Your laptop is your pantry.

When you're working from home, it's always there. Always available. Always tempting you. Like those pretzels or potato chips or donuts right there in your kitchen, work is always available if you want it. But you know that always grazing isn't a healthy strategy for your diet. It's also unhealthy if you're always peering into your work pantry.

Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.

When work is always on and easily available, it's vital that you create some healthy segmentation – a separation between work and home.

You've got to close the pantry door.

To me, the key to success here is about being purposeful. Rituals, routines, and boundaries exist whether you choose them or not. For example, is banging out emails from your bed at 1 a.m. really your most productive time?

Maybe. Maybe it's the only time you've got. Hey, I've been there. But I've been there enough to know that no, crunching emails and working in the wee hours of the morning isn't really productive. Sometimes things bubble up, but is making a habit out of working all the time sustainable? Helpful? Desirable?

“Your calendar bleeds from one thing to the next and you check your email or feeds in between,” says John Taschek, Senior Vice President of Market Strategy at Salesforce (https://bit.ly/wfh-sf1). “The fluidity of the day may be exciting, but you also may not be as effective as you think.” When I note that he didn't mention taking time to feed yourself or take in fluids, he laughs. Seems like he's been there before – have you? “You may feel guilty for eating lunch so you do it in your home office area while casually listening in on a conference call.”

Ultimately, this book is about helping you to be at your best – to turn your virtual world into a career powerhouse by building the habits that create success. Whether we realize it or not, humans are creatures of habit. What habits are you cultivating in your home office? How are your routines and rituals helping you to practice success?

Let's face it: working from home can be exhausting. You may not even see why, at first. Gianpiero Petriglieri, an associate professor at Insead, explains the dissonance that comes from video calls, when your entire work world is virtual. “Our minds are together when our bodies feel we're not. That dissonance, which causes people to have conflicting feelings, is exhausting. You cannot relax into the conversation naturally,” he says in an interview with the BBC (https://bit.ly/wfh-fatigue).

Video calls require more focus than a face‐to‐face chat, because we can't always see all of the nonverbal cues we're used to. Body language comes in incomplete sentences. It's harder to process facial expressions and tone of voice. Research shows that delays of 1.2 seconds via video will make people perceive a responder as less friendly or focused, when it's really just their internet connection!

Marissa Shuffler, an associate professor at Clemson University, tells the BBC (https://bit.ly/wfh-fatigue) that part of the stress comes from performance anxiety – a natural stressor that shows up when you're always confronted with your own mugshot in a video call. “When you're on a video conference, you know everybody's looking at you; you are on stage, so there comes the social pressure and feeling like you need to perform. Being performative is nerve‐wracking and more stressful.” Seeing yourself, especially in back‐to‐back meetings, is a sure‐fire recipe for self‐consciousness. It's a shift from an in‐person meeting, where (thankfully) I can't see myself when I'm talking with you. Want a quick way to reduce stress? Find the button so that you can hide your own image. Problem solved!

Staring intently at a person's face when you're talking to them just isn't natural. On a video call the only way to show we're paying attention is to look at the camera, according to the Harvard Business Review. But in real life, how often do you stand within three feet of a colleague and stare at his or her face? We are used to casually looking at the person we are talking to, not seeing dozens (or even hundreds!) of faces gazing intently at us. Researchers at the University College London have studied gaze duration – that is, there actually is a science around staring, and it's alive and well in the UK.

While researchers found that people are happy to stare at people they feel comfortable with for longer periods, looking intently at someone for more than three seconds is typically uncomfortable, especially when you're in a meeting with your boss, or your team. While you're just being attentive, your gaze might get misinterpreted.

It's all happening at once, Petriglieri says. Every interaction happens via Zoom, or some other online video platform, and that can be confusing. “Most of our social roles happen in different places, but now the context has collapsed,” says Petriglieri. “Imagine if you go to a bar, and in the same bar you talk with your professors, meet your parents, or date someone; isn't it weird? That's what we're doing now.… We are confined in our own space, in the context of a very anxiety‐provoking crisis, and our only space for interaction is a computer window.” He calls the problem “self‐complexity” – where everything happens via video calls. Everything, it seems, except variety.

