OutThink

Pants Optional – Episode Three: Policy Updates

March 28, 2025
By Stuart Platt

Pants Optional is a series focused on advice to company Owners, Managers and Employees on how to be successful in a Work-From-Home business model.

…Clients complained they could hear children in the background of a call. After 2020, that complaint no longer exists.

Some Outhouse, LLC employees have been working from home since 2018, long before a global pandemic made ‘WFH’ a common and recognized acronym. Since then, can you pick which of these Work From Home policies have been updated, made obsolete, or remained the same?

Childcare must be provided in the same manner you would if you worked in the office.
Present yourself in a well-framed, well-lit, organized, professional work environment for video calls.
Dress as you would if you were coming to the office.

When a business model changes, so must policy. The bigger the change, the bigger the adjustments, and no doubt moving to a WFH business model is one of the biggest changes a business can make. If you are an in-office company and you have an employee handbook, read through it and you will quickly identify policies that will need to be added, updated, or eliminated. If you have already moved to a WFH model, you are likely finding the updates you made in the beginning are again requiring updates. Below are only a few of what I have discovered.

1. Childcare Policy

During the summer of 2019 I received a call from a client complaining they could hear children screaming and fighting in the background during a call with one of our managers. The client knew this manager worked from home and was fine with that but “…hearing children in the background was very unprofessional”. I have received similar complaints about dogs barking or cats randomly walking across someone’s desk. I wholeheartedly agreed with the complaints and I promptly called the manager and reminded them of policy #1 and was assured, by the employee, it would not happen again.

Then, well… 2020 right? Schools and daycares were shut down and the entire world changed. You know the story.

Since 2020, you may or may not be amazed how people’s attitudes have changed and relaxed around what would be considered unprofessional disruptions. The complaints I heard in 2019 have all seemed to fall away completely. “Walk a mile in another person’s shoes” as they say. What was once an irritation during a call or virtual meeting has become fodder for empathetic banter, often helping build a stronger rapport between the company and client. In a large Zoom meeting, what might once have caused embarrassment and apologies when a dog comes in and persistently nudges someone’s elbow for attention now elicits an explosion of laughter from the entire audience. Why? Because nearly everybody in that meeting is at home with a dog, cat, child, or adult that did something equally or more embarrassing to them last week.

For our company, the day schools and daycares shut down, the childcare policy temporarily became obsolete. Today, it is mid-2021 so the policy is still unenforced but will one day likely be back when it’s reasonable to do so.

2. Video Calls Policy

Let’s be real. When you are on a video call, we all can’t help but check out what is in the other person’s room or on their walls and JUDGE them for it; and believe me they are doing the same to you! When I am on a video call with anybody; employee, client, vendor or even watching a webinar, I would cringe when I see something that that doesn’t meet the standards I set for myself in a video call. It is different for everybody, but a small list of cringeworthy examples I have personally seen are:

Meetings in someone’s bedroom.
People are a dark silhouette because of a bright window behind them.
Their head is in the lower half of the frame making it look like they are sitting at the kiddie table.
Empty Amazon boxes piled behind them.
TV’s on in the background.
A kegerator! Yes, I’ve seen it and to be honest, I did not cringe; I was impressed!

For many companies, gone are the days of impressing clients or customers with a fancy, professional office. Even if you have an office, today’s technology makes it easy to simply stay at home or anywhere when it comes to meeting nearly anybody. Therefore, what a person sees behind you becomes representative of not only your company, but also you personally.

I was very strict regarding what was seen in the frame of video calls. I was hyper-aware of what was behind myself as well. That has all changed now. Since the addition of virtual backgrounds in the two platforms my company uses, Zoom and MS Teams, it no longer matters what room you are in or what is behind you. Our policy has been adjusted that if you do not have a professional physical background, that you use an appropriate virtual background. It is also important that you are still well lit and properly framed; but having a cat using the litterbox behind you is no longer against policy when using a virtual background.

We also have more leniency with virtual backgrounds allowing employees to express more of their personality if it is tasteful. For meetings with clients, they can use a company branded background or the command deck of the Starship Enterprise if they choose. When it comes to internal meetings, we are even more lenient, bordering NSFW.

