8 Ways to Increase Productivity When You Work from Home
During this unprecedented change in our daily schedules nationwide many of us are charting unknown territory. Most of us are on an extended, indefinite leave until the COVID-19 virus is contained and we can re-emerge from mandated social distancing.
With that said, depending on the industry that you work, you may be at home but not relinquished from duties, so distance working!
The funny thing is most people, myself included when I was still in the public education system, longed for the opportunity to work from home and always thought those who did had it made and that it would be so much easier! Ha! Was I wrong. When I made the decision to transition fields and focus on my health and wellness company full time, I immediately became part of the “work from home club!” Though I was excited at the prospect, little did I know how much of a true adjustment it would be, and when I mean adjustment I would err on the side of a bit difficult, when it came to getting a work cadence down and becoming truly productive.
See, I was so use to the work environment of being “in bondage,” as a teacher and eventually an assistant principal, I could barely find the time to go to the ladies room during the hours of 7:30am-4:00pm, so when I transitioned to working from home, let’s just say I was almost like that teenager who had been suffocated by strict and relenting rules their entire life and now was their first year at college! W-I-L-D.
I treated my days, at first, as vacation days, and worked at a whim, justifying that with the thought process that I scheduled my own hours and I needed to break away from the stereotypical “worker mindset.”
Now, while that may have been the case, and still is, what I have found since being self-employed is that to be successful and productive there still must be structure. That structure may look different than when I was “on the clock” at my traditional job, but there still needed to be a form of structure nonetheless.
So, if you have now been thrusted into the “work from home” situation I have a few considerations that you should take into account when thinking about how to approach this, still be productive and find yourself enjoying more flexibility in your day, like going to the stinkin’ restroom whenever you want or napping if that is what your body is telling you that it needs.
As a reminder, everyone, just like with nutrition, will have different needs, so take these considerations and utilize what will work for you and the parameters created for your distance working situation.
CREATE A ROUTINE
It is so important to create, or maintain a daily routine when you are working from your home. This is especially the case when you do not have the option to be in a co-working space. With the mandates of social distancing during the COVID-19 crisis, that option, which would allow for a bit more focus and control over your work-time allocations, is not available.
Think of the following routines and make sure you implement them immediately!
Continue to wake up at your normal time and attend to your hygiene needs! This sounds obvious, but make sure you are showering, washing your face and brushing your teeth! You will not be productive if you are at home and “slumming it!”
IMPLEMENT A NO PAJAMA POLICY
Okay, so this piggy backs off of tip number 1, but this is crucial! You must be the CEO of your own work environment and put policies and procedures in place. And the first of those, no pajamas at work!
Now, do not misunderstand, you don’t have to throw on your power suit to walk to your kitchen table or the shared home office, but you do have to veer away from pajamas and lounge wear during your work day! So, in this case, think comfort, not relaxation.
From experience, I know that working from your pajamas does not result in the most productive day, and quite honestly, even if you are getting work done, I find that it is not your absolute best.
Continuing to wear your pajamas throughout the day triggers your mind to think that you are in a state of relaxation. You must flip that switch, and the way to do that is to wake up and get dressed!
CREATE DEDICATED WORK SPACE
Even if you don’t have the luxury to have an office space in your home, you can create dedicated zones within the space that you have.
The one lesson in this is that your bed IS NOT an appropriate work area. You have to keep separation from the areas in which you sleep and relax and those that you work in.
SET THE MOOD
Setting the mood for your day will set a tone for your productivity!
The great thing about working from home is that you are able to control your own environment. So, if you work best by listening to Bach or Jay-Z’s 1996 Reasonable Doubt album, go for it!
You don’t have to deal with Susan’s pine allergies so if it helps, light your spruce holiday candle that you have not changed out since December, if it makes you happy and focuses you!
TIME EVERYTHING YOU DO
With (potentially) no set meetings, must-take-by-law lunch breaks or the daily water cooler chats, you can get lost in time, spend too much time on a particular task, or find yourself getting lost in all the updates and memes on social media. So, just don’t!
Make certain you assign each tasks or project you have to work on an allotted amount of time. Set your phone timer or the one on your microwave or stove and stop when it goes off. You can always reassess at the end of a specified time and allocate more time for the completion in the moment or allocate it later in the day, but the point here is to stay on task and not allow what you are working on to encroach on your other deliverables.
HAVE A BOOKEND MENTALITY
In The Well membership, this something that we walk through and create in detail. We typically approach bookend routines as morning activities to start the day overall and evening activities to close out your day.
Well, this can most certainly apply to your “work-from-home-day.”
You must have routines and structure around your starting and ending points of the work day. So think and plan out— how do you actually begin the work day and what time that will be, and how and when your day is completed? Make certain you include closing activities like, creating a schedule for the next day, calendar conference calls, clean up your work area and shutting down any work-related technology.
This act alone, creating bookends, will make certain that your work doesn’t encroach on your home life and the sanctuary that you have created!
COMMUNICATE
Communicating expectations with family and friends around your work schedule while at home is critical! I can’t shout this from the rooftop loud enough!
This alone prevented me meeting several deadlines when I first ventured into entrepreneurship. I treated my day like a vacation and as a result, so did everyone else!
I was asked to run errands throughout the day, took more than my share of “lady’s lunches,” and found myself attending to household tasks that would never had been my responsibility when I commuted to and from the office.
What I realized was that it had to stop, but it could only stop with me! I had set the precedent that I could chat anytime of the day with no stopping point, or that I could just pop out and attend to something because I was “at home,” and I would be helping out…after all, isn’t that a benefit to working from home?
While that may be true, to think that those things can happen all of the time and you will adjust your work flow around them, well, that is already setting yourself up for failure and limited productivity!
Let your family and your friends know your work hours and be strict about them. Another tip is to set your phone to airplane mode or mute certain contacts, if you can, during that time also. I find that doing that keeps you from being tempted to answer phone calls in the middle of a productive day.
If you have kids at the house create a signal letting them know when they can or cannot disturb you, even for the tiniest of requests!
MIND YOUR SNACKS
Most people mindlessly snack throughout the day. Coworkers share little treats, there is access to vending machines and endless coffee at work.
This is not and has never been great for our overall nutrition!
If you are at home due to the COVID-19 outbreak, there is no doubt that you have probably stocked your pantry full of “survival” food and snacks to get you through.
It is important that you are mindful of what it is you are eating and snacking on and make certain that this is not a habit that you are perpetuating throughout the day.
If you are a snacker- I would encourage you to do a few things! 1. Take account of what you are snacking on to ensure that it is healthy. The last thing you want is to be eating foods and snacks that are going to drain your energy and production, especially when your bed is a stone’s throw away from your desk! 2. Consider why you’re snacking and what that does or does not do for your overall health goals. 3. Consider joining me and the Curated Health community for SPRING FLING WEEK, where we will be talking about the snack habit and how to approach it in a fashionably elegant way, as the French do!
There you have it, the tips I suggest you implement during your work day at home to actually get things done! It can be business as usual with a perk or two! Share in the comments your tips for working from home! It would be great to support each other in the community this way, sharing knowledge is so powerful!
