How can you 'job craft' as a homeworker?
The secret to making your work better lies in crafting. When we say crafting, we don’t mean arts and crafts. Although, that would be fun. We mean job crafting.
Job crafting enables and encourages us to personalise our work.
Although every job has a fundamental structure and design, job crafting encourages us to align our work with our individual strengths, skills and interests.
We can tailor our work around our tasks, relationships and thoughts about work. Taking more control of our tasks and tapping into our unique strengths and experiences helps us thrive at work, boosting feelings of satisfaction, confidence, happiness and meaning, and even having a positive impact on our physical health by buffering stress.
The impact of job crafting can be huge, having a lasting effect on our resilience, engagement and performance in the workplace.
How can you job craft as a homeworker?
There are 5 main ways you can craft your job; task crafting, purpose crafting, relationship crafting, wellbeing crafting and skill crafting.
We will provide you with a definition of each and 3 examples of ways you can craft with each.
Task crafting - tangibly changing aspects of how we undertake our work including designing, adding or removing tasks.
Working from home may mean you have less of a rigid structure in terms of how you do things in the office. So, this may give you the freedom to prioritise tasks you wouldn’t normally do at work.
Start your day with your most dreaded task: This way you’re getting it over and done with and you can start the day with a feeling of accomplishment.
Reframe how you think about a task: If you really can’t find enjoyment in a task, think about why am I doing this, who will benefit from it? You may hate doing expense claims, but actually is this a way of you showing care and responsibility for the finances of your business?
Change how you do the task: If you’re doing something and it’s not working, change it! Try a different method and see what works better. For example, you might want to try working in 20 minute bursts of focussed time and see if this works for you.
Purpose crafting - reframing how we think about our work in general including the value and significance it brings to us personally and others.
Write down 3 good things: At the end of your working day write down 3 good things. This will enable you to feel a sense of achievement and connect with the meaning and purpose of your job.
Get feedback on your work: Getting feedback from a colleague or manager can help you reflect and see what you did well/could improve on.
Write down your passions: Can you align them with the work that you’re doing?
Relationship crafting - shaping how we relate and engage with others, including building and adapting our relationship with co-workers.
Virtual tea/coffee afternoons: Connect with colleagues on zoom.
Send a nice email to a colleague: Start your day with a nice email, that way you and the other person will feel better.
Virtual walking meetings: Can you get some fresh air whilst walking and chatting with a colleague?
Wellbeing crafting - boosting our physical and mental health through the work we do.
Do something on your lunch break to alleviate your wellbeing: Walk? Yoga? Time with your pet? Favourite tv show?
Virtual commute? If you need to mentally prepare yourself for work before and wind down after, can you go for a short walk to decompress?
Switch off after work:. Make sure you’re disconnecting from notifications and emails. This will help you to relax.
Skill crafting - developing, refining and focusing on new skills.
Set aside time to learn new skills: Can you learn something new at work that you’re interested in?
Focus on an area you find difficult in your role: Can you find out more about it, watch tutorials or retrain?
Build on your expertise and strengths: If there is an area of work you are particularly skilled or interested in, explore ways to deepen your knowledge. For example, if you enjoy using spreadsheets, is there a way to learn new skills and tricks in terms of how you analyse data.
Start crafting today
The secret to job crafting is to start small. Identify one small change you want to make and then just do it. What are you going to do differently tomorrow that is going to make your work more tailored to you?
We'd love to hear about how you got on - please connect and share this with us.
Likewise if you have any questions or need any guidance. (https://www.linkedin.com/company/tailored-thinking).
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