The Cloud Eh!?

Tag: Workspaces

My Work from Home Story

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I have been working from home for the last eight years. I have gained some valuable lessons during that time, one item stood out, and that was the habits I created while working in an office.

It’s natural to create habits; we all do it, without knowing. Over time, these cycles become second nature, and that is because we created practices over days, months or even years. I am going to assume here, you have patterns that you use day after day for your job!

How is this helpful? Because you can morph the habits that you had for the office into your new surroundings, your home!

The first step is hammering down the habits you have today, for your office life.

What do you do when commuting to the office? Who do you talk to when you get to the office? Break time, what do you do? When you finish up for the day, what are your closing tasks?

In principle, it sounds straightforward, and it is if you stick to the habits you already have created. If you have a team meeting every morning, you still can. If you talked with a co-worker at the water cooler every morning, call them up on your break. You shared lunch banter with someone every day, still do. Overall, you don’t have to change your habits, and you will just do them differently. It takes time and discipline to keep to your old habits, but you will.

Trying to stick to your patterns are key, and will make working from home, a hotel, or at the office the same experience.

If you are having trouble sticking to your old habits, you can create new ones, a book I read a few years ago helped me. It is logical, and makes 100% sense. The book author S.J. Scott delivers his methods in a easy to consume format, with specifics examples on how to “Habit Stack”. Check it out on Amazon

While working from home, you may not have the same data protection that an office environment provided. Rick Vanover has you covered over at the Veeam blog, have a read.

The majority of my acquaintances are in IT and have amazing home-labs. Who knows they might be willing to share their labs with you? Or you might want to share your resources? This must be done securely, have a look at the following blog on how to Install, Configure, and share securely with VeeamPN.

VMUG Workspaces–Connect with your Community

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Why do we all go to the VMUG Meetings? I know why I go, I enjoy talking with people from my local community, who are like of mind. I gain so much value from being around such a smart group of people, who are usually trying to accomplish the same thing I am trying to do. It’s great to pick their minds and see what they are doing, and what is working for their environments but also what isn’t, no need to go down a rabbit hole if someone else has.

Us IT folks love to talk about what we are doing…. We don’t always do well in the normal social circles, but in our own, when we talk the talk, and people understand what we do, and why we are passionate, we just can’t stay quite. Just look at Twitter, the proof is in the pudding. We use social networking, and reach out to people across border’s and oceans, which is amazing……. and it gives us the ability to reach out to people normally we wouldn’t be able to.

Ok where am I go with this? Local VMUG Workspaces!!!

Local VMUG’s usually only have 4 meetings a year. Is that really enough? Yes, we are all busy in our Careers and personal life. But do you still want to reach out to your local community? I know I do, and that is why I head over to my Local VMUG Workspace, and post a discussion. This way I can easily reach out to my Local peers, and see what they are up too… see if anyone is up for a vBeer, if they can help me with an issue I am experiencing, any study tips for certifications, and so many other things. Couldn’t we also do this with Twitter? We sure can, but why not also post it to your local community and maybe get someone locally to assist who may not use social networking as heavily. I’m not saying lets move away from twitter, but lets give a little bit of love to a great solution also provided to us free of charge.

If you agree with this, head over to your local VMUG workspace when you have a few moments, update your profile, subscribe to the ListServ, and start a new discussion. You may be surprised what may come of it.

If you are reading this, and you aren’t a member of the VMUG head over to www.vmug.com and register today! It opens up a wealth of connections and knowledge. You will get to know your local VMware Reps, Local Members, and more vendor connections then you could imagine.