Working from Home? 5 more top tips!
A couple of weeks ago, we gave you 5 working from home top tips. Since then, we have found a few more that we’d like to share with you.
Working from home has become a mainstay for our new normal and with that, productivity focus has to shift from being productive with physical disturbances from colleagues to being productive in the space that you normally associate with relaxation. The longer we work from home, the more complicated the situation seems to become, especially when you do not live alone, have kids, a partner or even friendly house mates.
Make your expectations known
It’s hard when you’re working at home with others, but the key to productivity is to make it known to those at home that you are working and you’d like to not be disturbed at all between certain hours unless it’s an emergency, so that you can get your work completed quickly with (hopefully) some extra time to spend with them in the evening. By respecting your own work time, you’re ensuring productivity at “work” and reducing the chance for your personal time to be eaten into doing work things. You can even have certain rules in place, such as no disturbances if your headphones are on or if you’re wearing certain cardigan or jacket, so that people will know when you’re in a focused session, and when your work is more flexible.
Grab some headphones…
…But don’t play the charts. If you play music with lyrics, you’ll find yourself tapping away at the beat and not focusing. However, you can find some types of music very powerful for focus. For instance, if you need deep focus for a task, try listening to video game soundtracks, as they are designed specifically to keep the player zoned in. By matching the music you listen to the task at hand, you will find that your work quality and pace will improve.
Schedule calls for the afternoon
For most people, the day starts at 9am, or sometimes earlier. It’s best to leave your most productive hours when you’re fresh and energised to get your important work completed and leave the afternoon for your meetings and calls, when you don’t need complete focus. The bonus of being productive earlier means that you will not feel rushed to wrap up the meeting because you still have work to do, allowing you to be more present and feel significantly more productive. This is a good practice when you’re also in an office as well.
Plan your day the night before
This should be something everyone does anyway, but planning your day the night before allows you to jump straight into your projects first thing in the morning. It makes your feel more organised and you’ll instantly be more productive, since your day has already been mapped out.
Use a laundry or egg timer
You have probably heard of the pomodoro technique, but if you are working from home, it’s likely that you are multitasking by throwing in some laundry while you’re getting stuff done. Working with a timer will help you be more efficient with your time throughout the day.
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