 of Hacks for Hybrid Working. We're so excited to have you back here. And thanks to everyone who has participated thus far and have joined us on this journey of Hacks for Hybrid Working. How are you, Maren? Yeah, really good. I've been enjoying the conversations in Discord. Great to see folk joining in. And really interesting to hear all the different kind of problems and solutions and tips being shared. So I'm really looking forward to this week. Awesome, me as well. So if you're just now joining for the first time, have no fear. We have recordings from the first two sessions available on this display site. And we'll make sure to share all the links in the chat as well, just to situate and make sure you have all the various resources in front of you. So we spent week one just kind of laying the foundation with Hacks for Hybrid Working unpacked. And last week, we kind of did a deeper dive in digital tools in the virtual workplace. And so it might make sense first to recap last week quickly for those that are just joining. And then we will set the stage for this week. So Maren, did you want to kick us off with a quick recap? Sure thing. So for those of us who joined us last week, we were looking at the digital tools and technologies we're using. And one of the main things we thought about was what works and what doesn't and why. So we looked at our roadmap that we started in week one with the Hybrid Working Wheel, where we reflected on all the different aspects of hybrid working and how it's working for us in our particular context. And we moved on from that and thought particularly around tools and technologies. And for that, we went on to the second part of the roadmap where we had a different meter from green to red or from smiley face to frowny face and looked at all the different types of tools. And some of the things we looked at was, which technologies you can use. But we also reflected on kind of, how can you detox your relationship with technology? What are some of the common sort of trip hazards when it comes to your digital workplace? And also what do we do when we think about fatigue for technology and digital tools? So at the end of last week, you should have started your hybrid working roadmap. And if you haven't, don't fear. There are in every blog post links to the roadmap. So just head over there and you can jump in from this week and you can also look back at the previous weeks. And we asked you to make a list of the tools and platforms that you use for hybrid working and decide where on the spectrum they fall. Are they green? Are you liking them? Are they working well? Are they effective? Or are they more towards the other end of the spectrum? And they're really not working for you. So that's what we got up to last week. Awesome. And this week, I think we're kind of building on that idea of how we're reflecting on these digital tools, how they're working for us. And then also building on that with the idea of just sharing hacks that make life a little bit easier working in these hybrid or distributed or fully remote models. So that's what I'm also really excited about. I think I say that every week, but I also mean it this week too. I think it's just gonna end up being like a big list of hacks and tips and tricks for working in these spaces. We also have a couple articles that have been linked in the blog post and just past supplementary resources that we'll make sure to share as well as you're unpacking that this week and building on your own hybrid working roadmaps. Well, I'm keen to kind of provide a bit more context before we jump in because I'm also really excited. We have a whole bonanza of things to explore this week, which hopefully will provide a bit of fun. You can get stuck in trying out different things. But before we do that, I just wanted to reflect a little bit with you Lauren and with everybody here in a conversation about what agency do we have as home workers or as workers in a hybrid workplace? What's within our control? What do we have influence over? What can we change? But also what sort of issues might be outside of that scope of our control and might be more the responsibility of our employers of the organizations that we work with, the teams we are part of. So one of the examples of that, for example, that I wanted to mention is that, if you work in an office, you would be expecting your equipment to be provided maybe by your employer. There should be a desk, there should be a chair, there should be appropriate environment to work in. And I think when it comes to hybrid working, things can very quickly turn a little bit into a sort of gray zone. Like, is it your responsibility to provide your own desk and chair and computer equipment and other things? Is it the employer's responsibility? What sort of rules do apply? Is it the same rules or are there different rules? How is working in a home environment different from working in an office environment? And so one of the things we want to emphasize before we jump into the exploring all the hanks is that whilst there is a lot that we can do to improve our environments, there's also things that our employers are responsible for, or the organizations we run. So Lauren, I know that you might have thoughts on that as well. Any particular points you want to make? Yeah, I think you raised a good point, Marin, because obviously today's session is all about sharing hacks and things that we can control, but I think part of that conversation or the caveat there is also acknowledging that there are things outside of our control too. And these hacks are meant to help and improve, but there are some things that, you do have to have the support from your employer in order to build out time for connection with your colleagues. And a lot of the hacks that we'll cover today do kind of assume that you have that support. And so I think, yes, you're absolutely right. The caveat here is that there are some situations where that support is not there, and that's maybe an indicative of a larger issue that hacks alone cannot fix. So it is worth mentioning and acknowledging, absolutely. Yeah, and if you are in a situation where actually you're thinking, I'd like to learn more about this or what sort of policies are in place, maybe on a national level or on an international level. That's one area that I've