Here are my favorite backgrounds for INTERNAL meetings. Email me at stuartp@outhouse.net and I will be happy to share them with you.

3. Dress Code Policy

This is the policy that has not changed. Granted, we never really know what people are wearing below the waist, but up top needs to be presentable. At Outhouse, our dress code is already business-casual, leaning more to the ‘casual’, but at home people can take that to a whole new level. Regardless, every employee is a representative of the company so what they wear matters, and the leadership needs to communicate that.

More importantly, the positive impact of dressing appropriately is becoming more and more apparent. Maintaining the same routine at home that you had going to the office gives you a sense of normalcy, helps keep you focused and productive, improves your self-image, and even helps separate work-life boundaries.

When you used to go to an office, if you showered every morning, continue doing so. If you changed your clothes after coming home from work, continue doing so. Maintaining separation from work and home, when they are one in the same, is critical… but that’s another blog.

The good news is most policies only require minimal updates moving to a WFH model. To add to that, there is an abundance of new online WFH resources that did not exist before 2020. Google search is your friend and many new professional services and apps have been developed specifically for WFH companies. This past year has seen an explosion of WFH advancements, and I predict it is not going to slow down any time soon.

About the Author: Stuart Platt, Managing Partner at Outhouse LLC restructured his 25+ year company to an Office Optional (OffOp) business model in 2018. Stuart’s version of the OffOp model enabled the company of nearly 40 employees to downsize its physical office from 14,000sf to 6,000sf. Based in Phoenix, local employees desiring to work in the office for a few days, weeks or months can reserve any open desk whenever they want. The remaining employees work from home, fulltime across 10 different states and counting.

PREPARING FOR THE OKR JOURNEY

October 2, 2024
By Bill Gelbaugh

A five-part series: 1. Introducing Objectives & Key Results (OKRs), 2. Preparing for the OKR Journey, 3. Crafting Great OKRs, 4. Driving OKR Alignment, and 5. Managing Effectively with OKRs.

Summarized by Bill Gelbaugh from: Objectives and Key Results by Paul R. Niven and Ben Lamorte, with additional material from Measure What Matters, Lattice OKR 101 and Perdoo.

THE PLANNING PHASE

Ready to get started with Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)? Part one of our blog series discussed why your company might want to adopt OKRs. Our second post is all about planning. As with any new venture, a little preparation goes a long way in ensuring successful implementation. It is also vital to note implementation is a journey, not an event. This guide is written to help home builders, trade contractors, suppliers, architects, engineers, and others in the housing industry adapt OKRs to your company’s culture. We are all unique, and most of us do not have a Silicon Valley mindset, so adaptation is key. There are some basic questions though that every company should begin with to get started on the right path:

Who is Going to Champion OKRs?
There must be a sponsoring executive (and team) who feels passionate about and committed to your company’s OKR strategy roll-out. It’s important to understand that no initiative will survive without first having this executive sponsorship.

What is the Most Critical First Step?
A critical first step is to have your team buy into and support any OKR program. Then comes a deeper dive into the OKR framework, philosophy, goals, and vocabulary. Note: you should have a deep enough understanding to review OKRs with your team by the end of this series.

What Matters Most?
OKRs should always solve specific critical business issues you face now. OKRs demand that you isolate the most fundamental priorities and dedicate your focus to that limited subset of variables involved in running any company.

How Will We Create Transparency?
OKRs should ideally be transparent throughout the organization, meaning everyone can see what others measure and provide feedback and input. This transparency fuels collaboration, alignment, and ultimately the execution of strategy.

How Will We Live our OKRs?
The real power of the OKR system is figuring out how to live OKRs every day as a team. OKRs are best achieved if they are baked into the company’s daily, weekly, and quarterly cadence, from initial planning, to status updates, to company dashboards.

THE DEVELOPMENT PHASE

Once you have answered these questions, here are the concrete steps you’ll take to create your first OKR or set of OKRs and review initial results. Your development plan will, of course, depend on where you decide to start initiating your OKRs. For this discussion, we’ll assume you’re going to begin with a set of OKRs at the corporate level only.

