Working from home during the coronavirus scare: My expert tips

If you get it right, working from home can be liberating and joyously efficient. Photo / 123rf

Quarantine. It's a new one for most of us, I expect. The closest I've ever come to it is in naval adventure novels, when yellow fever was constantly threatening to decimate the Caribbean fleet.

Yet as I write this, the numbers of afflicted continue to rise across the globe, parts of Europe are in lockdown and some British companies are advising employees to stay at home. America is making plans to close schools and sneezing on the New York subway is now a fast track to instant pariahdom.

As coronavirus spreads, quarantine is becoming very real. I'm writing this in Chinatown, New York, where the usually blaring streets are bizarrely quiet. Foot traffic is down, as is restaurant custom. New Yorkers love their Chinese, but the appeal of Wuhanese hot dry noodles in particular seems to have lessened of late.

Not being an economist, nor an epidemiologist, nor one of those self-appointed contagious disease experts popping up all over Twitter, I will leave the graver aspects of this virus to others. There is one area, though, where I do have useful expertise: working from home.

Of course, foreign correspondents do lots of very important things, such as visit disaster zones and attend momentous press conferences. But the rest of the time they join the lonely ranks of the domestic office worker.

If you get it right, working from home can be liberating and joyously efficient. If you get it wrong, however, you end up a bit like Gollum from The Lord of the Rings: hiding in your cave alone, eating raw fish and fretting over lost gold.

So, in case you do find yourself in professional isolation, here are some useful suggestions for tackling life outside the office:

Do … all the civilised things. Open your blinds, get dressed, shave, put make-up on. The first hour of working from home sets the tone for what comes next. If you roll downstairs and start eating cereal in your pyjamas, doom awaits. In the words of William McRaven, a US admiral: "If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed." That's how he took down Bin Laden.

Don't … eat crunchy peanut butter directly from the jar. Not for lunch. Not for tea. Nor dinner or breakfast. Nor really at any other time. Work-from-homers eat like pregnant women, eccentrically and voraciously. Other pitfalls include whole blocks of parmesan cheese and granola à la box.

Do … floss while you work. Why not? No one is around to judge. Your gums will thank you.

Don't … work in cafes. No one ever gets anything serious done in cafes. It's a lovely idea, holing up in the corner of a cozy coffee shop — MacBook, latte, crashing through your day's work. But it's a mirage filled with muzak, passive-aggressive eavesdropping and battles over charger sockets.

Do … dance. Working from home can be a sedentary business, even more so than in an office. So dance, preferably to the Gypsy Kings, whenever you can, like nobody's watching. Because they aren't.

Don't … open YouTube. This one speaks for itself. Ben Stokes: Man of Honour, The 17 Best Deaths from Game of Thrones … the site's algorithms have become terrifyingly good.

Do … get a pet. Preferably a dog, because then you have to leave the house to walk it. And because cats are all miserable, selfish bastards. If, for whatever reason, you don't like animals, then get some really elaborate house plants. Watering them will make you feel human again, if only for a passing moment, before you return to your unconquerable to-do list and sad, lonely laptop.

Written by: Josh Glancy
© The Times of London