kind of researched quite heavily for the book, Leading Virtual Teams, because that's one of the things I wanted to find out about. What does the policy landscape look like? Like employment legislation is probably not the sexiest of topics. So I'm gonna make a deep dive into it now, don't worry. But if this is something you wanna find out about, there is actually a really interesting research and I'll be happy to share and discord for those of you who are interested, obviously. But also just to point out that there is a lot where there is data gaps. There's a lot that we do know and there's a lot of legislation that is happening across the world, but it's also a lot of gray area because hybrid working at scale is still quite a new thing. It's not been a long time. Homeworking is not a new thing, but hybrid working definitely is. And the way that most of our employers set up, that's still a new thing for most of them. And many of them will just be winging it and now they're trying to make it up, right? So yeah, but I'm happy to carry on that conversation of discord. And if anybody has particular questions, feel free to just DM me or just ask on discord. Awesome, thank you, Miran. So I think for the rest of today's discussion though, we will be focusing on things that we hopefully do have the power to control that make our working environments just that much easier or better or more efficient. So we'll be covering a range of topics that help, you know, hacks that you can try for yourself versus hacks that you can try with your team or changes that you can make in your environment. So do we wanna jump into that? Yes, yes, let's, I'm looking forward to it. Awesome, I will add the slides then in here and we'll get started. Great, thanks Lauren. Yeah, we're gonna go and jump right in. And as we mentioned, this is part of our hacks for hybrid working roadmap. And this week we're gonna focus on part three and we're going to be looking at different hacks and Lauren and I are gonna start in a moment to explore those. And then at the end of the session today, we're gonna be coming back to ask you to reflect on what hacks you could try for yourself, what hacks you could try for your team and which single hack could immediately improve your day and why. Now, one of the things that I love saying is something that my yoga teacher used to say a lot it's used in mindfulness in general. It's just to think about what you could do to make your day that 1% more comfortable. And I think we often kind of get stuck thinking, oh, there's so much going on I don't know how to change it all. But what is the one thing that might make a difference? So those are some suggestions that we have for us today and we're gonna relate each of them back to what we discussed at the very beginning and week one with the hybrid working wheel and reflect on how some of these hacks could help you up your scores in those areas that you've identified. So I'm looking forward to jumping right in. So Lauren, I hope we're gonna start chatting about that straight away, but one thing that I wanted to start with was that idea of making the work space more comfortable. 1% is not a lot, so how could you do that? In my own workspace, I've experimented with lots of different things. I've got lots of books. This is actually a photo of my actual bookshelf. So you can have a little bit of a look of what sort of books I look at when I look next to my desk, just here on the left. I also went as far as deciding on a custom mouse map. So I have a Femm EdTech mouse map that makes me happy. And I have a mouse that has rainbow colors while you're using it. So I've gone very colorful. But Lauren, what makes a difference in your workspace? What makes it more comfortable? I love this question and I love the phrase or the starter question about 1% more comfortable because you said it's not a lot, but for me that makes it easier to achieve or easier to try, right? Because if you say, oh, I've got to have mounted monitors and this full spread, you can get overwhelmed with this idea of having this perfect setup when if you just focus on, okay, let's just make easy decisions or easy, subtle changes that can help. I think it's much more achievable and manageable. And so for me, I think off of this list, I like to surround myself with things that inspire me. So I have a corkboard on my wall to the right here, which I don't think I've actually shared. So maybe I'll put that in the spot, but it just has a lot of photo booth strips, quotes and things that I've collected. Again, just things that generally make me happy and inspire me and I like looking at it every day. And so, and it's constantly changing. So that's something that I have on my wall. And I know others have shared in the spot pictures or art sort of surrounding their desk. And I think it's so interesting to see what others like to look at every day. Cause of course we can't see that behind us. I also think it's funny and probably a requirement that both of us have a Montserrat plant in our background. And I think we're also wearing the same color today too. So I don't know, we didn't plan that, but it just happened, I guess. So yes, I definitely, I like having plants and things that sort of inspire me in my working setting. I think it's really interesting what you mentioned about the pictures on this block because one of the things I'm really sure about that many of you are keen gamers because some of those setups are definitely not just for work. So I know that some of you are keen gamers for sure. But some of you are also working in temporary spaces. So you might be hot desking on the kitchen table whilst kids are coming home from school or when in between going to the office, going to pick up, doing other things. And I think I used to work a huge amount of time on trains like in the UK when I was traveling a lot. And I found my laptop became a really important object for me to feel kind of grounded in workspace, particularly in transition. So I got completely addicted to laptop stickers and I really tried to only put stickers on my laptop that I've really liked because it would just make me feel happy that whilst I was on a train, it might be uncomfortable. My laptop was on my knees. It was typing all hands sharp. But it made me feel better and it made a small change. Yeah, especially