Develop or confirm the mission, vision, and strategy: Your OKRs should be translated from your annual strategy, drive the achievement of your vision, and be in alignment with your overall mission. These are critical enablers of success and, as such, should be solidly in place before you begin.

Create your corporate-level objective(s) and key results: There are several options for this step: using a small team, gathering input from employees through surveys that will later be used in a workshop, or conducting executive interviews, or simply drafting objectives during a leadership workshop.

Present OKRs to the company: We suggest using multiple media here: Share electronically, post to your intranet, and most importantly, communicate in person (perhaps at an all-hands meeting) so that you can facilitate a dialog surrounding the OKRs you chose and why.

Provide OKRs education: We’ve previously noted the seductive simplicity of OKRs, and that ease of understanding will often prompt organizations to skip this vital step. However, consider this education with a capital E, during which you’ll not only provide fundamentals on the model but share why you’re choosing to use OKRs now, success stories from other firms, and what people can expect during the journey.

Plan to monitor OKRs: You don’t “set and forget” OKRs; you must monitor them with an OKR Scorecard using a quarterly, monthly, and weekly schedule (or whatever cadence you choose).

Report results at the end of the quarter: Score your OKRs and communicate the entire organization’s results. As with everything discussed above, we’ll return to this topic with much more information later in this series.

THE STRATEGY ALIGNMENT PHASE

OKRs should never be created in a vacuum but must reflect the company’s purpose, desired long-term goals, and plan to defend market space successfully. In other words, they should translate your mission, vision, and strategy into action.

Company Mission
A mission statement defines the core purpose of the organization, its raison d’etre, why it exists. The mission also reflects employees’ motivations for engaging in the company’s work.

Consider your mission to be the compass by which you guide your organization.

Unlike visions and strategies that may be achieved over time, you never really fulfill your mission. It acts as a beacon for your work, constantly pursued but never quite reached. Consider your mission to be the compass by which you guide your organization. Having a clear mission and aligning OKRs—monthly, quarterly, and yearly—helps ensure that work performed in the short term meets the long-term purpose of the organization.

Long-Term Vision
A powerful company mission determines your core purpose as an organization. Based on the mission, you now require a statement that defines more specifically where we want to go in the future. The vision statement does just that, signifying the critical transition from the unwavering mission to the spirited and dynamic world of strategy.

Without a clear and compelling vision to guide all employees’ actions, you may wind up with a workforce lacking direction.

A vision statement provides a word picture of what the organization intends ultimately to become—5, 10, or 15 years in the future. This statement should not be abstract—it should contain as concrete a picture of the desired state as possible and provide the basis for formulating annual strategies and OKRs. Without a clear and compelling vision to guide all employees’ actions, you may wind up with a workforce lacking direction and thus unable to profit from any strategy or OKRs you create no matter how well-conceived.

Annual Strategy
An annual strategy is critical to your OKRs as it provides the initial context for creation.

All OKRs should be directly translated from your strategy—your game plan for successfully creating or defending aggressively contested market space.

One huge benefit of OKRs is the power of, “NO.” A core strategy supplies boundaries, helping you determine what not to do when faced with a sea of opportunities, which is every bit as important as deciding what to do. It also enables you to choose viable options, remain focused, align your entire organization, and make necessary commitments to execute. Your strategy development should answer the questions: What are our preferred markets? Who are our optimal customers? What are their most critical needs? By answering these questions, you will be able to set OKRs that move your company forward in a meaningful way.

Ready to get started developing your OKRs? With your company having a clear picture of your most critical objectives, and how you will successfully adapt OKRs to fit your corporate culture, you are now ready to act! Our next post is all about crafting great OKRs.

Next up… CRAFTING GREAT OKRS!

Bill Gelbaugh is one of our Senior Partners here at Outhouse and champions our OKR efforts.

How A Professional Builder Prices A Building Contract

October 2, 2024
By Guest Author

If you are adding a margin to the cost of materials and labour in order to calculate a contract price…then stop right now.

Your building company is in serious danger of losing money, especially if you plan on growing.

The traditional method of pricing jobs is to apply a margin to the cost of sales.

