Where do you feel most productive when working? The office or your home?
While most workers would prefer to skip working in an office, and instead work from the comfort of their own homes, not all of them are at their most productive when doing so.
Some workers have been known to have their productivity dwindle when working from home, and feel more pressured by work than they did when they worked from the office.
If you fall under this set of remote workers, this article will give you tips on how to be productive when working from home.
Start Early
Get Ready For The Day Like You Are Going To Work
Structure Your Remote Work Day To Be Like A Typical Office Day
Plan Out Your To-Do-List Ahead
Share Your Schedule With Your Family
Prepare Meals The Day Before
Choose A Good Workspace
Declutter Your Workspace
Pick A Mood Music
Use Technology To Communicate
Try Working Outside Your House
Avoid Social Media
Try To Achieve More
Work During Your Productive Hours
Reserve Calls For Afternoon Hours
Minimize Distractions
Avoid Procrastination
Take Breaks
Take Care Of Yourself
Log Off For The Day
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1. Start Early
Ever heard the idiom "the early bird catches the worm"?
Well, if you want to get more done while working from home, you have to start your day early.
Dive into your to-do-list as soon as you wake up, so that all the time you spent making breakfast and cleaning your house doesn't wear out your motivation and enthusiasm to get work done.
2. Get Ready For The Day Like You Are Going To Work
Follow the normal routine you would,if you were going to work when working from home.
Set your alarm, wake up early, eat breakfast, take your morning coffee, and wear nice clothes to work. Connect to a steady internet and get to work.
3. Structure Your Remote Work Day To Be Like A Typical Office Day
When you're working remotely, you are your own manager, you dictate your hours, and decide what you want to prioritize, so it's easy for you to lose focus.
To stay on track, create a schedule for everything you need to do that day and allocate a time frame for each of them. Work on tasks as if your manager is watching you and keep to time as you would in the office.
Start work by 9 am finish by 5, take a one-hour break and check in first thing in the morning and after you close from work.
4. Plan Out Your To-Do-List Ahead
To make sure you stick to your tasks for the day, create a to-do-list as soon as you wake up, or even the day before.
Once you have a well-planned list to follow, you can get to work early because you already know what you will be doing first.
5. Share Your Schedule With Your Family
Remote working is a good opportunity to catch up with family and friends, especially if you are living in the same house as them.
However, this provides distractions from your actual work. To avoid distractions, share your daily schedule with your family, so that they know which hours not to bother you or send you out on errands.
6. Prepare Meals The Day Before
Eating properly is important when working from home, but spending time out of your work hours to make breakfast or lunch is one way for your entire schedule to be thrown off.
How you can get enough meals to eat for the day and still stick to your schedule is to do all your cooking the day before. This way, you can just use your lunch break to heat the meals and eat it within that period without exceeding the time frame.
7. Choose A Good Workspace
If you can't go to the office, then you must bring the office to you. To do this, choose a good spot in your house and convert it into a workspace.
It can be your study, in your living room, or just a small corner in your room.
Furnish your workspace with a table and chair and make sure it has a power outlet where you can plug in your laptop, phone, and Wi-Fi.
8. Declutter Your Workspace
Wherever you choose to set up your office, shouldn't just be free from distractions, it should also be free of clutters.
Remove any unnecessary objects from that area, and make sure that you have enough space to organize your own items.
9. Pick A Mood Music
Music helps to lighten the mood when you're working. It can dispel any gloom that may linger as you work. But, any song you pick fo work shouldn't be too loud and should be serene and calm instead.
You can check out YouTube to find songs that are good for working.
10. Use Technology To Communicate
Just because you are working alone, doesn't mean you have to be cut-off from your colleagues.
You can still use technology to stay in touch with them. Use apps like Slack to message your team or Skype to make video calls.
11. Try Working Outside Your Home
Remote work doesn't mean you must work only from your house. You can actually work from other locations that are not your house, and you should.
Try working at that coffee shop down your street or that bakery, or any other location as long as you will be productive there.
12. Avoid Social Media
Social media may provide some relief from the intensity of working for hours without a break, but it is also very distracting.
Avoid social media as much as you can. If you must visit your social pages, do so within your break time.
13. Try To Achieve More
Most projects may take longer than others to complete, which means you probably won't be able to do everything you planned for the day.
But instead of having that mindset, of you having little time to do something, why not try to achieve more with the time you have?
14. Work During Your Productive Hours
There are hours when you feel most productive or when you are most energetic during the day, discover those hours and use them to your advantage.
Complete the harder tasks at your most productive hours, and tackle simple tasks when you're feeling less productive.
15. Reserve Calls For Afternoon Hours
Calls are a good way to stay in touch with people, but spending too much time on them, or making calls at random causes distractions.
Instead, use your mornings to work and then reserve calls for afternoon. The only time you can make a call at any time of the day is if it's an urgent call.
16. Minimize Distractions
We know how hard it is to focus on one thing for hours, without getting the urge to check our phones or indulge in any other form of distractions.
If you must be distracted, it is advisable that you keep the number of distractions you allow yourself to a minimum, and also to a limited amount of time.
17. Avoid Procrastination
Procrastination feels good, but it also tricks you into thinking that you have enough time to get your work done, when actually, you don't.
Avoid procrastination or putting off tasks to a later date. Finish everything you have planned to do for the day, before you run off to do something else.
18. Take Breaks
Taking a break is an essential part of being productive while working remotely. You need a break, so take one.
Use that time to eat, check your phone, reply to calls, and even work around your house or neighborhood (depending on how long your break is). You can also use that time to chat with family members.
Note, while choosing a break time, don't make it too long that you spend half of your day resting. Instead, choose the same break hours you use in the office.
19. Take Care Of Yourself
How else are you going to be productive and deliver successfully on tasks if you don't take care of yourself?
Get that snack, make yourself a cup of tea or coffee, drink warm milk, or even take a nap to refresh your brain and your mind.
20. Log Off For The Day
When the clock strikes 5'0 clock, send in your report for the day, share what needs to be shared for the day, and shut down your laptop.
Once you shut down your laptop, step away from your workspace and don't go back there until the next day.
Most workers overcompensate while working remotely. They overwork themselves, do long hours, and juggle different tasks at once, because they think that is how to be productive when working from home.
However, what they don't know is that overcompensation doesn't equal productivity, and the only thing that comes from it is being burnt out.
To be productive while working from home, you need to overwork yourself, you just need to have a standard plan in place, and implement the things we mentioned above to your working style.
Need more tips on remote working? Read the articles below:
How To Keep Remote Employees Engaged
Guide To Remote Working
Coronavirus In Nigeria: Implementing A Stable Work From Home System That Protects Your Staff And Business
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