All the more reason to establish boundaries and create separation in your home office, so that your online world doesn't become a jumbled mess of insecurity and confusion. And, in an upcoming chapter, we'll come back to the virtual world of video conferencing – with powerful ideas for improving your impact and conquering the challenges that pop up when your work world comes in through a single window.

But first, let's get back to finding a better way to work; video calls are just one aspect (albeit a huge one) that we'll cover in more detail later. First, let's explore some of the other challenges that can keep you from finding success, particularly when trying to conquer your calendar. Working from home requires a deliberate design around your schedule – those boundaries are essential to your long‐term success. Many rituals and routines change when your home becomes your workplace. For example:

1. A Strong Start: When you go to the office, you have a get‐ready routine because you have to be somewhere, dressed a certain way, and ready to work at a certain time. What happens if this habit doesn't carry over to your home office? When your commute changes from 60 minutes to six steps, it's easy to fall out of a standard routine. But business is a process: working from home is a process as well. What can you do to be purposeful about “going to work” when you don't have to worry about traffic on the highway and you can literally roll out of bed and log in to emails? As human beings, we need a break – a change – that's a deliberate signal that we are shifting into a different mode. What's your going‐to‐work routine when you're working away from the company office? If you don't have an answer right now, find one. Don't leave your career to chance – don't freestyle your way to success. Establishing a schedule is the first step in setting the rituals that matter.
2. Are We Done Yet? When working at your company, the prompt to leave that office was likely something like beating the traffic. Or picking up the kids from daycare, letting out the dog, watching your soccer star play in her latest game … you get the picture. As I write these words, all of those reasons have evaporated – except the dog. Dogs don't evaporate, and they still need to be let out. But letting your dog out the back door doesn't involve driving home from work. You depart and rejoin your life and interests much more easily right now – and whatever commute you were experiencing before actually has evaporated. Disappeared. Consider folks (like me) who would routinely drive to the airport and fly to various locations, some of them international. Or think about the cities with the longest commutes in the USA. According to CNBC (https://tinyurl.com/wfh-commutes), four of the top 10 are in California, with cities in the New York metro area rounding out the list. Jersey City, for example, has an average round‐trip commute of 73.6 minutes. All of the top‐10 cities boast commute times of over an hour. Now, those commuting hours have been returned. Are those minutes a gift, or a curse? According to Bloomberg, people are reporting that they are working an average of three more hours each day (https://tinyurl.com/wfh-bloomberg). Maybe that's because of managing homeschooling schedules. Or maybe it's just because the pantry is nearby. An executive at Intel reports clocking 13‐hour days, working from home – and another says he has to set an alarm to remind himself to stop and eat. Are you managing your time, or is time managing you? Being deliberate about how you use your time – especially time that's been returned to you – is critical to your success. Believe it or not, you can always make more money. But you can never make more time. Choose wisely: align your time in a way that's deliberate. That way, you establish new routines that help you to take advantage of what you've been given.
3. Old School versus New Knowledge: Remember the old days, when you would listen to a podcast, or call your mom, or just maybe listen to your favorite Spotify playlist on your drive home from work? What about driving from work straight to the gym, or maybe going to a happy hour meetup somewhere? These transitions signal your brain to transition from work – to change the channel and give your mind permission to leave work. What are you discovering as the new transition? Because you need one if you are going to be successful at working from home. Putting in long hours and pumping out great execution means building in the breaks that make the time more productive. Think about listening to music for a second: I've always loved music, and I often sit down and play piano to help myself decompress. But you know what I see every time I look at a piece of sheet music? A lot of white space. Without a pause, music is just noise. The rests in music aren't signs that the composer is being lazy – it's the composer being smart. The space is what matters as much as the notes! The pause makes room for what's new. For discovery. For connection. For change. Working from home asks you to compose your life on your terms. Have you built in the pauses that you need? Imagine a composer saying, “This melody is so awesome, I'm just gonna keep the sound going without a break for three minutes and people will love it!” No. No, they will not. That's not a song, that's just an unwelcome and haphazard racket. Frank Sinatra sang it best: “Without a song, the day would never end.” Ask yourself this question: where does the music come from? Is it just the notes, the words, the melody … or something else? Hear how the pauses make the music meaningful. Put those pauses back into your day, if you want a break from the noise. I know I do. Sometimes just taking a walk around the block is exactly what I need. How about you? Maybe tonight's the night you surprise your significant other with a dance party before making dinner together. (May I suggest you dance like no one's watching?) Or reading a chapter in a book (you're already off to a fine start, I commend your excellent taste). Others meditate or write in a journal. There's no right answer here, so choose the powerful pause that suits you best.
4. Insights into Peak Performance: What every high‐performance athlete knows is that periods of peak performance require periods of peak rest. Jim Loehr, author of The Power of Full Engagement, studied the intersection between high‐performance athletes and high‐performance executives (https://bit.ly/wfh-meetjimloehr, https://bit.ly/wfh-meetjimloehr). “Balancing stress and recovery (https://bit.ly/wfh-prioritize) is critical not just in competitive sports,” he reveals, “but also in managing energy in all facets of our lives.”