The problem with this method is that you are hoping you will make enough profit to cover your overheads and wages.

Building companies with revenues of less than $6m DO NOT enjoy the same economies of scale as traditional businesses like manufacturing or retailing.

This results in builders making little, or no net profit at the end of the year, despite taking on more work and increasing their revenue.

When a building company grows, their net profit margin decreases…

Even when they don’t reduce their margin, they can still end up losing money…

How is that possible?

The problem lies in the method they are using to price their jobs.

Most builders add a nominal markup of say 20% to their cost of sale which gives them a contract price to charge the client.

The problem with this strategy is that it doesn’t always cover the running costs for the business.

Where Most Builders Go Wrong

In fact, when it comes to quoting a larger project, most builders actually reduce their profit in order to win the job when in fact they really need to be increasing the margin to cover the additional running costs.

It’s the reason why you hear so many builders say they were earning more money when they were doing less jobs.

It’s also the reason why so many building companies run into cash flow problems.

And it’s why so many builders end up with nothing to show for decades of hard work.

The good news is that there is an easy solution to the problem.

Building companies need to price their jobs using a net margin instead of gross margin.

When you apply a net margin to project you are guaranteed to make a profit.

But when you apply a gross margin to a project, you are simply hoping to make a profit…

And that’s fine when your turnover is at a consistent level…

But when workflow increases and additional resources are taken on, the amount of fixed costs, as a proportion of the contract price also increase.

When that happens you have 3 problems.

First, you don’t know what your break-even point is.

Second, although you are increasing your cash reserves, if you are not making a profit then you’re creating a hidden liability that will get bigger and bigger, a bit like giant Ponzi scheme.

And third, you’ll probably end up cutting margins in order to win more work, which only compounds the problem and increases the hidden liability in your building company.

It’s a bit like the Federal Reserve Bank in the US, only no one will be bailing you out…

But you may get prosecuted for trading insolvently…

The reason it is so important to grow a building company profitably is because the retained net profit provides the foundations to support a growing business.

Without retained net profit you are effectively building a house of cards that will fall over in the next market downturn.

To learn more, download the Professional Builders’ Secrets To Increasing Margins.

Click on the link below to download for free now.

Submitted by:

Russ Stephens
Business Strategy Specialist & Cofounder of the Association of Professional Builders

Since 2014, Russ has been helping builders double the size of their businesses through profitable growth. He is a data analysis expert that has introduced data-driven decision-making to the residential construction industry. Russ calls on 38 years of experience in business as well as the lessons that had been learned from working closely with some of the most successful custom home builders in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States.

INTRODUCING OKRS

October 2, 2024
By Bill Gelbaugh

Understanding why you would want to adopt OKRs

A five-part series: 1. Introducing OKRs, 2. Preparing for the OKR Journey, 3. Crafting Great OKRs, 4. Driving OKR Alignment, and 5. Managing Effectively with OKRs

Summarized by Bill Gelbaugh from Objectives and Key Results by Paul R. Niven and Ben Lamorte. With additional material from Measure What Matters, Lattice OKR 101 and Perdoo.

Why a series of blog posts about Objectives and Key Results, or OKRs? After all, aren’t OKRs just a goal-setting methodology? Well, yes, kind of, but more than that, they are a strategy-to-execution tool. When Silicon Valley startups discovered OKRs were behind the meteoric rise of companies such as Google, LinkedIn, Twitter and Amazon, a plethora of companies decided to adopt OKRs, hoping to catch even a fraction of that success.

This first post will share how the best companies use OKRs to create focus, alignment, contribution, and velocity. To capture the magic of OKRs, we will start by covering the basics; the OKR framework, the philosophy behind OKRs, the four goals of OKRs, and the incredible benefits your organization may be missing out on by not adopting OKRs.

Good questions inform. Great questions transform.
—Ken Coleman

LET’S START WITH A QUESTION – FOUR, TECHNICALLY!

During our OKR journey here at Outhouse, we have discovered four great questions that help us set successful OKRs:

What do we want most to achieve?
What is the right Objective for our current goals and challenges?

How do we want to measure success?
What measurements would best show our progress and success?

