If you’re new to working remotely, these tips from working from home office can help you stay productive and maintain balance.
Just a few decades ago, the vast majority of working from home job opportunities were far from profitable. And before the dawning of the Internet, it was much harder to sort through the scams and the real opportunities.
With COVID-19 forcing many businesses to quickly implement remote work, you may suddenly find yourself working from home and wonder how to get started. Here are six tips to help you effectively manage yourself.
Working from home is awesome, even if you are looking for online jobs. And your neighbor, who you can only assume is building a time machine, starts firing up all sorts of power tools and noisy machinery across the street.
Planning to start working from home? You’re among the emerging trend of remote workers who work from their home office.
How to start!
1. Get started early
When working in an office, your morning commute can help you wake up and feel ready to work by the time you get to your desk. At home, however, the transition from your pillow to your computer can be much more jarring.
Believe it or not, one way to work from home productively is to dive into your to-do list as soon as you wake up. Simply getting a project started first thing in the morning can be the key to making progress on it gradually throughout the day. Otherwise, you’ll prolong breakfast and let the morning sluggishness wear away your motivation.
2. Know Your Work style
Working from home, like any form of remote work, presents new challenges and opportunities that require you to approach work differently. The great news is that you have more freedom and control over how you work, but to make that more impactful you need to align how you work from home to your work-style.
Does your creativity and productivity peak in the morning or the afternoon? Are you a lark or an owl? Do you work better with your head hunkered down in silence or do you thrive with music and background noise? By figuring all that out and planning your working from home experience and environment around it, you’ll be more productive and more satisfied.
Take some time to sit down, understand your work-style better and use those insights to plan your approach. This is the foundation of work from home.
3. Get ready like you are going into the office
The mental association you make between work and an office can make you more productive, and there’s no reason that feeling should be lost when telecommuting.
When working from home, do all the things you’d do to prepare for an office role: Set your alarm, make (or go get) coffee, and wear nice clothes. Internet browsers like Google Chrome even allow you to set up multiple accounts with different toolbars on the top — for example, a toolbar for home and a separate toolbar for work.
4. Create Your Workspace
Just because you’re not working at an office doesn’t mean you can’t, well, have an office. Rather than cooping yourself up in your room or on the couch — spaces that are associated with leisure time — dedicate a specific room or surface in your home to work.
5. Stay Off from social media
Social media is designed to make it easy for you to open and browse quickly. At work, though, this convenience can be the detriment of your productivity.
To counteract your social networks’ ease of use during work hours, remove them from your browser shortcuts and, according to Fast Company, log out of every account. You might even consider working primarily in a private or, if you’re using Chrome, an “Incognito” browser window. This ensures you stay signed out of all your accounts and each web search you conduct doesn’t autocomplete the word you’re typing. It’s a guarantee that you won’t be tempted into taking too many social breaks during the day.
6. Leave Home
Is your home office just not getting it done for you? Take telecommuting a step further and get out of the house. Coffee shops, libraries, public lounges, and similar Wi-Fi-enabled spaces can help you simulate the energy of an office so you can stay productive even when you don’t sit in an official workplace.
7. Work when you’re at your most productive
Nobody sprints through their work from morning to evening — your motivation will naturally ebb and flow throughout the day. When you’re working from home, however, it’s all the more important to know when those ebbs and flows will take place and plan your schedule around it.
To capitalize on your most productive periods, save your harder tasks for when you know you’ll be in the right headspace for them. Use slower points of the day to knock out the easier, logistical tasks that are also on your plate “small acts of success,” and they can help build your momentum for the heavier projects that are waiting for you later on.
8. you can do more
Projects always take longer than you initially think they will. For that reason, you’ll frequently get done less than you set out to do. So, just as you’re encouraged to overestimate how much time you’ll spend doing one thing, you should also overestimate how many things you’ll do during the day. Even if you come up short of your goal, you’ll still come out of that day with a solid list of tasks filed under ‘complete.’
9. Focus on one task
There’s an expression out there that says, “if you want something done, ask a busy person.”
The bizarre but true rule of productivity is that the busier you are, the more you’ll actually do. It’s like Newton’s law of inertia: If you’re in motion, you’ll stay in motion. If you’re at rest, you’ll stay at rest. And busy people are in fast-enough motion that they have the momentum to complete anything that comes across their desk.
Unfortunately, it’s hard to find things to help you reach that level of busyness when you’re at home — your motivation can just swing so easily. HubSpot’s principal marketing manager, Pam Vaughan, suggests focusing in on something that maintains your rhythm (in her case, it’s her daughter).