   “We live in a world that celebrates work and activity, ignores renewal and recovery, and fails to recognize that both are necessary for sustained high performance.” He continues, “Energy, not time, is the fundamental currency of high performance.”

   How well are you managing your currency?

5. Divest Before You Invest: In my book Success With Less, a story about an important promotion reminded me about how balance works. Have you been there?

Earning a promotion was important to me. And I had been working toward the promotion for years. So, I invested.

Not only did I invest, I over‐invested. Nights. Middle of the nights. Weekdays. Weekends. No hour was too late. Or too early. No slide deck was too elaborate. No voicemail was too detailed. No email was too lengthy.

I ran full speed into a burning blaze of activity every single day. Without hesitation. No matter how I might get burned or fully consumed at every moment.

Because I overlooked one important safety procedure.

Divest.

When you invest in something new, you must divest of something else. To make room in your schedule and in your mind to make the most of your new path. When I chose to invest in the high stakes project at work, I failed to divest of any of my other responsibilities. Inside of work. Or outside of work.

When you fail to divest before you invest, you lay the foundation on which to build damaging stories. And habits. “I have to keep all the plates spinning!” “I'm sure I can do it all if I just try a little harder!” “I don't want to be seen as a quitter!” “I'm so busy that I must be important! And successful!”

Back‐to‐back video meetings have suddenly become the new routine. Beyond the warnings from the experts, let's bring it back to a personal question: Is that always‐on routine serving you? Putting you at your best? I assert that most people do not have a clear definition of what success looks like at work, and rarely have a sense of how they're spending their time.

Time shifts when you work from home. One moment flows into the next, am I right? Without the breaks and separation we have been taught to expect, the flow of the day can seem overwhelming – or invisible, until it isn't. Until you realize you're exhausted, but all you've done is sit in Zoom meetings all day. You've become a Zoombie – a walking zombie – as a result of too many video calls.

The first step in breaking the pattern, so that you can maintain your energy and sanity? Build rituals, routines, and boundaries so that you step out of the time warp.

When what we expect has changed, we have to adjust our expectations as well. Working from home is not the same as working in an office. Being online and plugged in and video‐call ready at all times can be stressful – but it doesn't have to be. Inserting breaks will keep you at your best. Just as you structure your work space, structure your day and your calendar so that you aren't always on. I learned the hard way about how charging and driving and striving isn't the path to success – it's the fast track to burnout. Set up a space and a system that serves you, so that you have the separation you need in your remote work environment.

Before your calendar converts into chaos (a place where your pantry is always open), here are three quick and powerful questions you can ask yourself regarding any priority:

1. Does it have to be?
2. Does it have to be me?
3. Does it have to be me right now?

The challenge that can arise in working from home is based on a common maxim: if everything is important, then nothing is. Working from home, especially during the early days of the coronavirus, meant that many people had to handle homeschooling,

video calls, new customer demands, explosive news reports, and more – all of it falling into the category of “overwhelm.” Everything seems to demand your attention, and that causes burnout faster than you can say “change the channel.”