if your office is truly just that space. For me, it's my work bag when I'm traveling like invested in a really good work bag that I love. And it's super convenient. It has all the right pockets in the right place. And again, things like that, that can make a big difference. And I think also before we move to the next slide, I will just say, I think you opened a can of worms talking about laptop stickers because you're with the crowd that likes those. And I have a film that I added to the top of my laptop so I can put stickers on top of that. And then when it built up, you just take the film off. And then you can keep those. So yeah, I have a friend from high school even and he has multiple of these that he's turned into like a larger community. Yeah, so I'll put that stuff in the chat too. Don't you worry. That sounds brilliant. So focusing on your homework environment, have a look around if you are in your homework environment whilst you're in a session and just think, well, we'll make a tiny difference. If you make a tiny difference every week over the course of a couple of months, that makes a big difference. So I know it sounds simple, but it does work. Are you ready to move on? Lauren, I know we could talk more about laptop stickers, but I feel maybe this is the next one. So this is an example of a hack to try with your team. This is called the randomized coffee trials. And I love this. If you're a spreadsheet person, this is a hack to have fun with and try for you. We'll also place the link into Discord. And it's obviously in this week's blog post. But basically, the idea is that a randomized coffee trial or RCT for short, these are STEM people who written this, is a rather fancy name for the idea that you connect different people within your organization. Now, this works particularly well if you have quite a large team and there's people there who don't meet each other very often or if you have a whole organization who might want to take part. And the idea is that every month you specify a time and two people get matched up randomly and meet for coffee. And this could be in person or online. And there was a spreadsheet which you could use. There's a free template and there was a whole kind of theory around this. And it's from a great site called conversational methods, which I really like because its idea is that you lead through conversation. So I think I love this idea. I must admit, I tried this with my team. They were not thrilled. They were like, I don't know what I'm gonna talk about. But I have seen this work really, really well and I've really enjoyed it and I take part in it. So yeah, what do you think Lauren? Would this be something you would try? I'm always game to try anything at least once. I think the introverted me is does have a similar reaction to what your team probably felt, which is like, oh gosh, okay, forced conversation. Here we go. But I think the other side of that too, and something that I've really learned more recently just in kind of prioritizing connection for a virtual team is if you build it, they will come. And that sort of concept of just if you put these processes in place, they may or may not be successful or take to everyone, but usually someone will find value or at least appreciate the effort of, this is a way that the employer is helping kind of support that term for connection too. So, I really, really do believe that having pathways in place for connection and communication is step one. And so I like that this is sort of a unique way at that with very little agenda and or planning about what conversation will be had because that's the other thing too, is anytime we've done hybrid working hours or just time to connect without a larger meeting agenda, they're always really successful and usually pretty fun and rewarding. So I like the idea for this and I would probably surprise myself in doing that too. Well, if you wanna get creative, you might decide to have randomized gin tasting or bring a cookie or something else, maybe go for a walk. I think the idea to connect with people randomly rather than people you have to have meetings with I think is a really strong one. And there are definitely people I work with regularly who I don't really get a lot of face time with particularly when I'm not co-located. So that's I think an option for you to try as your team. I think you've got the next one up here. So I'm gonna hand over to you. Absolutely. So, you know, works big tasks and things to try for yourself and your environment kind of again, building off of previous slides that we've had but just that idea that we're making our surroundings a bit more comfortable. So that could be something as simple as just, you know updating the keyboard or the mouse that you've got or thinking about the headphones and how you're taking in your environment as well. Light I also think is huge. So I wrote in a recent blog post that I'll make sure is shared. And I think it's in the blog post for this week as well is just having natural light for me. That's such a big part of the way that I work. Instead of feeling like I'm, you know, hold down in a cave. I think, you know, having the windows open and natural light is so important. One thing that's really made me consider for those of us particularly who, you know provide tech support, formal or informal is that, you know, I think it's extremely hard to get a sense of what people struggle with when you don't see holiday working, you know like when you see someone in an office and you can hear like their keyboard is broken or they might complain of glare or something like that. You'd probably walk over there and say, oh, you know do you need help? Can we fix this, you know, can I help in any way? But at home, like you don't really see that and you don't really see kind of people's everyday practice. And I think, similarly, I think we become a lot more prone to just make do, you know oh, it's not broken. It doesn't really work. It gives me back a, you know, I can't type properly. Like I think it's probably took me two years to buy one of these, like to put them in front of my keyboard and for ages I had like red ridges on my wrist from my standing desk and it didn't really bother me that much. So I never really thought, oh, we need to do something about this. And I think it's really about like care