What initiatives would get us there?
Are we working on the right Initiatives to achieve this Objective?

What is the most efficient way to accomplish this?
Are we getting these initiatives completed as efficiently as possible?

Is your Objective to create a thriving business? What do you mean by thriving? Is it growing your user base? By how much? Might it be climbing revenues? By how much? Retention? For how long? Combining an aspirational objective, quantitative results, and focused initiatives creates inspiring, measurable, and achievable goals.

A great goal is a powerful tool; however, it’s not enough. A leader needs a way to ensure that their organization lives that goal. The real power of the OKR system is figuring out how to live that goal every day as a team. OKRs are best achieved if they are baked into the daily, weekly, and quarterly cadence of a company, from planning meetings and status updates to celebrating accomplishments along the way.

Ready to begin implementing OKRs at your company? Let’s get started with the basics!

FRAMEWORK

OKRs are built around three elements:

Objective: Where do we want to go?

Key Results: What are the results we need to get there?

Initiatives: What do we need to do to achieve those results?

The Objective is the goal of the company, team, or individual. Key Results are the measurable results needed to accomplish the Objective. Initiatives are the tasks you need to perform to achieve your results (i.e., the “to-do list”). This framework is repeated from the top of the organization on down. Starting with an overall company Objective, each group or team sets their OKRs, and individual employees often have OKRs as well. This cascading interplay of goals is what keeps a group of people aligned.

PHILOSOPHY

OKRs have a unique belief system around set goals that distinguishes them from other goal-setting methodologies.

Ambitious
Objectives are meant to be inspiring, set just beyond the threshold of what seems possible. Achieving less than 100% is not considered a sign of failure. The goal is to achieve as much as possible.

Measurable
Key Results are tied to tangible milestones and outcomes.

Transparent
OKRs are viewable across the organization, from the CEO down to the Intern.

This unique approach to goal setting was developed by Andy Grove at Intel and passed down to John Doerr, who brought the company strategy to Google. Today, thousands of organizations from Spotify to the United States Navy use OKRs as one of their main management tools.

Today, thousands of organizations from Spotify to the United States Navy use OKRs as one of their main management tools.

GOALS

Developing a focused strategy and making certain everyone is rowing in the same direction and are contributing play key roles in OKR goal setting. Another prominent feature is organization-wide transparency.

Focusing efforts
OKRs are not, and should never be, considered a master checklist of tasks that need to be completed. They are designed to be far more strategic. The model aims to identify the most critical business objectives and to gauge accountability through quantitative key results. Strategy pundits are fond of noting that strategy is as much about what not to do as it is about what to do. So it is with OKRs. You must be disciplined in determining what makes the final cut.

Ensuring employees work together
OKRs must be structured and used to maximize employees working together in focused collaboration and alignment. One of the ways this is facilitated is through the inherent transparency of OKRs, which are shared widely so that everyone, from top to bottom, can see objectives and key results throughout the organization.

Making measurable contributions
Key results are typically (and almost exclusively) quantitative in nature. Whenever possible, we want to avoid subjectivity and note with precision how the business is advancing based on the achievement of our OKRs.

Driving the company forward
The ultimate arbiter of success is the achievement of your goals.

BENEFITS

A popular saying is, “the simpler, the better,” and that is the key to the tremendous benefits that come from implementing OKRs.

OKRs Are Easy to Understand – Increasing Buy-in and Use
Consider OKRs the “In-N-Out of managing your performance.” One of the most significant benefits of the framework is its sheer simplicity, and that begins with the taxonomy—of just three elements: objectives, key results, and initiatives. Other approaches to managing performance and executing strategy tend to be awash in jargon. This can confuse employees already under siege from missions, visions, core values, KPIs, etc.

OKRs Demand You Focus on What Matters Most
OKRs demand that you isolate the most fundamental priorities and dedicate your focus to that limited subset of potential variables involved in running the company. OKRs are a great way to help everyone understand what’s important and how you’re going to measure what’s important. It’s essentially a great way to communicate strategy, measure strategy, and accomplish strategy. By putting a spotlight on your absolute priorities, you’re winning on two fronts: Identifying what matters most, and by default, providing yourself with the appropriate ammunition to say no to the many initiatives that, while tempting, are not in line with your goals.