You see, we need filters in our lives. Even when you're socially isolated at home, you still need a good filter to keep out the stuff that you don't want. I'm talking about filtering out the noise and the obligations that don't serve you. What are the filters that will help you control your calendar, not the other way around? Those filters need to be built into your routine.

What if you could build your work‐from‐home world so that your days were more productive and inspiring than the office ever was? It's possible. In fact, it's probable: Success isn't reserved for someone else. Reading this book means you're interested in how to win the home game. Which means I like your style.

Maybe you've experienced some of the upside of working from home – finding yourself incredibly grateful that you don't have to jump on a train or fight the traffic. Realizing that you don't miss getting frisked by the TSA before you board your flight. Understanding that you never really enjoyed renting cars and getting lost in Portland. Or is that just me? Traveling isn't going away, but how we go about it is part of the new normal. We reinvent what that means, every day. That means that we are experiencing an unprecedented opportunity for creativity. You are creating your space and your calendar and your work‐from‐home world. Why not design it for the best possible outcome?

Work from Home: Exploring Perfection

Wonder why you never have a perfect day? Maybe you don't believe in perfection. As the saying goes, no one is perfect, not even a perfect fool. But haven't you ever said, “This is perfect”? Whether it's your partner or a pizza or a presentation, have you ever felt that shimmer inside that says “perfect”? Perfection does exist, when it's personal – we define it on our own terms. So, let me ask you a personal question: Why haven't you found your perfect work‐from‐home day?

Maybe it's just because you haven't taken the time to write out what it looks like. Take a moment, right now, and just consider: describe a perfect work‐from‐home day. Create the timeline and the script. Open up a Google doc or grab a pen and paper – take the time to explore what you really want. Otherwise, how are you going to get it? If your perfect day were a scene in a movie, what would it include? And if you were the leading actor in this drama, what elements would you bring to your performance? Be sure to consider other characters, props, and setting –that's your home office – inside this cinematic masterpiece.

Even in your perfect day, you've got to leave room for the unexpected! Fires and unpredictable events are a part of every day, so what's going to be different on a perfect day? The answer might be found in how you show up. After all, it's your performance that makes this movie a hit.

How would you fight fires and handle the unexpected, if you were truly at your best? Once you establish your home office, the scene is set. You've got to take the next step. You know what it is? Action! You've got to make your new space work for you.

The scene is ready for you. Now, on this perfect day, I wonder: Would you show up a little differently? How would you perform your role?

In the wild world of work, sometimes my circumstances are crazy, and I am surprisingly calm and productive. Other times, there's not a lot going on and I am kinda frantic, lost in thought and wondering which way to turn. Have you been there? Where your circumstances and your mood don't seem to mesh?

Being better than my circumstances is something that I have turned into a habit. That's not to say that I'm perfect or that I never get lost in my own head. I do. Believe me, it's been a lot of trial and error over the years (be sure to check out Listen Up! for some serious and candid straight talk about what I've had to process in my life). But when I'm confronted with opportunity, there are two words that have really opened me up to new possibilities. Two words that have helped me to see beyond my own thinking. Two words that I regularly share with my team as often as I can. Here they are:

“Why not?”

Those two simple words have unlocked more possibilities than I could have ever imagined. Because those words help me to break through boundaries and see the limits in my own thinking. As the saying goes, “It's never tougher than it is in your mind.”

When I remove the boundaries that don't serve me, it's amazing what can show up. Challenges are everywhere: I make up stories and elaborate reasons inside my own mind why something is impossible. Have you been there? Isn't it amazing how many times we have conquered the impossible?

The first step in conquering the impossible, I have found, is a change in perspective. Want to redesign your work‐from‐home world? Don't think about why you can't do it! Ask yourself, why not? Want to advance your career, make an impact, find a new job or (let's go big) fall in love again? Right out of the gate, I bet there's a story you're telling yourself, and it doesn't have a happy ending.

