HEALTH + FITNESS
Five Tips to Make Work From Home More Productive
Source: iStock
It’s great to work from home – you can stay in your pj’s, don’t have to fight commuter traffic, can avoid getting caught up in office politics and of course set your own hours.
Yet while working remotely from home has its benefits, it can be difficult to avoid the many distractions our home life has to offer. Having a hard time maxing out your productivity when working from home? These top five hacks will have you back on track in no time.
Develop a Strong Morning Routine – Your morning routine sets you up for the day and can signal whether your workday will be productive, or just plain sluggish. Set a time you will wake up each morning and then stick to it. Avoid immediately reaching for your smartphone and instead meditate, read something inspirational, do some yoga, or hit the gym.
Hal Elrod’s book The Miracle Morning talks about creating a morning routine where you accomplish five things each morning – Silence, Affirmations, Visualization, Exercise, Reading and Scribing. These things, which can be accomplished in as little as ten minutes, help refocus the brain and help start the day off on the right track.
Create a Workspace – You’re not going to get much done sat on the couch watching television with your laptop on your knee. Instead find a quiet space in your home to devote to a workspace. If space allows you can turn one room in your residence to a home office. Other people have taken a closet and made it a quiet workspace. Or choose a corner of your home to devote to an office. Experts suggest keeping your workspace out of the bedroom as this can interfere with sleep.
A great small space alternative to keeping an office at home is to purchase a secretary desk, like this one from IKEA. It folds down during the day with enough space to store everything you need to work productively and then folds up at the end of the day so you can leave ‘work’ behind!
Keep a To-Do List and a Done List – It’s easy to procrastinate when you don’t have a boss breathing down your neck everyday. Instead make a ‘to-do’ list at the end of each day denoting what must be done during the following work day. It’s also beneficial to keep a ‘done’ list of everything you have accomplished. When we can see how productive we have been it works as an incentive to keep doing more.
Get Dressed – It may seem like an odd thing since working from home allows you to stay in your pj’s each day – but that’s not going to make you more productive. Instead treat each morning as though you are getting ready to leave the house to go into an office. Take a shower, brush your hair and get dressed. By simply performing these tasks you are telling your brain it’s time to start working.
Find Your Creative Hours – We all have different times of the day when we do our best work. Some people are morning people, others find they are more productive during evening hours. Find out what works best for your brain and then set your office hours during that time of day, or night. Make sure friends and family know to respect those office hours and try to limit interrupting you during that time.
