5 Ways to Be More Productive When Working From Home
In today’s work culture, more businesses are turning toward remote work and allowing their employees to work from home offices. This shift towards remote workers has increased employee satisfaction, freed up office space, and studies have shown that remote workers are more productive than office-based employees.
One reason for this uptick in productivity is because remotely-based employees do not have the normal distractions of an office. You know, co-workers stopping by the office to chat, or getting pulled into unnecessary meetings.
However, if you work remotely, how can you ensure that you are being as productive as possible? Many people fear they couldn’t do as well without knowing that their boss was right down the hall.
Here are a few tips to make sure that you are as productive as possible while working from home.
1. Design your workspace.
It’s important to have a space that is designated specifically for work. Try to avoid working from the dining room table. Instead, change a spare bedroom or closet into a workspace that stays there all day long and is designated for working hours.
Put the touches into it that will help you feel comfortable throughout the day. That could be a plant, pictures of your family, or a small coffee maker.
2. Set work hours.
If you were in an office, you would be expected to show up by 9 a.m. and leave after 5 p.m. Do the same when you work from home. Set an alarm and be in front of your computer, ready to work, at the same time every day. Even more importantly, have a set time that you shut down. When working from home, it becomes easy to work until 7 or 8 p.m. because you don’t have to worry about your commute or getting home for dinner. But routinely working 12 hour days can lead to burnout.
A set schedule and a hard stop time ensure that you buckle down and get your tasks done while still maintaining a work-life balance.
3. Spend 15 minutes mapping out your day.
When working from home, it is easy to get sidetracked. If you spend the first 15 minutes of your day writing out a checklist of everything you want to get accomplished, you can easily get yourself back on the right path by going down the checklist and moving from task to task.
4. Take a lunch break.
This may sound counterintuitive, but when you work from home, it is easy to let your mind wander to the laundry that needs put in or the dishes that need done. If you designate a specific time to do things around the house, then they won’t distract you during your workday. Take the hour from 12-1 and accomplish as many errands and household chores as you can. You will feel twice as productive without disrupting your work day.
5. Put your phone in a different room while you work.
You wouldn’t be permitted (usually) to take personal calls or texts while at work in an office, so take the same approach with working remotely. It’s easy to get distracted by social media, text messages and calls when your phone is within arm’s reach. Simply put the phone in another room and set it to only allow emergency calls to come through. This way, if you are desperately needed, you can hear the phone ring. Otherwise, it isn’t distracting you from the work you need to accomplish.
Authored by Mackenzie Farone, PR and Marketing Committee Chair
filed under: Resources