Top tips to help you work from home productively
Top tips to help you work from home productivelY without impacting your personal life
10 Top tips for staying focused working from home
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The world has suddenly changed overnight and completely without warning.
Many people have unexpectedly found themselves working from home, some for the first time in their professional lives. Whether you are a seasoned pro or a newbie to working remotely, these are challenging times. Here are some top tips to help you stay efficient and avoid going stir-crazy.
1. Develop a healthy work/life balance
One of the challenges with working from home is work and home life merge. Before you know it, you are starting work early, finishing late and not taking many breaks during the day. Not only is this not healthy, it becomes really unproductive.
Use the time you would have spent commuting to fit in some exercise. A morning workout is perfect for getting mind and body energised and ready to be productive.
If during the course of the day you find yourself losing focus, check that you're not pushing yourself too hard.
Don’t overcompensate for not being in the office by working longer and missing breaks, everyone needs a bit of downtime.
Agree an end time for your working day and stick to it.
Make plans for your after-work hours with friends and family, or dedicate time to your hobby or exercise. If you have something planned for the end of your workday, you'll be more likely to log off and stop working.
2. Switch into business mode
The thought of staying in your pyjamas all day might be appealing but it doesn’t mentally prepare you for the day ahead. Also, it’s not a great look on web conferencing calls! Set yourself a start time for the day and aim to be showered and dressed by this time every working day. Not only will this provide a structure to your day but it will help you get into the right frame of mind to crack on with your job.
3. Create a work space
Creating a space where you can set yourself up for the day is absolutely vital to your productivity. Ideally, your workspace would be in a separate area to where you and other members of the household relax, prepare food or sleep. This would limit the number of interruptions and help everyone’s productivity! A room like a spare bedroom or dining room where you can close the door and transition into work mode would be perfect. However, if this isn’t possible, identify an area in your home where you can easily set up and pack away your work items at the start and end of each day.
Comfort is important, so check you can sit comfortably, that your screen/keyboard is at the right height. If working at a laptop, it might be worth investing in a screen, keyboard and mouse if the remote working scenario is to become more permanent. It is also worth considering investing in a high-quality office chair to minimise back and neck strain.
4. Get organised
Start each day as you mean to go on by dedicating the first 15 minutes of your working day to focus on what you need to get done. Review your tasks and set priorities of what needs to be completed by the end of the day. Use whatever system feels right for you; whether that be pen and paper or an app.
Once a task is completed, tick it off your list, the act of doing this will keep you motivated.
At the end of each day, spend a few minutes clearing down your physical and virtual desktop. File away or delete any emails that are resolved, make notes for activities you might be in the middle of, file away documents and clear away empty coffee cups.
With a clear mind and clean work station you can walk away from your desk and switch off for the day.
5. Set goals
Setting yourself targets and goals is always good practice however it’s even more important when working from home.
Having a clear goal will enable you to build a shared understanding with your line manager and team on what the priorities are and where effort should be focused. Additionally, the key to productivity and achieving goals is ensuring you have access to all the applications, tools, systems and documents that will enable you to work effectively and productively from home.
We are in unprecedented times; some companies are better prepared to remotely enable the workforce than others. So one of your goals could be adapting to home working and collaborating with your colleagues to ensure everyone is set up in the best way to work together.
6. Manage your time
Working from home is an adjustment so it’s important to come up with a new schedule of how you will work alone and remotely with others. Identify the hours you are at your most productive, for example early mornings or late afternoon, these are your golden hours. Match your most significant – or most challenging – work to the time of day when you're at your best and avoid interruptions during this time.
Team collaboration is important in many roles however this doesn’t mean you are available to be interrupted at all times. Use whatever tools or applications available to publicise the hours you are busy and when you are free so that team members can be mindful and respectful of your time.
7. Minimise distractions
Pinpoint your major distractions and eliminate them before you settle down to work. If an untidy kitchen is an irritation preventing you from concentrating and prioritising work, then clean the kitchen! This will leave you with a clean mind (and kitchen!) allowing you to settle down and focus on work.
Many home workers find that playing music or an audiobook during the work day helps to increase their focus. For others, only total silence will do. If your home environment has lots of distracting background noise, consider wearing headphones to dampen the sound.
Social media can be a huge distraction, so think carefully about how often you are dipping in to various apps. Consider allocating time slots, for example morning, lunch time and at the end of the day rather than dipping in and out throughout the day. Additionally, decide which notifications to keep on, and which to mute until later.
8. Take charge of communications
It’s easy to feel disenfranchised from the team when working alone from home but there are so many ways to stay in touch. In the early days you will probably need to experiment with communication tools and find appropriate times to "check in" with your peers and team members. Aim to avoid unnecessary distractions, but equally don’t "disappear."
Make time for online team meetings to manage communication, prepare an agenda but also allow space and time for questions. Over time, you'll discover the right levels of interaction and this will build collaboration and trust within the team. It will also combat any micromanagement from managers who previously may have relied solely on presenteeism to manage the team.
9. Stay motivated
Not everyone works in the same way, so take note of what works for you and build on it. Suddenly shifting to working from home is a big change, so make whatever adjustments needed to help you relax into your new working arrangement. Working from home is very different to working in an office, it’s easy to underestimate the importance of daily contact with colleagues that you regularly work with. Use online tools to keep in touch and make time to speak to colleagues over the phone or using WhatsApp, FaceTime or Skype. This not only helps with productivity it also boosts morale.
10. Reward yourself
Find ways to make each task more enjoyable and rewarding in itself. Use mind maps, creative thinking tools such as related world and brainstorming with colleagues to avoid staring at a computer screen for long periods of time. Ask for feedback from colleagues about what's working well, what isn’t working so well and how things can be changed going forwards.
Lastly, give yourself 'treats' when you've completed a task successfully; enjoy a cup of your favourite coffee, dance to a top tune, plant seeds in a window box or have a slice of cake!
Disclaimer: If you do reward yourself with a slice of cake, don’t forget our advice in point 1 about exercise….