How To Be More Productive When Working From Home
How to be more productive when working from home?
- Clean your workspace before working
- Set aside a dedicated time to work
- Plan you day ahead of time
- Know what tasks are most important and do those first
- Create a “space” to be used only for work
- Be comfortable but not “cozy”
If you have been blessed with the opportunity to work from home you know how great it can be.
No dealing with travel time or traffic, and going to lunch consists of walking into the kitchen.
But like all things, there can always be a down side. One of the biggest downsides of trying to “work” where you “live” can be the issue of productivity.
Clean your workspace
A clean workspace means a clean mind. In an article written by the Harvard Business Review, they referenced a survey that reported workers lost up to 2 hours a week searching for documents that they never end up finding.
Not only does a messy workspace lead to searching for lost documents, it can actual play a toll on you mentally, increasing stress and anxiety.
So before you set down to get to work, just take a minute to clean off your desk. You don’t even have to actually take care of the objects. Just setting them behind you on the floor where you can’t see them can have a significant effect.
“Just setting them behind you on the floor where you can’t see them can have a significant effect.”
Set aside dedicated time
Setting aside a dedicated time to work is a great way to immediately improve your productivity. You will want to take a few factors into consideration when choosing a time to work.
When are your energy levels highest, some people work best right after they get up. For others they may need a ramp up period.
When is your home most conducive to getting work done. Anyone with kids can testify that morning and evening can be hectic and noisy, while trying to get kids around or cook dinner.
A strategy that a lot of people have found exceptionally helpful is getting up a 4 AM and having 2 to 3 hours of un interrupted time while the rest of the house is still asleep. This is obviously a strategy best utilized by “morning people”, you don’t want to try to force yourself into a schedule that you body and brain just don’t like.
Plan your day ahead of time
Planning your day is so essential to your productivity, if you were to only do one thing different this would be the thing to do.
Planning your day ahead of time gives you a solid roadmap to where your day is heading. This process also often includes some kind of checklist or task list that you can cross off as you accomplish items. This can be very powerful when it comes to staying motivated.
One style of planning that has been particularly helpful is “time mapping”, time mapping is simply breaking you day down into 15 to 30 minute blocks and then filling the blocks with what you plan to accomplish.
Creating a time map can be extremely easy, here is a simple Excel spreadsheet time map. This document took a total of about 2 minutes to make.
This document can be made once and printed over and over since all the fields are blank.
It has been proven that there is something different that happens between the hand and mind when you actually write something down.
Mapping your day out like this will help you to avoid letting other people waste to much of your time. Talking to friends is great, but they might not have anything to do today, YOU DO! Sticking to the plan will help you avoid pushing things from today to tomorrow.
Know what tasks are most important and do those first
Planning out your day and time mapping Segway nicely into this tip. Most of the time you are going to want to put your most important tasks earlier in the day when you have the most energy. Or if you are un able to choose when the task can be done and the timeframe is set by someone else you will want to plan around that event.
If you have an important meeting at 3pm try not to do task that are too monotonous or energy drain before hand.
Instead you can plan small easy to accomplish tasks that you can check off your list and give you momentum leading into your meeting.
Create a "space" to be used only for work
This step is important enough that many businesses that have remote workers actually require their works to have an office or other space dedicated to work.
It can be really beneficial to getting in the mood to work when you have an area that your brain has associated with working.
A separate area of the house also keeps your mind from saying “oh look at the mess in the kitchen, should I clean that up?” Obviously you should keep your kitchen clean but right now it is time to work.
Be comfortable but not "cozy"
A comfortable work space is best when you are trying to stay on task, a comfortable desk, office chair, lighting etc.
Although you will want to avoid “cozy” situations, sitting on the couch wrapped in a blanket with your laptop may be great for writing a Facebook post but it isn’t going to lend to the best work ethic.
This is the same thinking as having a dedicated space to work in, your brain has become accustom to relaxing once you sit down on the couch.
Invest in a nice office chair and a sturdy desk will help you to get in the work zone and stay there.
The freedom of working from home is great, but with that freedom comes the perseverance to stay on task and be productive. By implementing these tips that process can be made a little easier. Thanks for reading.