How to be Productive at Home
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The concept of productivity at home is a modern-day necessity, considering the increasing adoption of remote work. Many people now find themselves navigating the challenge of blending personal and professional tasks within the same environment. This article explores how you can enhance your productivity at home, promote efficiency during remote work, and successfully cultivate a work-life balance.
Embracing Remote Work Productivity with a Healthy Workspace
The first step towards achieving remote work productivity involves creating a dedicated workspace. This space should be conducive to concentration and free from distractions. Having a specific location where you only focus on work helps mentally differentiate professional duties from personal tasks. Good lighting, comfortable seating, and organized work tools also contribute to a productive atmosphere.
However, it's not easy to stay focused when you need to share the same place with other family members, especially if your flat is not big enough to find a separate room and prepare an in-house office.
Pro tip: Treat the obstacles as a DIY project, and be creative!
Luckily, not having a dedicated space to work at home doesn't mean it affects the way you fulfill your responsibilities. One you need is a flat surface like a table to put your computer on - keeping it on your knees is as bad for the device as for your spine. Moreover, a high kitchen counter can be turned into a standing desk when not used for cooking purposes. Just keep your workspace and computer clean and avoid unnecessary clutter.
If background noise distracts you, use the earphones (e.g., from your phone set), especially when having video calls.
Strategies to Boost Productivity at Remote Work
Use online tools to create a virtual office
In enhancing productivity at remote work, it's important to understand that traditional office routines may not translate well to a home environment. Therefore, it's crucial to establish new routines that cater to your personal work style and home setting.
A SaaS market is full of online tools that support remote team collaboration and absence and time management. A full toolkit streamlines many business-related activities and successfully creates a virtual office for distributed teams.
A comprehensive project management tool integrated with time tracking software is a perfect combination to start with:
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TimeCamp Planner provides you with multiple ways to keep all the ongoing and archived projects and tasks in one easily accessible place, so you can manage the workflow of your remote team effortlessly. This task management tool keeps everyone on the same page and ensures a proper level of team communication, so your employees can perform their responsibilities without any delays and be productive at home,
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TimeCamp makes sure your employees spend their work time effectively - it tracks hours spent on work-related tasks and automatically fills employee timesheets, and keeps their attendance records for accurate payroll purposes.
Regular breaks can be beneficial as they offer a chance to rest and recharge, promoting better focus during work periods. Furthermore, setting clear goals for each day and using productivity tools can help keep you on track.
Being Productive While Working from Home: The Role of Discipline
Being productive while working from home requires a significant level of discipline. Without the typical structure of a traditional office, it can be tempting to procrastinate or become distracted. To combat this, structure your day with regular work hours, and ensure you stick to them. It's also essential to avoid home-related distractions during these hours.
✅ Embrace morning routine
Those who struggle with staying productive when working from home can embrace the morning routine they used to maintain while working in the office. Wake up early, eat a healthy breakfast, dress up in more formal clothes, put a makeup if you want, and make yourself a coffee, then turn the computer on and check what tasks are scheduled for the day on your to-do list. However, thinking about work shouldn't be the first thing you do in the morning - first, get prepared for the day full of challenges ;).
Pro tip: You can easily do it with TimeCamp Planner, which offers a handy to-do list within a single task view or a Timeline, or My Task, a quick overview of tasks assigned to a particular team member. Don't remember to set priorities and break big chunks of work into smaller tasks to avoid getting bored, and, thus, more distracted by the home environment.
✅ Take breaks frequently to avoid getting bored
Take care of a proper amount of free time when working remotely. Some remote workers tend to forget about taking breaks frequently - there's no family member to remind them of it, or they're focused too deeply on their work; the others just want to save time and complete their tasks quickly as possible.
Consider implementing techniques such as the Pomodoro Technique, which promotes focused bursts of work followed by short breaks.
✅ Get prepared
Many remote workers are prone to distraction and struggle with a proper focus level. To avoid mixing home life with work, get prepared for the next day the day before.
