Becoming a workshifter often means a significant lifestyle change. You go from spending 2 hours a day commuting to suddenly having that time back. Where once you had a cafeteria to serve you fresh, hot meals for lunch, you now have to make do with your own refrigerator and stove. Your cubicle mates have now become your IM chat buddies.

As much as switching to the workshifting lifestyle can make us more productive, it doesn't come without some risks. It is easy to fall into the trap of not taking enough breaks, not eating properly or not staying social. It doesn't have to be this way. With a few adjustments, we can develop some simple habits that will help ensure our work-from-anywhere experience keeps to a healthy track.

Fuel up with food

When we work in an office, we are surrounded by people who take lunch breaks. We often will gather with our colleagues in the lunchroom and break open our lunch bags together. If we work in a larger office, we will head to the cafeteria. Either way, there are others around to motivate us to take breaks and eat. It is a social affair.

However, when we workshift, we are often alone at lunchtime. And when we are alone, we sometimes will just keep right on working. Before we know it, it's 3 PM and suddenly we snap out of our work zone and realize we are starving. That's when the bad decisions happen. Instead of heading to the kitchen to make a good lunch, we reach for the leftover Halloween candy or another cup of coffee.

Food is your fuel. It is essential, if you are going to stay in peak working condition, that you eat. So always have healthy food on hand. Have pre-made soups, chopped veggies, lunch meat and whole-grain bread in stock so when lunch hour hits, you can make something healthy fast. And set an alarm on your phone or computer to go off at lunch time so you remember to take a break.

Use your time

The minute you start workshifting, you suddenly have more time. Often, up to a couple of hours of former commuting time per day is now wide open. And, the first time a blizzard hits on a weekday, you will appreciate working from home even more. So what are you doing with that time? Maybe you are going to work an extra 2 hours Monday to Thursday so you can take Fridays off, if the boss is up for that. Perhaps you will start doing a yoga program for 1 hour a day. Maybe now is the time to start that blog!

Whatever you decide, appreciate the time that has been given back to you now that you don't have to commute anymore. Do something meaningful with it.

Fight loneliness

Workshifting is a wonderfully quiet and peaceful way to work. But sometimes it can get kind of lonely. You sort of miss those casual chit-chats with Donna from accounting. You sometimes wish you could do the lunchroom thing again. If you're feeling a bit lonely in your cozy home office, there are some things you can do.

Make a monthly coffee or lunch date with your colleagues and go hang out with them in person. That face-to-face contact, even if you email or talk on the phone every day, is important. And if you are in a different city from your team, then just take yourself to the coffee shop once in a while. Often just being around other people while you're working is enough.

Social networks are also a great way to fight workshifting loneliness. I highly recommend Twitter as a way to take a break and say hello. There are thousands of "Donnas from accounting" on Twitter that are happy to share a brief chat anytime.

Overall, workshifting is a great way to work. By following these tips, you can ensure that it remains a positive and healthy experience!

Photo Credit: C.C. Chapman

Several years ago, I wrote about the role of impromptu telework after an ice storm shut down parts of North Carolina. For those caught without power, workshifting was an effective, albeit makeshift, solution to keep themselves productive when Mother Nature did her worst.

Visiting Los Angeles this week with my family, I discovered first-hand how traffic is a crab walk here at the best of times. Having heard our trouble, a friend who commutes daily from Santa Monica to Beverly Hills added that the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority would soon be shutting down 10 miles of Interstate 405 for 53 hours to tear down an overpass.

The closure, scheduled for July 16 and 17, is expected to affect a half-million drivers. Few believe officials' promises that it will be completed by Monday morning's rush hour. Many are anticipating traffic chaos that will dwarf the usual snarl.

Some are already preparing for what's being likened to as a Northeast pre-planned "snow day." Rumor has it many commuters with a choice are planning long weekend getaways and mini-vacations.

Think about the lost productivity.

Why not workshift instead?

Why not plan ahead, discuss the situation with employers, employees and coworkers, arrange to bring home work that can be done outside the corporate office, and avoid the snarl - and excuses - altogether?

Alternatively, find or create a telework center or temporary workspace where people can continue working without having to traverse the affected 10-mile zone. It could be an executive suite or idle space at a peer's location. Contact your attorney, accountant or other professional services firm to see if space may be available.

