Offices are overrated. That is the biggest thing I learned over the past 10 months of working from home. I began going to offices over two decades ago, and the time I spent at featureless corporate warehouses only increased as I got older. By the time COVID-19 arrived, I had been taught to believe that a minimum of 10 hours a day ought to be spent at an office if one has any interest in getting ahead. Almost overnight, that ridiculous notion was debunked.

There are obvious advantages of travelling to a place of work, of course, aside from the access to infrastructure that can’t always be replicated at home. There is the social component that we tend to take for granted, until we realise how tiresome an endless conversation on Zoom can be. And yet, as months in isolation crept past, my approach to work evolved. I realised it wasn’t affecting productivity in any way, neither for me nor my colleagues across various departments. I acknowledged this was impossible for some roles, such as IT or housekeeping, but couldn’t believe the number of employees around the world who effortlessly managed to accomplish everything they used to before the pandemic without having to leave their living rooms.