Purchasing your home is one of the biggest and most important decisions that you can make. Tammy Wandzura is a Trusted Saskatoon Mortgage broker and the team at Elite Mortgage Choice believe that buying a home should also be an exciting experience with little to NO stress. By trusting your Saskatoon Mortgage Broker, you are ensuring that any stress you may have had in previous encounters can be eliminated! Tammy truly believes that all you should have to worry about is opening the door to your new home for the very first time. In her latest Mortgage tip she shares tips on working from home!
Many of us through COVID have been plunged into a ‘work from home’ scenario.
What does that (really) look like to you?
- How have you been managing?
- Do you have a dedicated workspace?
- Do you have kids at home?
- Have you been able to catch up with the technology you need to be connected to? (Zoom, double screens, fast enough internet etc)
- Are you working more efficiently? (or as efficient as you expected?)
- Are you working too much?
- Will this be your ‘new normal’ moving forward post COVID?
- Do you like it?? Love it?? Hate it??
Everyone’s situations are vastly different and the experience will look much different to every person and household.
I want to reach out to the super social, work-a-holic type folks out there!
How are you managing?
Working from home can be a real challenge for these types of people. Take it from me!
I personally started working from home 2 1/2 years ago; after 15+ years of working from a brick and mortar office.
I have been working “remotely” without of Province clients or clients that preferred a SIMPLIFIED process and service level for MANY years…so the transition from a workflow perspective was very simple.
Rewind to my feelings of working from home a couple of years back?
PURE Joy and Excitement
- The extra time to prioritize me (health and wellness)
- The extra time to keep the house up
- The extra time….
- No outside distractions
- No need to ‘get ready’ every single day…could I really work in my pj’s all day if I wanted to!@!?!?
The REALITY of working from home is a touch different. (which I am sure many of you are experiencing?)
I still ♥♥♥ it! And would NOT change it for the world! BUT it does not come without its own challenges AND I have learned many lessons over the last couple of years.
First of all… working from home has not made my life any less busy.
I am a bonfide 100% self-proclaimed work-a-holic.
That can be good…and that can be bad ☺
When I worked from an office- my days were long but I had the option of “shutting it down for the day” most days.
I LOVE my job, I LOVE my clients, I LOVE my industry and I LOVE what I do. So “shutting it down” is not always in the cards when the office is only 5 steps down the stairs.
I honestly have NO PROBLEM at all rolling downstairs- to my office with a hot cup of coffee at 6am or 7am and will work all through the day until well after supper time without a thought.
Many folks I talk to – wonder how I get any work done all day working from home…?
They have communicated they would be watching TV, doing laundry, sitting on the patio….
Warning: if you are a work-a-holic and you love what you do….working from anywhere is not a problem!
To be honest, it’s turned me into a bit of a procrastinator. My personal life stuff tends to get put on the back burner more than it used to.
When I was working outside of the home- I was pit stopping throughout the day or on my way home (groceries, dry cleaning, shopping etc) & house stuff (cleaning, yard work etc) was getting done at record speeds…because there was only so much time in the day…and stuff still had to get done.
NOW: leaving the house needs to be a real plan. Cleaning…well…I am a clean freak, so yes my house is generally clean- but it often gets done “tomorrow” or the day after that.
What I learned really quickly….?
- If there is a day or week that is not crazy busy. TAKE IT!
When you work from home – (for me at least, as a self-employed person) if work is not my normal ‘crazy busy’ ….I feel guilty and feel like I should be trying to create projects to get the phone ringing. When I worked from the downtown office, I would take that odd opportunity to grab my cell phone (any incoming calls), close up the office for the day and go out to LIVE LIFE.
So the advice: keep building that business but take some time once in a bit to absorb this one life we have!
Make it a priority to plan a coffee or lunch date (post-COVID) out of the home office with friends or colleagues a couple of times per week.
Suit up!Not really…but GET UP early, Make your bed, SHOWER and look pretty.
There is nothing worse than working in your PJ’s for 5 days in a row with ‘bed head’ and then wondering why life feels so un-motivating.
I am still struggling with this….(as I sit here in my PJ’s) but I can tell you- without a shadow of a doubt I feel like a million bucks when I get ready and throw a ‘real outfit’ on!
I can work from A N Y W H E R E !
We lead a busy life. I had to create a process that allowed me to keep you with it!
We actually thrive from being ‘over the top busy’. It’s how we do our best work.
My business is consistently hopping all through the year, my husband is a grain farmer (so Spring through to mid-November is even busier) and we love spending time in sunny Costa Rica where we are fortunate to have a modest condo and have the opportunity to spend a few weeks- a couple of months per year
Having my business set up remotely has allowed me to be 100% available – working ‘full time’ all while LIVING life.I have the same office set up at home, at the farm and in Costa Rica. I grab my laptop, my office phone (Voice over the internet) and off I go. Ready to ‘plug and play’!
The single biggest challenge
- Create a self wellness routine now!
This may be the hardest thing and something I still struggle with every single day. (Its EASY to put work and everything else before YOU)
I work from home. I have zero excuses and I absolutely always have 30-60 minutes a few times per week to take care of myself.
Simple goals I talk to myself about every night before bed:
- A daily walk
- Fresh, clean and healthy snacks and meals available
- Take your vitamins!
- Do a work out!
Sounds easy right? Well, it doesn’t seem to be as easy as it sounds! ☺
(OH! and DRINK WATER!)
At the end of the day, every person's priorities are different.
There used to be an opinion about folks that worked from home.
- We didn’t work as hard
- Our systems were not as secure or efficient
- We were not always available (because we are tending to home duties)
- We didn’t really ‘want to’ work full time anymore…
This is NOT the case at all. As you can see from my experience above I have been busier and working harder than ever.
Efficient? I think “work from hom’ers” are CRAZY efficient. Setting systems up to WOW clients and creating solid SIMPLIFIED workflows for the office and the client experience.
I think the COVID crisis has created some harsh realities and truths for many of us to sit up and take notice of.
Life can change in a blink.
Working remotely is a “thing”. It's a thing that can work very well- BUT with everything, there is a learning curve. (likely both from a technology standpoint and personal)
I am and will continue to be your Mortgage Broker.
I will never stop LOVING this industry, the people I get to meet, work with, assist and create friendships with.
I will always answer your calls and emails in a super speedy manner- providing top-notch service and SIMPLIFIED, MORTGAGE solutions.
If we have had the opportunity to work together- you know our office response time is well beyond what most anticipate.
I am forever grateful for the opportunity to work from home (or anywhere) and will continue to create personal goals to fine-tune my own personal experience and process to LIVE MY BEST LIFE.
If you are working from home and have some tips for ME, my followers and anyone that has engaged in this article PLEASE pass along!
Working from home is a fairly new concept for most and any TIPS would always be greatly appreciated!
Call Tammy Wandzura today Saskatoon mortgage needs OR visit www.elitemortgagechoice.com
Tammy Wandzura is a Trusted Saskatoon Mortgage broker
