker you are probably already prepared for this as freelancing involves working from home so that part may not bother you much, but what should you have to prepare for this?
Food, Medicine And Clean Water
If you are going to be working from home, either by choice or by force, you will need to eat and you will want clean water. It would not be a bad idea to stock up on some food, like canned goods and it would be a good idea to do it now. Panic from this has cleaned store shelves in areas when the virus has taken hold and with something like this you would rather be ahead of the game than behind. If this turns out to be not as bad as people think you can just have a few extra taco nights. Everybody loves tacos.
Now we don’t mean buy every single canned good in the store but buy a few extra cans of corn or a few extra boxes of rice. The last thing you want to do is go hungry and don’t forget about your pets too. And snacks, don’t forget some snacks. Oh, and other things like toilet paper and paper towels too. Be prepared.
Clean water is also a plus. Buy some bottled water or take some jugs and fill them up with water. While COVID-19 will not disrupt your water supply pipes can break and if everyone is quarantined at home that means that your plumber will not be able to come to your house. Don’t forget any medicine too. The last thing you want to have happen is to be stuck at home but need some flu medication.
And if you drink beer just know that you cannot catch this coronavirus from drinking Corona. Beer is not actually a bad thing to have as the brewing process kills bacteria making it at times safer to drink than water. That is of course for those of you who are 21 or older.
To Get Work Done
If you have to work from home there are a few things that you will need. Chances are you already have a computer to work on and you are comfortable working from home so in a way this will not affect you too much. At the same time you are probably used to being alone in the apartment or in the house or spending time with the pets at most. Chances are now your roommates, spouse and/or kids might be there as well and that will affect you.
You will need a good Internet connection to do work. You’ll probably go nuts without it anyway and if you have kids they will not know what to do with themselves since they will probably be home with you and spend it either on the web or playing video games. Your Internet connection now might be the most valuable thing in the house.
To get work done a good set of headphones are a plus. This will allow you to not hear everything going on in the world around you so you can concentrate on the work at hand. Some sort of do not disturb sign could also be a good idea. You can buy one or just simply take a piece of paper and write on it so people know that you are working and do not want to be disturbed. Don’t forget that you can keep the sign and use it in the future as well when you work from home the next time. Just remember that your pets can’t read so don’t be mad at them when they come by looking for attention.
Just like you have a laptop or computer to get work done you also have a phone. That means that you can keep in touch with clients as they might be sitting at home as well. You hopefully have a system in place to keep in touch with your clients already and if you don’t you should develop one. Video chatting in many ways can be just as effective as in-person meetings so this might be a good time to make sure that you know how it works. You can do this on your phone or if you have a webcam from your computer.
Security
Just because you are working from home does not mean you should skimp on security. Make sure that your computer’s software is up-to-date and that your security software is working. If you have never worked from home you might be now accessing sensitive information for the first time on your network so making sure that information is secure should be your top concern.
Have you ever considered using a VPN? These can work on desktops, laptops or even mobile devices and they create an encrypted connection which makes it safer for you to access sensitive materials over the Internet. If you have a regular job and are forced to stay home from that or are given the opportunity to work from home your company may have recommended a VPN service or provided one to you already.
Software
While working from home you will need to actually get work done. What do you do if you don’t have access to the Microsoft Office 365 Suite on your home computer? Google GSuite works just as well and it is free. MS Office documents can be easily imported into Google and can be exported as MS Office documents. You don’t need to spend money on Office 365 if you don’t need to.
Since you will no longer be in the office you will need a way to coordinate projects and a collaboration system is just what you are looking for. You might be already using one like Slack, Asana or Microsoft Teams so this might already be taken care of. If not, many of these are free to use so you can keep in touch with your clients and your team.
If you are stuck at home you will want to and need to get work done. You don’t want to watch TV all day do you? That will get boring after a few hours and let’s face it Americans are already tired of endless political ads. If you do have to work from home be prepared and if you are prepared it will go much more smoothly for you. You don’t want to come back to work behind the 8 ball and spend weeks catching up.