10. Plan out what you’ll be working on ahead of time
Spending time figuring out what you’ll do today can take away from actually doing those things. And, you’ll have planned your task list so recently that you can be tempted to change your schedule on the fly.
It’s important to let your agenda change if you need it to, but it’s equally as important to commit to an agenda that outlines every assignment before you begin. Try solidifying your schedule the day before, making it feel more official when you wake up the next day to get started on it.
11. Use technology to stay connected
Working from home might help you focus on your work in the short term, but it can also make you feel cut off the larger operation happening in the office. Instant messaging and videoconferencing tools can make it easy to check in with coworkers and remind you how your work is contributing to the big picture.
12. Use music as a work timer
You might have heard listening to just two or three songs in the shower can help you save water. And it’s true; hearing a few of your favorite songs start and end, one after another, can remind you how long you’ve been in the bathroom and shorten your wash time.
Why bring this up? Because the same general principle can help you stay on task when working from home. But instead of three songs off your music playlist, run your laundry instead.
Doing your laundry is a built-in timer for your home. So, use the time to start and finish something from your to-do list before changing the load. Committing to one assignment during the wash cycle and another during the dry cycle can train you to work smarter on tasks that you might technically have all day to tinker with.
13. Communicate with your home company
Of course, you might be working from home but still, have a “company.” Make sure any roommates, siblings, parents, spouses, and dogs (well, maybe not dogs) respect your space during work hours. Just because you’re working from home doesn’t mean you’re home.
14. Take Breaks in Their Entirety
Don’t short-change yourself during breaks, especially your lunch hour. You can use an app, such as TimeOut for Mac and Smart Break for Windows, to lock yourself out of your computer for 60 minutes. Or you can just launch a simple clock or timer on the screen when you take a break. If you return to your desk after only 40 minutes, walk away for another 20.
15. Prepare your meals the night before
When you’re in your own home, it can be tempting to spend time preparing a really nice breakfast and lunch for yourself, chopping and cooking included. Don’t use precious minutes making your food the day of work cook it the night before.
Preparing food ahead of time ensures you can actually use your meal times to eat, and that you aren’t performing non-work tasks that spend energy better used at your desk.
16. Look for Training Opportunities
When you’re not in an office with your fellow employees, you might miss out on training and skills development courses that are taught in person. Your company might even forget to add you to its online training courses. It can be tempting to regard this as a dodged bullet, but you might be missing out on an opportunity to learn something useful. Speak up and make sure you’re included.
In addition to top-down training, you can request online or in-person courses, training, and coaching if you need it. For people who work remotely 100 percent of the time, look for learning opportunities that are taught at the company’s headquarters or your closest office. That way, you get training and face time with colleagues.
17. End Your Day With a Routine
Just as you should start your day with a routine, create a habit that signals the close of the workday. It might be a sign off on a business messaging app, an evening dog walk, or a 6 p.m. yoga class. Something as simple as shutting down your computer and turning on a favorite podcast will do. Whatever you choose, do it consistently to mark the end of working hours.
18. Work where you feel happy
For many people, it can be helpful to have a dedicated workspace, but not everyone working from home has that luxury. Going a little further, not everyone works best tied down to a single location. In the middle of writing this paragraph, for example, I moved from sitting upright in a chair to lying on my stomach on my bed. I find simply changing locations can recharge my brain. What matters is that you’re comfortable where you work.
If you prefer working in an area you consider an office, a good office chair, and a solid desk is great.
What to do with kids if you have?
If you have young children, do your best to create a separate workspace with a door. One of Gordon’s rules is: If the door is closed, don’t come in.
If you really want to commit to being with your kids when your workday is finished, it’s important to treat your office hours like you’re really at the office. If you’re trying to do a task that should take an hour, and it takes nearly three because you’re dealing with kids, that eats into the time you have to fully dedicate to them after work.
Why Working From Home is Critically Important to Every Business
Believe it or not, but working from home is quite common with nearly 40% of companies offering positions to work-at-home.
Maintaining business continuity is something every company leader needs to think about. Diversifying where employees work is one of the ways businesses can withstand such unexpected changes in the market. With a remote workforce, employers can limit the effects of any disaster so the company can stay operational. Plus, they can adjust their work hours around local needs.
Since the cost of a broadband internet connection with a strong Wi-Fi signal has decreased every year, working from home is common. For those who use Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) solutions, they can maintain connectivity between co-workers and customers.