Once Drawn a Time in America

We’re firm believers in the idea that the combined impact of globalization and digital transformation, paired with a new generation of consumers who want more freedom and say in their lives, will reshuffle the modern lifestyle as we know it. It’s an inevitable movement towards more freedom, flexibility and control over how we choose to live our day-to-day.

Working remotely

Headquartered in Hong Kong, for better or worse, we were one of the first countries in the world to experience full time remote working. The sudden mandatory arrangement was a surprise for us too, as it is now for many in other parts of the world – but through some initial trial and error, we were able to create a scenario that worked for each of us.

This week, as we join many in Europe and the United States in our second season of ‘forced’ work from home, we hope that the things we learned during the first round comes in handy.

The feeling of isolation that came from going to a 50-person office to almost complete separation is hard to avoid.

Block your day

This doesn’t mean replicating the exact day you’d have in the office. Working from home means spending the day in a completely different environment, with different priorities, especially for those with kids, and with a different schedule that makes sense for each person.

Maybe that means starting the work portion of your day earlier to accommodate a block for home schooling later in the afternoon. Maybe it means blocking a longer lunch break for quality family time and incorporating a later end-of-work time. Whatever your personal blocks of time look like, the crux is to make sure that times for work, play, and life are kept distinct, both mentally and physically, to the extent that they can be.

Keep work organized

For us, it was almost like the mental boost you get from dressing properly for your stay-at-home work day. A step that might seem trivial, but one that was more important than we thought for maintaining the different aspects of our lives while being confined to our homes. Especially in a city like Hong Kong where space is limited for most, keeping our work gear separate was a small hack that helped with productivity as well as mental clarity.

Organization is key, not just in terms of prioritizing the things we have to do, but keeping all the tools and devices you need to do it, neat and easy to keep track of.

For us, the goal through all this is to introduce remote working in a way that prepares us better for flexible working arrangements post-pandemic. In a way, it’s a rare chance to experiment and explore what works and what doesn’t when it comes to staying productive within a non-traditional work routine. We’re hoping other brands and companies globally are also approaching this period of forced working from home in the same way. Because at the end of the day, this is the future of work in the modern age.