but also about taking ownership of your own kind of, you know, like needs at work, which is I think a hard thing to do as a hybrid person, you know, a hybrid worker. No, that's a great point. I think one of the, so one of the things that is maybe on the list in a future slide, but it feels relevant for what we're saying now. I have a coffee warmer that's on my desk and it feels, you know, when I bought it to you know it was like $15 or something and I remember thinking like this is a bit extra, Lauren. Like you don't really need to have a coffee warmer on your desk, but I love it because I always go to drink my coffee before it goes cold. And so having that as, you know, it again, it's that idea of just making things 1% better while I'm working. And I think the next thing I want to tackle is maybe actually a desk chair, something that, you know, I use it every day and sit in it all day long. And so making sure that that's comfortable, you know, would be important. So. Yeah, I've, I had to do that a couple of years ago and I found it quite tough, you know, not that office chairs that we don't choose are always that brilliant, but it is difficult. And I think that's also where the value proposition of home working can be challenging, you know, particularly if it's things that you decide to do that are outside of what employers fund kind of how do you decide? Is it more important to spend, you know, hard earned money on a better chair, you know, is that that's a really good example of where there is really gray areas of sort of, you know, what support is available and what should be available. So do before you make any decisions about what to get if you are making any decisions, do check and see if maybe there is support available that you weren't aware of or if there are any other options to explore. So yeah, what's the next one? Yeah, so this one for me is exciting and feels like, again, it's an extension of last week's conversation just around thinking about making sure that the tools that we have in place virtually are working well for us. And just like you would want to have a clean physical space I think it's also important to have a clear and clean virtual desktop as well. And so for me, one of the things that has worked well actually is having a desktop organizer as my background wallpaper because I can categorize my icons and downloads and things on my desktop as I need them into work or to do or important or personal. And so I have a couple of links that I've shared in a personal blog post so I'll make sure to put it in the chat here too. But it's something that it's very easy to add but has made a big difference for me. So I like that. I also really recommend cleaning up your browser bookmarks and login links. And again, it sounds so silly or subtle but just recently I went through and updated our login links for Zendesk which is a support ticketing software tool that we use. It's also how we manage our accounts. It manages our documentation. It's a huge platform for reclaim. And before updating these URLs, I mean, I was probably taking seven or eight clicks to just log in, which again, not a big deal, not the end of the world. And I just, as you were saying, I was just kind of dealing with it because whatever. But once updating them, I'm like logging in on the first click and it's just like why didn't I set this up way sooner because it's made a huge difference. So things like that where again, the 1%, the things that we can easily change that are gonna make things a bit easier to work with, I recommend doing, similar to that idea of spring cleaning, you know, and building off the digital detox that we talked about last week, going in and clearing out of applications or tools that are not useful for you. So if you refer back to your roadmap, the things that are in the red that are just maybe not working the way that they should be, can you reevaluate those or consolidate them to some degree so you're not having to check as many places? And the other thing I'll mention too, unsubscribing from emails, if you log into your inbox every morning and it's just a whole slew of spam, take five minutes each morning to click unsubscribe and depending on how many you're subscribed to, it could take a little while, but then suddenly you'll wake up one morning and your inbox will only be full of important things. And that feels really nice too, that you don't have to sift through this overwhelming inbox of 60 unread emails when it's only like 10 that are important. So yeah, Marin, what's helpful for you kind of in this space? I loved your blog post and I must admit that I had no idea what a desktop background organizer was before we worked on this course. It is not something I've ever come across and I absolutely fell in love with it. I was just like, this is so genius. How is that not something I know about? And that was such a, I open up for me, I really need one of those. So I've been like Googling and finding out like what I want and that was such a great idea. I also think a lot of what you talk about really resonates with me in the terms of having been in the same job for quite a long time because I think my work changes a lot, but I don't really kind of delete as much old links, bookmarks, folders, I totally have the five clicks to get somewhere because that's the way I know how to get there syndrome. And I so need to update links. And yeah, I think that's really powerful. One thing I was going to add to the discussion is I think it was a discussion I had with someone recently whenever describing about the challenge of managing kind of different places to add to dos and how things are managed. And they mentioned that really if it's in their calendar, which is generally things that are put there by other people, it happens. But if it's something that's like somewhere else on a list because it doesn't notify in the same way, it isn't like nudging you as much. It can easily slip down the list. I wonder if you have a thought on this where I think all of these texts that you've shared and your posts really help you put you in control of your digital workplace. And I wonder if you have any thoughts on that? Sort of what do you think is hardest to keep control of? That's a really good point. And I have another post that I'll share that gets more into time management because