Working From Home- Tips to maintain productivity
With Covid-19 spreading fast within the US and across the globe, we have seen an unprecedented shift of paradigm in the work from home culture within the workforce. This shift has resulted in a lot of changes in ones personal and professional life. With no future currently in sight, it critical that we adjust our lifestyle to this new way of working and keep maintaining our productivity at work while doing so. Here are some tips for employees to keep up with their old routines while working remotely.
1. Separate out Work Hours and Personal Time
It can be extremely difficult to separate out work hours from your personal time when working from home. Its crucial that people dont sign on to their work laptops the moment they get up, it may be one email which will eventually lead to another, and the cycle will continue, till you end up putting extra time at work every day. Going through the morning routine- making breakfast, taking a shower etc will be a great idea to slowly transition from your personal time to getting inundated with whatever the workday has in store.
Leaving your home-office space to take quick breaks can be revitalizing - lunch breaks, coffee breaks etc. Without co-workers stopping by for a chat or inviting you to grab coffee or lunch together, it’s easy to sit for 8–10 hours straight without actually talking to another human being. (Presson, 2013)
2. Structure your day like you would in Office
The best part about working from home is you can be your own time manager. But structuring your work schedule as if you were working from office can increase and maintain your productivity greatly.
3. Communicate, Communicate and Communicate
Its important that supervisors are looped in with regards to your task and timelines- this can enable them to be aware of your successes and struggles. Communicating with your boss and your colleagues directly can significantly cut down on miscommunication and break up some of the social isolation that can come from working from home, but dont default to emails only. Face to face communications have proven to have the highest media richness, followed by video conferencing, IM etc. Emails are a good medium of communication when the complexity of information to be sent is relatively low.
While communicating can help, its important to be aware of information overloading. The casual conversations in office now have been replaced with emails and IMs. Sometimes these can act like distractions during your productive time, so discussing them with your colleagues can reduce distractions to a certain extent, and reduce information overload via emails/IMs.
3. Carve out dedicated Workspace , which is separate from your living space
Differentiating workspace from your living space can help avoid some of the distractions at home. You can do many things to level up your home office.
Have a space that you designate as your workstation instead of checking emails, voicemails, or texting in front of TV or spreading work out on the kitchen table.
4. Work when you’re at your most Productive.
Everyone cant be 100% productive for 8 hours of their workday, but everyone of us have our own “native time”, the time of the day when we are the most productive. Keep these time frames in mind when organizing your daily schedule.
To capitalize on your most productive periods, save your harder tasks for when you know you’ll be in the right head space for them. Use slower points of the day to knock out the easier, logistical tasks that are also on your plate.
“For me, the most productive times of the day are usually early in the morning or late afternoons. I recognize this and try to plan my day accordingly. Also, music that really pumps me up doesn’t hurt.”
5. Reward yourself for Work well done.
Celebrating accomplishments have always shown great results in the long run. Recommended rewards can include a fresh cup of coffee, a lounging session with your pet or playing your favorite video game for a few minutes.
“Here is your Ice Cream”. Boy, I loved hearing those words as a kid after completing a task assigned by my parents.
When I was young, my parents used to take me out for ice cream if I completed a sizable task I was assigned, for example, cleaning the garden. The more the effort to complete the task, such as scoring good grades, the better the reward was, like a bicycle.
We all know the drill. Do something and get something in return. The more the effort/energy/time spent, the better the reward.
It is the most famous strategy to get things done for one simple reason.
Because it works! You can use the same principle to reward yourself.
While working remotely can be a way to gain control of your life and schedule, it can also easily do the opposite by taking over your personal territory and time. So, if you want to embrace all of the benefits that working remotely has to offer, spend some time creating habits that foster a healthy work-life balance.
Presson, L. (2013, March 21). Separating work from life: 3 habits for remote workers. The Muse. https://www.themuse.com/advice/separating-work-from-life-3-habits-for-remote-workers