More and more companies are adapting and embracing new technology meaning that working from different offices, at different times and even from home more regularly are sought after. However, with working from home, the main objective is, how can you be more or at least as productive as you are in an office environment?
If you have a job where you are able to work from home the benefits can be significant on both your productivity and stress levels. These range from removing the commute to and from work, avoiding expensive lunches, being close to your child’s school for those special events, and typically working in a comfortable environment. However, there can be challenges to adapting to working from home. Here are some tips on how to maintain discipline and focus while ensuring you are using your time as efficiently and as productively as possible.
- Pretend you are going to be out of the house all day: When you are getting ready in the morning, have your breakfast and get your children ready, pretend you are going to a place of work. Do not leave ‘home’ tasks to after you have dropped the children off. Either complete them before you drop them off, after you pick them up, or in the evening, just do not do them in between. This will lead to you starting your working day doing chores as well as trying to start work at the same time. Neither task is going to be done to the standard required.
- Organise your work space: This needs to be free from clutter and all your paperwork and files need to be properly organised. Do this the night before to save time in the morning, otherwise you will waste time setting up and lose valuable working time. The idea is to be as productive if you were at your desk in the office (and good chance you can be more productive at home).
- Comfort: You spend a lot of time at your desk so it is important you have an appropriate desk and chair. It is definitely worth the investment especially if you are going to work at home more often. You do not want to finish your day and be sore because your posture is all wrong.
- Block your time out: Set yourself tasks and aim to complete them within set timeframes. These small wins will keep your day structured and stop you from starting several tasks at the same time and feeling like you have not really achieved anything.
- Be strict with friends and family: It is important that your friends and family know you are working and that is not appropriate for them to drop round or phone you for a chat during your working day. This would not be possible if you were working within an office environment so it should not be ok just because you are working from home. You are not being rude you have tasks to complete and do not need the distraction.
- Keep healthy: Although working from home has a lot of benefits it can very isolating as you can miss the team culture, you most likely may move less and the lack of interaction can be negative for your mental wellbeing. Take a walk at lunch time if you can, go to an exercise class or meet up with a friend (but keep it strict like if you were in the office). If you have a healthy mind and body you will be far more productive.
For those of you working from home, you probably realise all this but might not necessary put it into practice all the time so sometimes these little reminders can be good! I personally work at home and try to follow these steps, and when I do, I am at my most productive and energetic! Therefore, I am hopefully practicing what I am preaching!