Then, assuming this impromptu telework "pilot project" or telework center experiment succeeds, explore expanding it into a regular telework program. All it takes for most will be a computer with Internet access, relatively comfortable workspaces and a mind open to new possibilities.

The company may benefit from increased productivity - in both good times and bad - beyond this one-time opportunity. Next time construction (or poor weather or an earthquake) shuts down an interstate or otherwise makes transportation impossible, people in unaffected areas can continue working.

As we were traversing the L.A. freeways this week, we were aghast at how long it took to drive even a short distance. It would seem L.A. and workshifting were made for each other - even without the impending chaos of a 10-mile closure of the 405.

Photo Credit: Bugsy Rocker

The only problem with short commutes is not having one.

My commute is 10 feet. I get up, wander into my office, reach down and hit the "Start Me Up" button on my desktop.

I do this daily, except for Tuesday mornings. That's the day of the week I drive 20 miles away for a meeting, the day I leave myself 45 minutes for a trip I hope will take 25. Sometimes I leave an hour earlier and workshift for a while at a coffeehouse near the client's office.

Frequently, when I have to drive somewhere (versus just hopping onto a Metro train), I time the commute to avoid traffic. For example, if a client is a rush-hour nightmare away, I will schedule meetings between 10 AM and 3 PM.

When I was in graduate school, I lived in a town with a commute that was 4 blocks long. I'd drive 10 blocks out of the way just to avoid getting "stuck in traffic." It seems laughable now - except I pretty much do the same thing today.

I know that when I see bumper-to-bumper traffic that stretches for miles, all I want is to be heading in the other, less-crowded direction.

When you're not workshifting, do you time your commute?

Photo Credit: Aoife city womanchile

I've survived seven Minnesota winters. And during the many long, blustery winter months, I have had the pleasure and privilege of workshifting daily. That means I have not had to leave the house in the dark of the morning to coax my car to start. I have not had to feel the cold, stiff car seat beneath multiple layers of sensible winter clothing. And in the premature dark of winter evenings, I have not had to join the hoards of motorists on icy highways eager to return to the warmth of home.

But that doesn't mean I haven't known the joys of commuting in my pre-workshifting life.

Bus

There were winters on Chicago's lakefront that would knock one flat with the sheer force of an arctic blast, not unlike the Peppermint Patty commercials. With a bundled face pointed stoically in the direction of the lake, I set out every morning to catch my early express bus to my downtown office. When traffic was heavier than usual, the ride took 45 minutes. Rainy days meant no seat. In fact, I was lucky in any inclement weather to push my way through the door of the bus and inch my feet across the driver's "squeeze past or get off my bus" line. A good day was finding a clean seat with minimal etched graffiti and trying to read while jostling down the street, swaying with sharp corner turns, and steering clear of people's bags and briefcases as they moved down the aisle. And then there were days when the express bus was late or had gone past my stop 10 minutes early, leaving me at the mercy of the regular bus, which made stops on seemingly every city block.

Train

Sometimes I switched up the routine and grabbed the Red Line (part subway, part elevated train). The experience was similar to that of the bus, but the views were different. When we were underground, the view was confined to the people in the car; aboveground, the view was a blur of dizzying backyards, balconies, and second-floor offices. It wasn't a bad commute unless the train was overly crowded--or when it was hot, late in the evening, raining, cold, or an hour before/after a Cubs game--which was, of course, much of the time.

Bike

There were times, too, when I biked to work along the Southern California coast. The exercise was a perk, but without a shower before the workday, my commute stuck with me all day. I didn't have a private office at the time, so storing work clothes or even changing out of riding clothes posed a professional challenge.

Carpool

Right out of graduate school and before the days of busing downtown or biking down the coast, I was simply eager to join the workforce, regardless of the commute. One of my grad school buddies pulled a favor and got me a series of interviews at her company. My friend had a car and lived a block away from me. If I got the gig, she said, we could carpool together. On the day of my interviews, she picked me up at 7:30 AM. My first interview was scheduled for 9 AM. We hit the highway along with tens of thousands of other people and began a slow crawl into the belly of the suburbs. An hour later, we pulled into her company's parking lot.

Looking back, I realize that my early working life was sharply focused on my work commute and the associated stress it caused me - running late, not running at all or simply being uncomfortable. Getting home felt so good. Maybe that's why now being home all the time feels even better.