I think that conversations blend quite frequently especially in virtual spaces where you have a lot of places to check. You're asking a lot of projects and especially in these environments where a lot of that work can be invisible, it can go unseen, because you're not in person where you can huddle with someone together or, so it's that much more important to be able to articulate the work that we're doing to be able to give reasonable timelines and set expectations for the work in front of us. And so suddenly when you're in, when you're talking about working in hybrid settings, time management and work prioritization is a huge part of that. And I feel like we could run a whole other course on that in and of itself. I think in short, and again, I'll put this link in the chat as well, but I think in short being able to set goals for yourself around the work that you're doing. So being able to articulate what's on your plate at any given time and what's coming up that week. But then also, checking in with yourself regularly about those tasks and saying, okay, what am I needing to intentionally put on the back burner? And then revisiting that as a separate space, I have a back burner list of just ideas and goals and things that I would love to get to. And once a month I have a task or a reminder where I go in and check on that list. Is that list still relevant? Should anything be removed or put back on the forefront of my plate? Or am I okay with these things sitting here in a space that's not forgotten but intentionally set aside? And so I think whatever processes those are, for me, I use Asana and my team will laugh at me because I have become the Asana documentation girl. But I think having that process in place to be able to define the types of work and what you're taking on at any given time is half the battle. I can only agree with that. And I know that that leads us nicely to our next set of hacks, setting yourself up for success. Right. And again, so this is a picture of my actual office window that I have here. You can see my plan in the background. So I mentioned opening the windows, getting fresh air, making sure that you're standing up and stretching once an hour all things that kind of go in to this idea of working productively, but things that are in your power to control outside of work as well. I think one of the things that have also helped for me, the background beats playlist on Spotify or just having some sort of, I guess sound in the background that doesn't have lyrics for me is a big deal because anytime there's lyrics, I get distracted. I wanna sing along and suddenly I'm pulled from my work. So that playlist has been great. And then talking about things that inspire us to do good work, for me, it's as simple as having good pens and a good notebook that makes me wanna write and focus and use it. So I'm not sure, Marin, if there are other things in your environment that help set you up for success, but those are some of the tips that have worked well for me. Mm, I think that's really inspiring. And I think it's a really great example of where a homework environment and work-life balance are kind of two sides of the same kind of coin. As you can tell from me moving around, I'm standing most of the time when I'm at my desk. So I have two desks next to each other, a standing one and a sitting one. But I love being able to be a bit more mobile during the day. And I also listen to a lot of background sounds, either like sort of beats, as you say, no lyrics, or I really like listening to rain. So very often in my office, you can hear thunder in the background. I find that's really relaxing. But I think, you know, ultimately for me, it's a question of, you know, how productive can I be? How productive do I want to be? Because very often, particularly over the last two years, I think we've all had to work as hard as we could for as long as we could. And I think the main drift of these tips and hacks is about sustainable success, not as hard as you can for as long as you can, right? Because we want to try and set ourselves up for success in the long run. And I think I'm the first to kind of admit that I don't know always where my boundaries are. And some days I step away from work and I'm like, I have a splitting headache and I'm totally exhausted. And my evening is a washout because I've just given everything I had. And so I just sit on the sofa and I'm just like, oh my God, I've worked too hard today. And I think a lot of these ideas about fresh air, standing out, reflecting on your pace of work, I think they sound kind of nice to have, but for me they're absolutely must-haves non-negotiable. Yeah, I would completely agree with that. And I like what you said about work sustainability and remembering that this isn't a sprint every day or, you know, but it's a long-term plan and setting up, you know, again, kind of going back to that idea of time management. Sometimes you can have these processes in place and look at your calendar and say, oh, I've got a blank space there. So sure, I'll put something on the calendar, it's free, but I think it's just as important to have that free time on your calendar to actually do the work that you're talking about as opposed to just meeting about it constantly. So I have a rule no more than three meetings a day, ideally. Or, you know, if I have a couple of days where I have to just, you know, pile in meetings for various projects or whatever, you know, conversations are happening, then I, you know, have no meetings on Fridays or no meetings on Tuesdays or try to just have that balance even throughout the week to, you know, give yourself downtime to do that work and to, again, reflect on the pace, you know, are you setting goals that are too, too aggressive, you know, that you cannot keep up with, you know, do we need to take things off the plate or readjust timelines? And I think constantly checking in with yourself around those tasks is, again, step one in the larger picture of being able to communicate that to a virtual team. Yeah, I hear that. I think many in the room can definitely identify with that. And I think, you know, there is like a real culture of like being busy for the sake of being busy. And I'll never forget, like when I started my current job, I took it over from someone who had it for 10 years and I was