The working from home thread: tips and advice

Mine is the complete opposite, work is still ramping as the client is still getting all the information to get out to tender.

WFH for the past 3 weeks has been awfully stressful as the work doesn’t really stop after working hours and it’s basically continuing till late in the evening or early morning. East break is like winner the lottery off us we are super happy with the time off.

No issues from our side as we are using google remote which works seamless and it’s like you’re working in the office.

full screen whatsapp desktop 😅

I ordered them from Lindy on Thursday late afternoon and they arrived today. First impressions are positive. Neighbour fired up his petrol powered strimmer followed by a lawnmower so I had a good chance to test the headphones and they are a revelation! £50 well spent!

good to hear ... on not ;)

these ones? they look really decent. no point over spending on headphones when you're just using a laptop etc as a source.

Yep, them’s the ones

Is anyone in need of a really comfortable office chair?
I've used one of these for about 15 years and it's been great:
http://www.knoll-int.com/office/products/by-designer/formway-design/life-chair
The seatpad on mine has finally broken and someone's selling them on ebay for £85 each in Romford which is a pretty good deal.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Knoll-Life-Black-Mesh-Multifunction-Operators-chair-Black-Chrome/333515872145?hash=item4da7185791:g:Z1IAAOSwePpdxq81
But pickup only so am going to try and arrange a courier. If anyone else wants one in London (ideally South or East I think - I'm South) and is up for splitting the cost of the courier, let me know in next day or two. They're really good chairs in my experience.

How are people coping with this now? It's always been a struggle with my wife and I working fulltime along with two kids (one and five) with homeschooling. Since deadlines have started to come closer in my work things are seriously strained. We tend to log on at 6:30/7am and work through to 6pm in fits and starts depending on meetings and general priorities.

Come Sunday evenings, I get that feeling I used to get as a kid where I'd be daunted by the prospect of going to school unprepared. It's shite.

I have a 4 year old and a 7 week old. My mother is staying with us at the moment who is a great help.
Current schedule is look after toddler until lunchtime while wife looks after newborn and catches up on lost sleep.

Aim to work without distractions between about 2-6, and cram as much work in as I can between those hours.
Most phone calls, enquiries, emails come in the mornings though, so sometimes manage to get some phone calls done in the morning.

Only really managing about 3h of realistic work time per day at the moment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWUHkCgslNE&feature=youtu.be

This looks like it could be useful to some. I'm going to try it soon.

Kinnel you don't live in Sydenham do you?

I lost my shit with a neighbour who was out with a DA sander for over 2 hours solid yesterday. He was closer to my house than to his and the noise carried into my workroom like a plague of hornets. He's new to the area and my first words when he finally stopped were "you gonna stop that now - it's fucking noisy". He just looked at me confused and asked "what was he supposed to do?" and that he "needed to finish". When I realised it was harder than trying to explain to a shit driver that there driving is shit I settled for asking for a break as I was unable to concentrate. Occasional loud noises are fine and doing DIY is understandable but not having any clue of how disruptive you can be is beyond me.

Really struggled with how relentless and exhausting last week was and by Friday even wished I had my late night commute to zone out and nap on. It's no longer crisis meetings and dealing with tech so feels like this is the new normal. Slightly dreading the start of another week of it :/

Had a quick search in this thread, but couldn't find anything.

Do folks have any tips on laptop riser stands? Or other WFH dinning table ergonomics?

My OH is sitting too hunched over. I think screen height is to blame. We're weighing up more serious screen and wfh setups, but before we (I) get carried away, I wondered if a screen stand and keyboard would rectify the problem. The footprint shouldn't' be too much bigger.

Get some books and stick them under the screen to test.
The best thing is to work standing up for good periods too.

Shoebox and separate keyboard works for me.

Cheers. Good idea on the books as a starting point.

Did some research on keyboards a while back, but may need to revisit that based on the force of my OH's keystrokes!

This is my setup. It ain't pretty but it works good.

I spend too much time at the computer and a moving standing desk, was worth the few hundred quid.

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That's very neat.

Well not neat as in tidy, but you know what I mean.

I bought this and expensed it back to work, Cos work can pay for my god damn bad back

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Griffin-Elevator-Computer-Laptop-Stand/dp/B013BNHROE/ref=sr_1_11?dchild=1&keywords=Laptop%2Bstand&qid=1586859428&sr=8-11&th=1

That's very clean.

Got myself one of these, pretty impressed

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07MV1W4CR/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o05_s02?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Cross post from the DIY thread but I’ve just finished making and installing this desk top / sit stand desk.

Super pleased with it.

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Looks great. Did you buy the base section as a standalone unit or cannibalise an existing desk?

Bought the base specifically for this, directly from Flexispot, and built the top from scratch.

boasters not welcome - back to the home diy thread with you