OKRs Shorter Cadence Fosters Agility and Change-Readiness
While there is room for customization with every implementation, most OKR practitioners will set goals quarterly. This frequent establishment of priorities is vital. As the pace of change within and outside businesses accelerates, new information must be captured, analyzed, and transformed into knowledge that can be used to innovate and potentially alter the strategy or business plan. Doing so is immensely difficult if you’re only setting annual goals.

OKRs Transparency Promotes Cross-Function Alignment
An effective OKR program works on several levels: There are corporate-level objectives and key results in place. Departments or business units have OKRs, and individuals may have OKRs. The composition of OKRs at each level is not confined to their provincial interests. On the contrary, a well-developed set of OKRs should include objectives and key results that foster (and demonstrate) collaboration with other teams on whom they rely, or conversely, depend on them to drive results. OKRs should ideally be transparent throughout the organization, meaning everyone can see what others are measuring and provide feedback and input. This transparency fuels collaboration, alignment, and, ultimately, the execution of strategy.

OKRs Facilitate Conversation and Drive Engagement
An essential distinction of the OKR model is its focus on inclusivity. They are not a top-down exercise with goals handed down, as if on stone tablets, to lower-level units and departments who are expected to execute dutifully, regardless of their opinion. It is expected that individuals will have a legitimate say in the objectives and key results chosen, reflecting a mix of top-down and bottom-up goal setting. Having the opportunity to meaningfully contribute to what you will be held accountable for goes a long way in enhancing engagement. Moreover, when results are tabulated later, the chance to engage in a meaningful discussion, conducted in a spirit of inquiry, boosts morale. It may also demonstrate to superiors an employee’s readiness for the next level on the corporate ladder.

OKRs Promote Visionary Thinking and a Growth Mindset
Carol Dweck, a Stanford professor, known for her work on motivation and, more specifically, mindset, posits that people can be divided into two camps. Some individuals believe their success results from innate ability and are said to have a “fixed” mindset. Others feel success is a result of hard work, tenacity, and determination. They are said to possess a “growth” mindset. Fixed mindset individuals fear failure because they feel it’s an assault on their basic abilities. Those with a growth mindset embrace failure and recognize it as an opportunity for learning and improvement.

Organizations may be similarly classified using this distinction. Those who “suffer” from a fixed mindset will often forgo opportunities that involve risk, motivated primarily by a fear of failure. OKR organizations, on the other hand, embody the growth paradigm, relish failure, embrace a spirit of failing fast, and learn quickly. We believe that to compete in today’s global economy, all companies must adopt a growth mindset. Doing so means stepping out of any predefined comfort zone and creating audacious goals.

IN SUMMARY

With so many visionary, intelligent, and creative people here at Outhouse, there has never been a shortage of great ideas. What we realized over time is we needed a better way to organize, prioritize and execute. With renderings, virtual tours, animations, visualizers, and other interactive platforms for home builders constantly evolving, it is easy to fall into a pattern of starting too many projects. OKRs allow employees to continue to push the envelope on innovation while forcing us to choose, strategize, and focus our collective efforts on executing those ideas that will have the greatest impact on our company and our clients. We believe your company will benefit from implementing OKRs as well.

Next up… PREPARING FOR OUR OKR JOURNEY!

Bill Gelbaugh is one of our Senior Partners here at Outhouse and champions our OKR efforts.

Pants Optional – Episode Two: The Mindset Commute

March 28, 2025
By Stuart Platt

Pants Optional is a series focused on advice to company Owners, Managers, and Employees on how to be successful in a Work-From-Home business model.

Man with goggles sitting in front of computer taking a virtual commute to his home office

“…nobody complained about adding their commute time back in their lives, but after a while, many people discovered there was a downside.”

Before working from home my daily 16-mile commute in Phoenix, Arizona was 23-minutes each way. Half on the freeway and half on busy city streets during rush hour. I was fortunate to be driving a safe, comfortable, and reliable vehicle. I fell right in the average American commute time to and from work. Other employees ranged from a few minutes away to several driving over an hour each way. Regardless of the time, nobody complained about adding their commute time back in their lives, but after a while, many people discovered there was a downside. A potentially serious downside for some.