really inexperienced at the time. I was like, you know, really impressed by this person who to my mind was very successful. And he worked overtime every day. He worked at weekends. He emailed me at six a.m. on a Sunday. You know, he was like a complete workaholic. And when I took on the job after having worked with him for two years, I promised myself like to heat that morning. And unless there is a genuine emergency, you know, and I really mean a genuine emergency, which in my job happens very rarely. I really don't work overtime or at weekends, you know. And I know lots of people who start day one in a new job and they're like, oh, I couldn't leave till 8 p.m. because I was so busy. I'm like, well, on day one, you know, like if that's how you start, that's how you're gonna go on. But it's hard to jump off the busy wagon. So it's very tricky. And I think, yeah, that's definitely a concept that I have struggled with in the past because there's always work that can happen, especially if you're passionate about that work. You know, it's like, oh, time flies. You know, I'm just gonna get this done, you know. And so I think that's, I try to balance that with also knowing that there are days where my job sort of ebbs and flows depending on the types of projects at hand too, or if I'm running an event or if something's kind of coming up or it's like, you know, this work simply has to get done, you know. And there is a time limit on that. So knowing like, okay, I've gotta do a larger chunk of work here knowing that next week, I'm going to take time for professional development or to slow down and do, you know, work in a different way. And so trying to just even balance out the type of work that you're doing and being able to adjust based on how your position or, you know, larger work goals are ebbing and flowing too. So yeah, there's a whole conversation that we could continue to get into. I'm sure other folks, it could relate in Discord. So maybe we'll continue it there. But for now, do you wanna jump to the next slide? Cool. So this one is also, I think, something that we have to consider when talking about working in virtual settings. And I know that folks have been thinking about this for a couple of weeks already. You know, even in week one, a couple of weeks ago, we were talking about, you know, micro connections and building out time to connect with colleagues. And so I think one of the hacks or things that there are a couple of hacks that you could try to build out connection with your colleagues. Mary and you shared the coffee trials earlier today. I think other ones that have worked well for our team. I have a big list here and I'll make sure to share the blog posts that I have written up about this as well. We've just recently started doing music Mondays over the summer, which have been great. So folks in the team will take turns controlling the playlist on our virtual radio station called Reclaim Radio, which has been really great. We've done snack boxes for folks where we've sent out snacks to various folks and they've received, you know, a big box of snacks in the mail. We've done virtual birthday cards. And, you know, just trying to build in different mediums, knowing that everyone has different working styles, I think is really important too, especially when you start talking about like meeting fatigue, you know, our virtual meeting or our virtual working hours are really great and I love them. But I also try to have other elements too because it's also, you know, another meeting on the calendar. So being able to encourage connection through, you know, impromptu slack cuddles or the water cooler channel and Slack has been great for us. And I think just generally, as I mentioned previously, building in pathways to communicate and talk about the work that we're doing to narrate that, to ask for help, to encourage regular learning. I think it builds a sense of camaraderie and allows, you know, colleagues to empathize with each other when they're able to, you know, ask questions and say, oh yeah, I've been thinking that for a while. You know, so I know that's more related to work connection, but there are tons of other hacks in place and tips for outside of work connecting too. Maren, one of the ones that you have mentioned, your team, I think you had like a chat and bake session or something. Right, yeah. So how has that worked for your team? Well, we were trying to do something like a mixture between online, offline. So we chose a kit for baking. And then we sent it to everybody. We were quite a small team, so that's financially and practically viable. And then we managed to chat and share pictures of our baking as we went along. So we made lemon cupcakes, I think, with sort of raspberry sprinkles. They were vegan and gluten-free, so suitable for most dietary requirements. And it was really fun. Some of my colleagues were good bakers. I am a terrible baker. So it was definitely one of those things that I didn't excel at, but everybody in the household, dogs included, enjoyed eating the trying. That's wonderful. Yeah, I know how to make a couple of good things, but new stuff is always a gamble, I guess. Well, we've got a couple more hacks before we move on to talk about how you're gonna use your roadmap for this week. So one of the ones that we wanted to share was just if you can't escape your desk and you have maybe very limited space or you're just with your laptop, how can you take a break? So the idea here is two hacks which you don't need to leave your laptop for, opening a digital window using a tool called Windowswap, which opens a new window somewhere in the world, which is good and bad. So you can be staring at a blank wall. You could be looking out at the French Riviera. There are a lot of different windows. I love clicking through this and sometimes I spend five minutes just opening windows. And then thanks to Taylor for sharing this one in Beak One, which is called Drive and Listen, which I've never come across before and I love this one. It allows you to take a digital drive and listen to local radio. So cool. I have played around with those and you can lose a lot of time doing that too because you're just, you know, because there are so many and they're randomized. So each time you'll go back and it's a new experience. I love it. And it's particularly