Hey, what if you drop the story and replace it with two simple words? I love Simon Sinek's book, Start with Why. But when it comes to the new normal, I prefer starting with Why Not?

If you're a corporate leader and you're struggling with the idea that people can be effective when working remotely and it looks impossible for you to manage your team, stop for a moment. Is there a way to look at it through a different lens? Why not? Why couldn't the team be effective and make progress and create results and expand your market share? Perhaps you're using yesterday's business model to create tomorrow's results. In the coming chapters you'll meet some executive leaders who are figuring things out in some innovative ways. But before we go there, let's consider where we are right now.

The coronavirus has been a cultural catalyst. The pandemic has accelerated the future of work. The new normal is filled with something known as VUCA – volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. The term first appeared in 1987, based on the leadership theories of two USC professors, Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus. While VUCA describes our times, the question remains: How will you adapt to them? The first step is removing the boundaries that point you toward what's past.

The past reminds us. It does not define us.

Check out more from my colleague, Vala. His words of wisdom on Twitter stick with me. How about you? Here's a great reminder:

You can find a new way forward. It just takes practice.

From 1986 to 1996, Notre Dame was a football powerhouse, led by the immortal and unforgettable Lou Holtz. When he heard about angry fans throwing oranges onto the field prior to Notre Dame's appearance in the Orange Bowl, Holtz told reporters, “I'm just glad we're not going to the Gator Bowl” (https://bit.ly/wfh-louholtz).

In 1986, Holtz hung a sign in the locker room, a sign that has since become legendary: “Play like a champion today.” Before every home game, every Notre Dame player touches that sign before they take the field. In 1988, Notre Dame won a consensus national football title as Holtz posted a school record 23‐game winning streak. His teams amassed an amazing 5‐1 record in major bowls from 1988 to 1993.

Holtz knew the secret to playing like a champion: practicing like one first.

He always told his players, “Gentlemen, you practice like you play.” In other words, the way you prepare for the game is the way you're going to play it. Today, that preparation is vital.

Any football coach will tell you that every play in their playbook is designed to score. That's right: they practice for their ultimate outcome, every time. Now, not every play results in a touchdown. We know that the opposing team is always a factor, people miss blocks, and sometimes there are fumbles on the play. Sometimes players get tackled for a loss. Sometimes it's three yards and a cloud of dust, or a quick first down. But you know what's always true? Winning teams prepare for success. And come what may, they are always playing the game. Playing to win. How about you?

Who said you couldn't set yourself up for success, every day? It's like the old saying goes, about thinking outside the box: “Who told you there was a box? And that there were rules?” Working from home is a time to expand your mindset and shift into new possibilities.

Maybe circumstances and market conditions are gonna jump up and oppose your best‐laid plans. Sometimes life will punch you in the face, or knock you out of bounds. I know, I've been there.

Perhaps Marla in accounting is going to throw you for a loss. Penalties can happen in any game – even in the game of life. That's not a work from home thing, that's just the way the world works. But you can make sure you design your space and your calendar and your mindset to shift … so that you give yourself an opportunity to make your world work for you.

Yes, my friend. Yes, you can design a place – a room of one's own – that serves you. Come what may, practice like you play. It's time to get in the game and play full out. Play to win.

The good news is: you've got home court advantage. You get to set up the game, the playing field, and the rules.

So many times, we think of success as something that's “out there.” Away, in some far‐off place, where it can never really be reached. But if you did the exercise, you just wrote down what success looks like. You made it personal. You defined the game of success on your own terms.

It's sort of like the decision to put stuff on your desk – like a paper clip, for example. Look at it. That tiny paper clip is a choice. Will it help you? If yes, keep it close by. If not, discard it and make room for something new.

Invest in a life design that serves you. Divest yourself of the things that do not. Play. To. Win.

How will you create a day that's satisfying, productive, and fulfilling? Shut the pantry from time to time. Be deliberate about your calendar. Set up your own guidelines for success, and you'll define it in your own terms. Got those rituals, routines, and boundaries set up? Good for you! Now it's time for the fun part: it's time to play the game.