What was your best (or worst) commute?

Photo Credit: keith011764

My current employer, MindFire Communications, is located approximately 165 miles from my home office in Chicago. That makes it easy for me to take frequent trips back to the mother ship for client meetings or to simply catch up with colleagues and seep up the office environment.

I look forward to these trips because it gives me an opportunity to connect with people in person. Usually I spend most of my days on the phone and writing emails, and I've found it reinvigorating to get out of my Workshifting haven and back on the streets.

This got me wondering whether there is a "magic distance" that makes Workshifting work.

I'm not sure, for example, if I would be as happy in my current arrangement if I lived somewhere where I wouldn't be able to hop in my car and drive to the office within a reasonable time frame.

In theory you should be able to successfully work remotely from any distance. That IS the point, after all. But in practice, don't most of you visit the headquarters office on a regular basis?

In my onion, face-to-face time in the office is important for a number of reasons:

• It allows me to give and receive updates on ongoing projects. 
• It lets me participate, in real-time, in the decision making process. 
• It gives me a chance to socialize and catch up with colleagues and clients. 
• It allows me to stay fully informed about what's going on in the office. 
• It gives me visibility with my supervisors and offers a chance to ask questions, express views, offer ideas, and give and receive feedback.

I find it comforting to know that I can be back in the office within 2-4 hours, if needed.

What do you think? Is there a magic Workshifting distance for you? Do you have to be able to drive to your headquarters? Or are you ok with only making office visits once a quarter or perhaps even 1-2 per year?

Photo Credit: insaneninja

Sometimes we don't have a choice. Like not being able to leave the house because snow is packed against the storm door. Or not being able to get the car out of the garage because a five-foot snowdrift is jammed against the garage door. Or not being able to drive to work because a two-day blizzard has ushered in dangerously cold winds and more snow than can be cleared easily even with my city's fleet of 150 snowplows.

Mother Nature gave folks in the Twin Cities a heartless punch a couple of weeks ago that still smarts. Days after the snow has stopped swirling, muscles ache from moving mountains of snow from where it landed to where I'd prefer it to be. I'm no stranger to snow; I was born in the Midwest, and though I've had a taste of the good life in California (e.g., the beach at Christmas and flip-flops in January), my family opted to return to the Midwest for reasons that included "seasons" and "weather," and even "snow."

But this storm was a different animal--more ferocious and wild than regular winter. It brought the heartiest among us to knees in bitter agony as snow fell an inch per hour. For two excruciatingly long days, snow pelted frosted windows, accumulated in masses that hid my greyhounds from view, and slapped against exposed faces. Tragically, about a dozen people died during this storm from heart attacks while shoveling, traffic accidents, and house fires that emergency vehicles simply couldn't reach.

Despite the very real dangers of a storm of this magnitude, people put down shovels and silenced snow blowers once Monday rolled around. It was time to commute to workplaces across the city and suburbs. Never mind that the streets weren't entirely cleared of snow. Or that school was canceled because the temperature was considered too dangerous for kids waiting for buses.

Of course, I appreciate that some work must be done at a specific location. One of our neighbors is a resident at a hospital and was scheduled for an ER shift smack-dab in the middle of the storm. He knew he would never make it to work by car, so he donned winter boots and walked the three miles instead. I should mention that he's of Icelandic origin.

For those of us who aren't Icelandic or doctors and who simply need secure access to project files, corporate apps, and email, taking a day or two to work remotely should not even be up for debate--particularly when roads are impassable and weather is dangerous. One more vehicle stuck in a snowdrift does nothing for a worker's productivity and actually presents another delay in getting roads cleared for everyone else (particularly emergency vehicles).

The world is unpredictable. But we can be certain that snow, earthquakes, floods, fires, and tornadoes will interrupt our working lives from time to time. These inevitable natural events will sometimes make travel dangerous or impossible. And they will hopefully make us think differently about how we can effectively be both productive and safe.

As for the Metrodome's roof collapse, all I can offer is this: Even the Vikings aren't immune from a weather-related workplace disruption.

Photo Credit: Jason Wermager

Guilt is a funny thing. It's amazing how quickly that nagging voice can kick in, leading us to question our actions or feel that we have fallen short of some kind of accepted standard. Workshifting comes with its own set of guilty feelings.