useful if you have a lot of responsibilities alongside work like with family or other care responsibilities and you might find it difficult to join into a lot of communal activities. These are ways to take a break from hybrid working without really having to plan for anybody else and just give yourself a little break. The next one is one that I made up myself. But this is something called Positive Feedback By Post and it just require you to send things in a mail to be a full version but you can obviously do a digital equivalent. And I invented this activity based on an article I read in the Harvard Business Review around positive feedback. And it argued that a lot of people get positive feedback alongside negative feedback. So they might get feedback from the manager saying you did this really well and these are the areas you can improve on or this is a good thing. Here is a thing you could do better or more to do or always striving for something next. So the idea is that in this context positive feedback usually is outweighed by the negative and we kind of keep the negative feedback on board more than the positive. But if we share something that's only positive that makes a much bigger impact. So I blocked about this as well and I've made like a little template but basically the idea is that you choose someone or assign people to send one thing a positive bit of feedback to someone else and they basically get a small letter in the post and we use these stickers to kind of give people a heads up that there was something good in the post rather than a bill or something more formal. And you just send something nice and it could be positive reflections on their work it could be something that they did for you so kindness and it worked really well and my team really loved it and we now do it once a year. I love that idea. There have been a handful of times where I have received thank you notes from people at work or have sent them out to schools that we've worked with and I always love that physical representation of thanks to, you know, so I really like this idea. I also think just building off of this quickly, you know one of the things that our team tries to do is, you know anytime you're giving positive feedback or compliments like that's always done in public in a public setting where you can celebrate the work happening, right? And really talk about, you know and reflect and celebrate on that in a public space whereas like the negative things or, you know, the areas for improvement that is always done privately and I think having that distinction also does set clear boundaries and times for both discussions without conflating the two or blending them together. So I really like that this idea too. Well, I hope that many of you might be inspired particularly if anybody is a fan of writing letters or writing postcards. I think sometimes, particularly if you're giving people positive feedback as you say Lauren, a material thing can be a really powerful thing. So this is our last set of hacks before we go on to discuss the exercise for this week. And one of the things I hear a lot about on social media in particular is, you know we went out for a team treat or we went on an A-day or we had a goodie box delivered in the mail and for some of us it's just not possible to do these things, you know some of us have no budget, we have a tied budget sometimes you just have to make do with absolutely no resource. So just to complete this we wanted to share some hacks that you can try that require no budget at all. And I know Lauren you already mentioned music which I think is a great one and I'll come back to you in a minute so you can share some more of those but I wanted to mention briefly is similar to the positive feedback day. My team is a huge fan of sense on a compliment day and it could be a really random compliment but generally when you start the day off we're getting a compliment it is gonna be a better day. So that can really be a fun thing and also particularly if people are really in a low mood and there's little engagement one of the things we've done in the past is to invent our own emoji scales for how we are and that could be, you know like instead of asking someone how are you and the answer in probably particularly in the UK is I'm fine, thank you. How are you? I have no idea afterwards how that person is, you know they could have had a death in the family yesterday and it would have still said I'm fine, thank you. So an emoji scale is a really good idea of letting people express how they are in a kind of fun way but also gives you some insight into how someone is. So that can be a fun way of exploring it. I really like that. And I think it's an easy way to express without feeling like you've got to unload your whole backstory to a colleague, you know or something like that. But I have felt in meetings before especially one-on-ones where I'll say, you know hey, how's it going? And they're like, I'm good, you know, how are you? And I'm like, no, but how are you doing, you know to work aside? I asked how you are doing. And I think anytime you make that distinction regardless of being in a work setting or not people are like, oh, wait, you're actually asking, right? And I think that's something that I'm trying to be more intentional about doing in meetings in general too is just, you know, not showing up as a work robot but showing up as a human being that, you know is going to take time to connect, you know before jumping into work. So I think that that's an easy, I think that costs nothing, right? You know, where it's like, let's be fully, you know engaged in what we're doing here. Let's bring our attention to this space and let's not rush it. Let's and again, it's always something that I can improve because I'm always like, okay, efficient let's get to what we need to do but I think it is important to slow down and remember that connecting outside of work topics is just as important for us. So, yeah. Well, at this stage, I hope you're still with us and you enjoying this bonanza of hybrid working hacks. We are going to just refocus before we wrap up for this week and just take a step back at what's happening with our roadmap because we wanna make sure that you use these hacks to improve things for you. So we have, as I was saying, part three of the roadmap