Most of us are working from home these days, and if you’re not used to it, it can wreak havoc on your productivity, as well as your relationships with your family members and/or roommates. If you’re looking for ways to manage your time and increase your productivity while working from home, here are some tips to help you out:
Decide Where to Work 🏡
Ideally, you’ll want to set up a home office – a space you can dedicate to getting work done. If you don’t have a spare room you can dedicate to work, try setting aside a small space, even if it’s just one chair, or one corner of your sofa. When you’re in that space, all you do is work. You don’t check Facebook or Twitter, you don’t watch TV, you don’t even snack. You’re there to work. Working consistently in one space will train your brain to work as soon as you sit down (or stand, if you have standing desk) in that space.
If you can afford to set aside an entire room to just working, you can use that as a home office deduction on your taxes, but talk to your accountant first to make sure you qualify.
Pro tip: Don’t make your bedroom your workspace. Doing so will confuse your brain into mixing up sleep time vs work time, leaving you thinking about work when you’re trying to sleep, which will make it harder for you to fall asleep. Leave the bedroom for sleep and set up your office anywhere else in your home.
Know When You’re Most Productive ⌚
Are you a morning person or a night owl? If you’re a morning person, get the important stuff done first thing in the morning and save the afternoon and evening for more trivial things, like checking email, planning the next day, and taking some breaks. By contrast, if you know you tend to be more productive in the afternoon/evening, then go ahead and sleep in, or get more menial tasks out of the way in the morning and save your tasks that require a lot of focus for the afternoon and/or evening.
This provides the perfect lead-in to our final tip:
Develop a Routine 📃
We are creatures of habit and we like to know what’s coming next, which means developing a routine is crucial, not only for our productivity, but also for our peace of mind. When you know when you tend to be most productive, you can schedule your work for that time. Turn off the TV and stay off social media. If you need to turn off access to the internet for a defined period of time, there are apps to help you do that. If you need access to the internet for research purposes, you can turn off just websites on which you are most likely to waste time, leaving you free to get your work done.
Whether you’re an employee whose company has only recently required you start working from home, or you’ve decided to take the leap into creating your own online business, staying productive while working from home is key. For more resources, download the Free Guide to get started.
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