Working from home can be difficult at times. Distractions come all too easily in the form of children, pets, phones, or the fridge (at least in my case). Remote working takes discipline focus, whether you are an employer or employee. The following tips can help you work from home more effectively.
Working from home is still working. It helps if you treat it as such. Grabbing a shower early in the morning along with some breakfast and getting changed out of your pyjamas into appropriate workwear will really help get your mind focused on work. You will feel ready for the day and any work that comes your way.
Having space you can call your own while you work is a great way of focusing on the task at hand. Even if your desk is the kitchen counter, being able to close the kitchen door and making it your “office” for the next few hours will increase your productivity and help trick your mind into work mode.
Planning your day can do wonders for keeping you motivated and on track. Start by writing down long-term goals such as completing a specific project. Next, add in short-term goals that you can complete to achieve that specific long-term goal. The completion of these short-term goals will help keep you motivated as you work through them.
The key here is to write or type this list out instead of keeping it in your head. You can also share this list with work colleagues if you are working within a team.
The hardest part about working from home for most people is feeling isolated and removed from your clients or work colleagues. Thankfully, technology has made it easier than ever to communicate and collaborate with colleagues and clients easily.
Tools like Slack, Dropbox, Trello, and Skype are a few solutions that can allow you to work on projects with work colleagues and communicate with each other effectively.
This is a big one. Work requires focus and attention, which can be hard to come by when you have multiple distractions around you. Some common work distraction-factors are
1: Smartphones
On average, we touch our phones more than 2500 times a day. Shocking, right? No wonder they can be such a productivity sucker. Keeping them out of reach can significantly increase productivity while working. Why not try putting it in a drawer or leaving it in another room while you complete a task on your to-do list?
2: Household Tasks
Procrastination affects us all at some point. Under normal circumstances, doing household tasks can be the last thing you want to do, but when working from home they can start to look more appealing as a way of avoiding the work piling up in your inbox.
Out of sight, out of mind is the most effective way we have found to combat this. Close the door of your office or room you are working in, allowing you to focus on what’s in front of you, as opposed to the pile of laundry on the landing.
3: Pets and family members
Setting rules about distracting you during your work hours is a simple but effective way of dealing with family members coming in/out of your office/workspace when you are trying to work.
Unfortunately, pets rarely follow these rules. If you have other members in your household, you can enlist them to take the pet off your hands for a few hours while you focus on big tasks. When they are not around, prioritise this time to get your most mind taxiing work done so you can let them back in while you get through more routine work.
There is no “one solution” for cutting out distractions and focusing on work. Everyone will have their own way of doing things but hopefully, you can implement one or two of these steps and increase productivity while you work from home.
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