this week. And the idea is that there's three areas for you to review all the different hacks that we've shared that you've shared in Discord that you've come across in the last three weeks and think about which hacks to try for yourself in the first instance. And that is one of the things Lauren and I talked a lot about in the last hour, sort of, you know different aspects of that. So, Lauren, I'm gonna put you on the spot here. Which hack are you gonna try out this week? Oh, gosh. I feel like I need to go back to the list of things. I really like the opening the virtual window and going on a virtual drive, I think that's the best. I also really liked what you said just about how it took you two years to get a wrist support bar or and when you said that I was like, yeah, why don't I have something like that, you know for as much as I'm typing. So I'm gonna try to just, you know kind of reflect on what I do have in place and see are there things where I'm just sort of dealing with it similar to those bookmarks and try to make my space just 1% more comfortable doing some of those hacks. What about you? I am definitely trying the desktop background or no. I love that. And I can't believe I haven't got one. Like I feel like late to the party here. They're fun to build out too. I mean, you talk about, you know surrounding yourself with inspiring things, you know I enjoy each month building one in Canva or wherever. So we'll make sure you have the links in Discord if that's something you're interested in doing also. I love it. So if we think about yourself and it might be that you wanna stop there it might be that you have things you wanna focus on. If you're not sure where to start go back to your hybrid working wheel and look at those areas that you really wanted to focus on and then see if there is a hack that matches up but thinking about hacks to try with your team. Is there one that inspires you Lauren? Is there one that you're gonna make reclaim team go and try out? I'll try to refrain from making anyone do anything but I really liked the emoji scale as sort of like a language that the team uses. I think anytime you can kind of further integrate various cues or using the tools as sort of this unwritten language for how the team communicates I think you're only kind of improving things. So I really liked the emoji scale. I think that's something that we can try for sure. That sounds really awesome. Again, I think I'll be sharing quite a lot of the hacks that we shared with my team. I'm just gonna post lots of links and see what they pick but I really love Music Mondays. I like the idea of kicking the week off with some energy and not many of us work on a Monday like the virtual office can feel a little bit like there's tumbleweed blowing and it's so busy. So I think that'll be really fun I think having a bit of music injected into Mondays. And the main question we want you to focus on particularly if there's a lot of areas you might be interested in is to try and think about which single hack could immediately improve your day. You know, what is a quick fix? Start with low hanging fruit. Think about what is one thing that could immediately make a difference. And also if you have some areas of your work that we don't have a head for yet, share them with us in Discord. This can be our mission for the Q&A session at the end of this week. For us to have a look at any unanswered problems or questions or areas. So that can be our challenge. What do you think Lauren? I think we should be able to find something. Absolutely, yeah. And this week our Q&A will actually be happening on the radio. So we'll be taking your questions over the radio if you have them. And if not, we will be sharing you know, just additional hacks and things that have come in throughout the week and just spending an hour chatting on the radio. So I'm excited for that too just to build in different mediums for again, working in these virtual settings. I love that. I think, am I right in saying Jim is joining us for the radio this week? He is. He will be making a special appearance. So it'll be a good conversation. I'm excited. I'm particularly like, I mean, designed this week, one of the things we talked about a lot was that, you know, a lot of the best parts of hybrid working don't necessarily happen when you're on the screen. And I love the radio as a medium for connection without having to be on a Zoom call or an equivalent thereof. And I just think it's gonna be so interesting to see how you all find it, you know? Just hearing our voices and thinking about how you can join into that. So yeah, I'm very excited about that. Absolutely. And then we'll stay in touch and Discord throughout this week too as folks are continuing to build out their hybrid working roadmap. But that's something that we will come back to next week as well. It's just kind of finishing up the roadmap and anything else that folks should be prepared for for next week? Yeah, so for your checklist this week, as you say, add any hacks that you wanna try out to your hybrid working roadmap. And if you have things that you can't try out at the moment, but maybe you just wanna say for future reference, there's an extra space in the roadmap so you can just add links or just add notes, bookmark anything, maybe for future reference, particularly if you're pressed for time. But we hope that each one of you can at least try out one thing and really hoping that you can share with us a little bit about how you get on by the time we get to Friday or maybe try it out and use the radio as your hack if you want to just join us and say, hey, my hack is the radio. And then yeah, next week it's all bringing us everything together. I can't believe we're already in week three. I know it's crazy, but I think this course for me has inspired sort of, I don't want, as we come to the end of this course to never think about hybrid working again. Like I think this course has inspired this recurring theme of reflection and how we can make our settings better. And so I'm excited to continue chatting about that into next week and setting up ourselves for success into the future. So, Marin, thank you as always for your time. And thanks to everyone who has been participating in Discord, we will see you there and we'll see you on Friday at the radio. See you on the radio.