Tips To Improve Productivity While Working From Home

Working from home may seem ideal, but it can be very distracting: One time, you’re trying to be productive, and in the next hour, you’re already in the sitting room catching up with your favorite TV program. But then, you can be “hella” productive even when you work from home – you just need to implement certain practices.

What practices could you implement to improve productivity while working from home? Well, this article lists and explains a handful of them, and majorly, you may not need to spend a dime to actualize these tips/practices. It’s going to be an interesting read. Let’s go.

How To Improve Productivity While Working From Home

Here are the top tips to improve productivity while working from the comfort of your home. It is understandable that not all these tips would be feasible for you; however, you should try to implement the ones you can.

1. Create a Home Office

Now, this is the first step to take – you need an office in your home. Setting up an office in your home may imply using the “spare” room or an idle space somewhere inside the house. However, the best way to set up a home office is to spare a room and equip it – moderately.

Notes:

1. Don’t draw a table close to your bed; place your laptop on the table to start working! You can easily sleep from there.
2. Don’t use the couch and center table; you can get easily distracted.
3. The best home office would be a secluded room in your home that’s not used for anything else except the job you’re about to start doing from home.

2. Setup Your Home Office

When you finally find a room to turn into a home office; or a free – decent – space you can convert into an office, next is to set things up! This includes getting a work desk or high-rise table, an office seat, and other relevant things you may want to have around you while working.

Notes:

1. Don’t keep irrelevant things around your chosen office space.
2. Ensure you get a good office seat and work desk so you’d feel very comfortable – even if you have to work long(er) hours.

3. Set Schedules

This is another important tip you shouldn’t joke with. Even though you may end up going against your schedules one or two times weekly, it is important to craft a work-from-home schedule. In your schedule, identify your working hours, break time, launch time or coffee time, and so on.

Notes:

1. It is important to include break time in your schedule; it is important for your health.
2. If you’re working remotely with a company, make sure your schedule doesn’t contradict the company’s official work schedule for remote workers.

4. Keep Distractions Away!

Here’s another important one; put your phone on DND, don’t add a TV in your home office (except it is really needed), and keep out (even) the tiniest thing that could possibly distract your attention. If you used a separate room for the home office setup, ensure to lock the room from inside, so your kids or any other person in the house can’t possibly barge in.

Notes:

1. If you’re using (just) a free open space in the house, maybe you should use earbuds or headphones to keep out background noise and distractions.
2. Mute phone notifications and alarms (if necessary)

5. Take a Walk During Break Time

Yeah, you’re at home, but you should try walking around the house or going outside to get some fresh air. This is very important as it helps to relax your nerves so you can continue for the day. Also, during your break-time, you can holla your friends via your favorite social media platform, reply to messages, and attend to unread emails.

Notes:

1. Ensure you don’t spend so much time on “break”; otherwise, you’d probably feel lazy/tired to continue for the rest of your working hours.
2. Engaging in video games during break-time may not be ideal; you may never continue your job.

6. Dress Properly

It’d be best if you could dress as someone going to a physical office, but if you can’t, simply dress well – in a way that you’d feel very comfortable working for a long time. Not dressing properly can significantly distract you and reduce your productivity.

Notes:

1. When you start feeling uncomfortable with how you’re dressed, you can always change into sometime better and free on you.
2. Dressing in corporate can boost your confidence level and productivity.

7. Let Everyone Else At Home Know Your RULEsX

When you’re done crafting your work schedules and other rules you believe would improve your productivity, relay the update(s) to everyone else in the house with you. If you’re living alone, then you don’t have to bother about this. However, if you live with your family (parents, siblings, partner/spouse, kids, maids), then it is important you take this tip seriously.

Notes:

1. Tell everyone your working hours, so they don’t try to distract you within those hours.
2. Let them know when they can check up on you for any necessary reason.
3. Instruct them to keep out your visitors during your working hours.

8. Close At The Right Time

Yes, it’s your home, but you don’t have to work 24 hours round the clock (there could be exceptions to this tip). Decide on a perfect time to close from work every day; when the time draws near, try to round up your work and probably push any undone task to the next time.

You really need to have a closing time, so you can focus and engage with other regular activities you need to do at home – probably making dinner for the kids and getting them ready for another day at school.

Notes:

1. When you close for the day, tidy up your home office space and keep everything ready for the next day.

What More?

These are the finest practices that can significantly improve your work-from-home productivity. It all centers on creating time for every activity while also ensuring that you have enough time to get some good rest.