Looking for a job? - Look into tutoring online: students that need to take exams no matter quarantine or not might need some help with English, math or any other field of you expertise. There are also jobs that pay you for reviewing a website or an online product – not a scalable idea, but still a way to get some cash without any experience.
- Look for freelance opportunities, but remember that building a net there can take a lot of time, and in times of crisis it would be wiser to have it just as one of your opportunities – not all of your efforts.
- Learn some hard skills. No matter what your job is, you can look into tech world – it will improve your portfolio even if it is not the main focus of your job. If you are looking for a new career, there are plenty of remote positions in tech, although most of the time they do require some training. For example, Q&A is an accessible profession with good pay and remote positions, and if you have interest in coding and learn several languages– you will most likely never face unemployment again.
Need to set up a home office? Right, so what to do once you land a job? Make your office spot work for you! For that, you can focus on three things: zone separation, time management and building a routine.
First, do your best to separate your work spot from the rest of the house. It might be tempting to work in your PJ's – and if it works for you, please do so! Most people, however, struggle with it in the long run because they are not able to fully focus or relax. There is no more bus ride from work to home anymore – so make sure you have time to just zone out and unwind, too.
Second, customize your time schedule. One of the most popular approaches to manage your time is
Pomodoro – you choose time intervals for your work time and your breaks, then during work time, you can completely focus on the task and in during break time you can get up and do something else completely. It helps, because since there are no more coffee breaks with colleagues or watercooler chats, people tend to overwhelm themselves by sitting there for hours. On the flip side, a set time to work on a particular task motivates you much more than a vague idea of the task in unlimited time. You can also use an app to synchronize several calendars into one if that is what you prefer.
Third, make sure you set up clear communication with your colleagues. Communication is often overlooked, but it is essential to master once you work from home. How do you let them know about your progress? How do you track it without the calls? If you have a client and you are the only one on the team, make weekly reports to them just to keep in touch.