Write a meal plan, buy more groceries at once, and introduce meal prepping to your cooking routine. Cook bigger portions of the dishes and meal prep them by putting them in separate containers. Keep them in the fridge for 2-3 days, and avoid getting distracted by longer breaks for food preparation.
✅ Maintain proper time management
Start and end work at similar hours every day to set boundaries between home life and work responsibilities. This way, you'll establish a work week routine just as if you would work on-site, which is necessary for maintaining proper energy levels every day.
✅ Write down all important tasks
Use task management tools like TimeCamp Planner to make a to-do list of all your assignments. Maintain daily and weekly checkups for progress reviews and better workflow planning. Stay productive by making sure all your tasks are done on time and without unnecessary delays.
Home Productivity: Beyond Work
Home productivity isn't just about professional work; it extends to efficiently managing household chores and personal projects as well. Setting a daily or weekly schedule for these tasks, much like you would in a professional setting, can help ensure they are not neglected. Including leisure activities and downtime in this schedule is also important for maintaining a well-rounded, balanced lifestyle.
Taking care of both physical and mental health is a no-brainer way to ensure yourself a productive day every day. Choose from many forms of self-care offered by your environment - I bet there are plenty of nice places around your home to take a nice, mind-resting walk there.
Implement those healthy habits and productivity tips into your daily routine:
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Remember to take a walk frequently for a bit of fresh air (for a fresh perspective),
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Spend extra time on physical activity (check out workout videos on Youtube!),
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Spend time with your closest ones to catch up with things that are important to them,
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Prepare clothes and food for the next morning to avoid being in a rush right after waking up,
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Turn off phone notifications for your work phone once you finish the workday,
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Create a daily to-do list of the most important things with TimeCamp Planner and stick to it (remember to review it at the end of the day),
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Exchange mobile devices for a physical book to let the eyes rest properly,
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Find time to go outside and meet with your friends or family,
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Create a routine of learning a new skill every week; for example, try to study a new language or start solving sudoku puzzles.
All these tips mentioned below are meant to help you build a more balanced lifestyle when working remotely. But don't be so strict with yourself if you're not dedicating your heart to following them - just make sure to do your best to help yourself achieve a piece of mind and some quality time after turning the computer off.
Choose a new Work Location for More Productive Day
Working and living in the same environment may affect overall productivity negatively in the long run. Sure, we also see the same walls every day when working in the office, but at least we spend some time commuting, which makes us go outside more frequently. Changing the work location may help us bring a new perspective to working remotely and, thus, enjoy what we do more.
✅ Workation
If you feel like you need to change the environment to recharge the batteries, but at the same time, you can't afford to take a proper vacation, consider going to workation. To put it simply, it's a time when you still fulfill your work responsibilities, but from the place you would normally choose as a holiday destination.
✅ Different location
Sometimes just changing the flat to a new location may help. Consider finding a co-working space and book yourself a desk there - it shouldn't cost much, but changing the atmosphere to more office-like may significantly improve your daily attitude towards work. You can also go to a nearby cafe or restaurant, treat yourself to a delicious cake and drink, and spend time working in a more casual environment.
✅ Visit your office once in a while
If you live in the same city as your company's headquarters, consider switching from a fully remote to a hybrid mode and visit your office once or twice a week. Sometimes just a few weeks of seeing your colleagues in the real world instead of calling them may work wonders (or, the result may be completely opposite - you may realize how much you appreciate working at home ;)).
Mastering Productivity at Home
Mastering productivity at home can take time and practice, but with the right strategies in place, it's an achievable goal. By creating a conducive workspace, establishing effective routines, exercising discipline, and balancing professional and personal tasks, you can excel in your remote work productivity. Remember, being productive isn't about being busy all the time. Instead, it's about working smarter, not harder, and allowing yourself time to relax and recharge. With these practices in place, you can confidently navigate the path to becoming highly productive at home.