First off, there's that little thing of the commute. My husband and I live in Chicago, a city that is renowned for its gridlocked highways and nightmarish commutes. While most days I have a commute of about 1.5 seconds - the time it takes me to walk from our bedroom to my office - my husband spends anywhere from an hour and a half to more than two hours commuting from our home just north of the city to his office out in the suburbs.

On most days I get up later than him and still start my work day a good 45-60 minutes before he even reaches his desk. While I jokingly tell people that he's commuting "for the both of us," there's not a day that goes by when I'm not marred with guilt about our huge discrepancies in commuting time.

Working from home can also lead to a pretty interesting mix of feelings of guilt. On the one hand, I often feel guilty about focusing exclusively on work when there are things to be done around the house. On the other hand, if I'm doing laundry or running errands, I often feel guilty about not working. 

I still find it hard to step away from my desk during the work day - even if it's for something like running to the bank or picking up milk. I know this probably doesn't make much sense. After all, I'm not taking advantage of the very things that attracts so many people to Workshifting. I guess there's just something about the 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. workday that is so ingrained in my system.

Finally, I also often feel guilty when I feel I'm not working "hard" enough. This is especially the case when my workload is low. There's just something about sitting alone, without deadlines and pressing projects that makes me feel extremely uncomfortable and almost "worthless." It's completely different than when you're in an office and everyone around you is having a slow day.

I wonder if these things will change the longer I work outside of a traditional office environment. What about you guys? Do you share similar feelings of guilt?


Photo Credit: Music2Work2

Today Andrew Millard stops by from across the pond to help launch a new whitepaper concerning smarter commuting as part of the UK's third annual National Commute Smart week.  Andrew is the eCommerce Director of EMEA at Citrix Online.

The daily commute.  It's a thought that can send a chill down the spine of even the cheeriest soul.  Battling congested roads in rush hour, waiting on station platforms for delayed trains and squeezing onto packed buses.

If that's not bad enough, the evenings are starting to get colder and certainly darker, with the clocks going back recently, making the daily commute that bit harder.  

This week the UK's third annual National Commute Smart Week is taking place, with the aim of encouraging workers to reduce or even eliminate their daily commute to improve health, wellbeing and productivity.  

It's an initiative that peaked my interest and I was keen to find out more about the feasibility of introducing smarter, and more flexible, working approaches. So to coincide with Commute Smart Week, we commissioned some consumer research to uncover the real picture of commuting in the UK and pose the question: is there a 'smarter' way to commute?

How do UK workers commute?

The survey found that collectively, British workers spend around 26 million hours every single day commuting. While that works out to be an average of 49 minutes per person, there are one in ten of us who are travelling for a minimum of two hours every day.  

It can be a painful experience and when asked about the biggest frustrations with commuting, being stuck in traffic topped the list, with travelling in the darker winter months and the expense of commuting close behind. One in five Brits were annoyed about wasting time which could be spent more productively.

Given those results, it was no surprise to find that around two-thirds of us Brits want to reduce the time we spend commuting.

So what's the alternative?

It was clear from the research that British workers are frustrated by many aspects of their commute and that there is a real desire to improve or reduce their journeys. The people we surveyed were clear about the benefits of smarter commuting, particularly in achieving a greater work-life balance by reducing the amount of time wasted 'in limbo', neither at work or at home.

Many respondents identified ways smarter commuting could work in practice, such as working flexible hours so they could travel outside of peak hours, and working from home to avoid the commute altogether. Technology was seen as the great enabler, providing the tools to allow workers to connect with their workplace, colleagues and clients and carry out their job from any location.

Is it feasible?

Now I'm not suggesting that every business should rush to adopt smarter working practices just because workers are a bit frustrated with their commute. It's highly likely that businesses are placing even more value on a visible, highly productive and engaged workforce in our competitive and challenging economy.

But taking a more flexible approach, and utilising the widely available and low-cost internet tools that can enable this, could provide the key to businesses acquiring and retaining the best talent, improving staff morale and loyalty, and as a result, maximise productivity of their workforce.

By working together, employers and employees can gain a better understanding of each others' needs, assess the right approaches and test a range of options, which will help to transform the British workplace into a highly productive environment, while serving the work-life balance needs of employees.

You can download a whitepaper, revealing the full results of the Commute Smart research.

Photo by: raindog