Why technology could be your key to a productive home office

Working from home isn’t a new thing, but the way in which it can be taken advantage of these days is incredible.

Many people will still say that it’s “so hard to be productive at home with all those distractions”, but in my book, that’s a terrible excuse.

I’ve worked at home for a number of years now, and I’ve realised that technology is the main thing that has kept me productive.

Here’s why.

There are more apps than you can shake a stick at

I’ve lost count of how many apps I use each day to keep me ultra productive at home.

From timing your work to keeping track of projects (we’ll get onto that later), there really is no excuse to get more done if you find the right collection of apps for your work.

That’s the key, though; it’s easy to get lost trying out more apps that you need. Find what works — and stick with them.

Tech is getting smaller — and more capable

Smartphones, laptops, tablets and even smart watches are now the tools of choice for many work-at-home professionals.

This is because they’re super simple to use, fast and — above all — small.

Small tech plays a big role in productivity. It doesn’t get in the way and, crucially, can be taken anywhere. Therefore, whenever you need to leave your home office, you can take pretty much the entire office with you!

Communication is, literally, everywhere

My job means I have to communicate with lots of different teams from different organisations all over the planet. I couldn’t do this easily and cost effectively without modern technology.

From instant messaging services to chat platforms that are built directly into the apps I use, communication is never far from hand.

This make collaboration, sharing and the ability to work within a wide remote team completely effortless. So effortless, in fact, that it’s easy to forget how far we’ve come with communication.

It’s so easy to keep track of what you’re doing

I religiously use a time tracking app to keep tabs on what I’m doing each day — and how much of it I’m achieving.

Before the introduction of modern time tracking apps and project management software (see next point), that simply wasn’t possible without lots of separate systems and paperwork.

Working from home does leave you with more hours to play with, but tracking them effectively is where the secret to productivity lies.

You’ll never get lost in a project ever again

Keeping track of projects — big or small — is challenging when you’re working from home.

Clearly, the last thing you want is reams of paperwork and loads of post-it notes stuck everywhere, but that’s why modern project management apps are so powerful.

Most of us work on lots of disparate projects at once and I know, personally, that I’d fall flat on my face every day if it wasn’t for the brilliant project management tech that is only a finger-tap away on my phone.

Wrapping up

Working from at home isn’t something you need to conquer. There are indeed distractions, but use technology like I have any you’ll wonder how you ever got any work done in a regular office.