Even if they did not realize it at the time, their daily commute had become a critical step in transitioning from a homelife mindset to a work life mindset, and vice-versa. During their commute to work, they could think about and mentally prepare for their day. On their way home it might become a time of reflection, or a time to think about what is for dinner, or to simply zone out and crank the music.

People discovered the 5-second work from home commute was a shock to their system, suddenly jarring their mental states from home to work and back home again. At the end of the day, people found themselves irritated by their family, or roommates, or pets, because they did not feel like they had any downtime after work. And they didn’t! Their family was acting the same as when they walked in from the garage before. The only difference is that you never realized you used that 15, 30, 45-minutes of commuting to transition from your work life mindset back to homelife. It was completely unconscious.

Enter the Mindset Commute. If you had a 20-minute commute before, then try taking 20-minutes to do something that is going to give you the time and environment you need to get that transition back. Get out of the house and take a walk or go for a run. Step out on the patio and enjoy a beverage by yourself.

Whatever you decide, most importantly, make sure you have an agreement with whomever you live with (except the dog) that the 20-minutes after you walk out of your home office, those minutes are still yours and you are not to be disturbed unless something literally catches on fire. Explain to your roommates or family how you need this personal time to purge your mind from work. If they have noticed you have seemed irritable after work, they will understand the importance of giving you this.

Spend some time on a hobby or start a new one! Admit it; you have always wanted to try Bonsai.

And the word commute can really mean just about anything. By one definition, your mindset commute can mean literally getting into your car and driving around the neighborhood for 20-minutes, return home, walk in the door and announce “Honey, I’m home!” Or take the money you are saving on gas and eating out and buy a VR headset. Take a virtual drive anywhere in the world! Here are some great ideas:

Hobbies – Spend some time on a hobby or start a new one! Admit it; you have always wanted to try Bonsai.
Exercise – Obvious, but how many times have you made excuses of not having enough time to be active? Look up the 7-Minute Workout.
Gaming – Jump off the work computer and onto the gaming console. Because not everybody gets excited about pushups, crunches and burpees.
Meditate – There are hundreds of ways to meditate. Do a little research and try one out.

Personally, my morning commute was a ritual of creating the perfect cup of coffee. It seems like such a pretentious thing to me now, but I would take about 15-minutes to meticulously brew a carafe of coffee. Get this, I would hand-grind fresh, expensive, gourmet coffee beans in a manual ceramic burr coffee grinder, place the grinds into a double-walled, stainless steel French press (with mirror finish of course), while boiling water in my gooseneck kettle on the stovetop. After blooming the grinds for 30-seconds with a splash of hot water then pouring the rest in, I would wait 2-minutes before slowly plunging the press with only the weight of my hand. Part of me hates to admit how much I enjoyed that process, but let me tell you, after that I was mentally ready to walk into my home office and get to work.

Man making coffee in a stainless steel French press

My meticulous coffee commute lasted all of 2 months. Since then, just like tonight, I will think to myself, “Gah, I need to get the coffee ready.” and as if it were the last chore before going to bed, scoop the generic pre-ground coffee into the 10-cup electric coffee maker and hope I remember to hit the timer button so it’s ready in the morning. Honestly, after the first year I no longer need a morning commute. I’m mentally ready to jump right in the home office with my mediocre coffee and get to it. After work, most days now I no longer need a commute either, but when I do I usually like to sit out on my patio for 10-15 minutes, with the dogs, and enjoy an adult beverage while shamelessly scrolling through social media on my phone.

However the mindset commute looks to you, the common denominator is personal time—that magic amount of personal time allowing you to shift from one mindset to another. Your routine before work may be completely different and take only a fraction of the time you require after work. Some of you may not require a morning or evening commute at all. The type and time of commute you need today may not be the same next month or next year. Try alternating between different commutes based on your mood. Before working from home, you could drive different routes to disrupt the monotony. Why not do the same thing at home? Give yourself permission to change your commute and try new things.