Productivity Tips For Working From Home
Our world is a weird place right now. The pandemic forced us to work from home. Working from home has tons of great benefits like you have more time spent with your family, no need to worry about commuting expenses and travel time and you are in your comfort zone.
However, the significant benefits of working from home has its counterpart. It is none other than distractions. As most of us know, distraction is the enemy of productivity. This is because we are in our comfort zone.
I’m not saying your workplace makes you uncomfortable, but when we are at home, we have everything we need and we can do anything we want anytime.
For freelancers and workers in the creative industry, they know what it takes to be productive while working at home.
While, for those who are trying this for the first time, it’s tough because their minds are not used to it. It takes a while to adjust your body and mind to this experience.
The tips I’ve written are ways that I used when I was still in my freelance career and when I was working on my book Roots.
Here are some tips on how to be productive while working from home:
Have a workplace mindset
Treat work from home like work. What do you do when you’re at work? Do you have access to your social media accounts at work? Do you put your phones away from you?
The tasks you do at work should also be the same when you’re at home.
Think of it as just a special place when you’re doing your work. By doing so, you’ll have a workplace mindset while working at home.
Keep in mind that your mindset matters all the time.
Routine Matters
What do you do before going to work? What time do you wake up and sleep? What is your routine for workdays?
Sticking to your routines before starting your work from home gives your mind a time to relax first before starting your work.
I’m sure you know the experience of working right away when you wake up and it sucks! You are not yourself when you do this. You have zero productivity and you procrastinate.
If you wake up early in the morning, because of your travel time going to work. I suggest that you wake up an hour earlier or 30 minutes before your work starts.
I’ll use myself as an example for this one. My work from home starts at 6AM. I wake up at around 5:20 AM to start my morning routine, which includes meditating for 15mins and body weight exercises and stretching.
Once I finish my morning routine, it will be a few minutes before 6AM. I got some time left to prepare myself mentally.
Distraction-free setup
I’m sure Marie Kondo approves this tip. Having a clutter free workspace is the key to being productive at home and at work. For this time, you need to get rid of distractions on your workspace or the table you’re using at home.
If your company allowed you to bring your computers at home, then that is great as well because this will help you have a set-up with fewer distractions.
A distraction-free setup will help you accomplish your tasks.
Incorporate Deep Work
Deep work is always the key to being productive. Working from home allows you to multitask, and this can affect your productivity. Deep work is the opposite of multitasking. Deep work is about doing tasks with full focus one at a time.
To be honest with you, I believe that human beings are not productive when we multitask because what we really do is “switch tasking.”
Multitasking requires doing two or more tasks at the same time while switch tasking is doing two or more tasks by switching to one task to another.
Switch tasking requires more effort and unknown results compared to doing one task at a time, which makes you more productive.
So are you “switch tasking” or multitasking?
To incorporate deep work, you need to have a focus on doing one task at a time. Finish your necessary tasks first before you start the other.
Now’s the time to do our best when working from home because this can urge our employers that this idea works. Maybe once the pandemic is over, the company that you’re working for acknowledges this and starts implementing work from home. So do your best!
How do you stay productive while working from home? Let me know in the comments below! Be part of my email list by clicking that subscribe button above. Can’t wait to hear from you!
