I’m Dr Adrian Cable, VP R&D at Lifesize, and you’re watching episode 5 of my series on “advanced collaboration." This week, we’re continuing our arc of hybrid work – and today, we’re going to talk about how to create effective work-from-home habits when you’re surrounded by distractions! And how some distractions can actually help you have productive and creative workdays.

Let's talk about bad distractions: Planes! Trains! Doorbells! Dogs! Kids! Working from home is quite different from working in an office, due to unprompted distractions. Depending on the kind of work you do, if you need focus, it might be harder to find that reliably at home than in the office you worked at before the pandemic.

In the past months, I’ve spoken to many people in different industries who’ve told me about the tools and techniques they use to minimize the damage of bad distractions. Unfortunately, the most common tool is "nothing at all." People think they can bring the same work habits from their office into their home office and still be productive, but it just doesn’t work. And while a lot of the things I’m about to say sound obvious, surprisingly few people I have engaged with on this topic do most or all of them. They make a huge difference. Please give them a go and let me know how you get on.