How To Increase Your Productivity When Working From Home
There are millions of people around the world that have been working from home for months now. A lot of people also don’t know when or even if they will go back to work full time. Working from home can come with a lot of problems like distractions and too many comforts that may make you struggle to concentrate or get as much work done. In this article, I’ll teach you the best ways to work more productively from home!
Have A Separate Work Space
If you are working from home then one of the best things you can do is to have a separate place in the house for you to work. If you are working in your bedroom at a desk then you will be surrounded with many distractions that will make you lazier.
Try finding a dedicated space like a spare room or a home office that you can work at while having minimal distractions. I know that some people don’t have space in their house to have a separate workspace so you can use some of my other tips to increase productivity.
At the start of lockdown, I was working from my bed in my room but I found that I got a sore back and that I was a lot less productive. I then moved to a desk in my room and while this did increase my productivity, I was still getting easily distracted. I am now sitting at a desk in my home office that I made out of a small spare room in my house. I now have no distractions and I have been even more productive than I have been at work!
Tidy Up Your Computer
You may not have thought of this one as it isn’t as obvious but having a tidy computer is just like having a tidy room. What I mean by this is that you should have an easy to access file system and not to have random files in random folders.
Some people may not be able to do this one if you are working from a work computer but if you are using a personal computer I recommend using a service like iCloud or Google Drive. You should know where all your files are by having a cascading file system. This means that you have categories that split into more categories and so on until you get to your files.
This can really help productivity by making the amount of time you spend searching for a file much less. If you are looking for files multiple times a day, that is a lot of time that could be spent getting work done. It can also help working from home to feel less stressful because you don’t have to panic when you think you lost a file.
Listen To Music
There have been many studies in the past that prove that music can help you work more productively as it blocks out distractions from other people and thing. Using a nice pair of noise-cancelling headphones, you can instantly remove all background distractions and work more productively.
While this all sounds great there is one thing to consider, listening to your favourite artists like Aj Tracy and Eminem isn’t a great idea. This is because you will become distracted by the music and you will therefore decrease your productivity. You should be listening to things like classical music, relaxing music or white noise.
I personally listen do Study Beats on Apple music and that really helps me to concentrate for long periods of time. I used to never listen to music when I started writing but now that I do, I would say that I can write twice as fast and for longer periods of time.
Take Regular Breaks
Working from home can get stressful at times and its important to remember that you need to relax and take a step back through the day. If you are just sitting at a desk all day every day then you are very quickly going to get burned out and demotivated.
You should set yourself set times or frequency that you will take a break for five to ten minutes just to chill, grab a snack or catch up on the news. This is great for you to refresh your brain and come back with a fresh head. This will increase your productivity massively.
This time is great for your mental health as working from home can really cause a lot of stress and a lot of people end up working more hours than they need to. Using these breaks will also make you feel much better when you return to your computer and this will increase your overall productivity.
Choose The Right Clothes
This is another tip that might not seem that obvious but this can be very important. If you are sitting around in your wonsey all day then you are going to feel a lot lazier and won't work as hard. If you are wearing more formal clothing then you will be more important because you are making everything feel more like you are at work.
However, I don’t recommend sitting around in your work uniform all day unless you really want to because walking around your house in a shirt and tie might be a bit weird. What I do recommend is to get into regular clothes like a t-shirt and jeans so that you aren’t sitting in PJs and becoming lazy.
This can really help your productivity as you will want to do more and you will feel more comfortable working for long periods of time. I personally started doing this 3 months into lockdown and I immediately noticed a difference.
Make A Schedule
Having a strict schedule that you will stick to will help you be more organised and in turn, be more productive. Having your day laid out can help you to visualise what you need to get done and the most efficient way to do it. This can also help because you can see what you have the next day and even more in advance so you can plan things out better.
While you could stick to old fashion pen and paper, I would highly recommend using a digital calendar like Apple Calendar or Google Calendar. This is because you can easily add, delete and edit events as well as being able to see your calendar on multiple devices. Both services are really easy to use and will help you to become more organised and more productive.
I always thought using a calendar to plan out my day would be silly but I started one just to see what it would be like and I have never gone back. I use Apple Calendar and it really helps me throughout the day as I can see at a glance what is coming up on my watch! I also use Apple Reminders to create a to-do list that can be accessed from all my devices!
Remove Distractions When Working
When working from home, there are many distractions that will make you less productive. Things like social media, YouTube and other people can stop you from being as productive when working from home.
Social media is probably the worst as you can be getting notifications all the time and once you're on there you will be stuck on there for a very long time. I would advise turning notifications off altogether for social media or put on Do Not Disturb Mode on your phone when working.
If you have other people in your house, make sure that you aren't working in the same place as others as there are many ways that you can get distracted by each other. Also, you shouldn't watch things like YouTube or Netflix when working as you are going to focus on that and start focusing only on the video.
Conclusion
Working from home can come with its disadvantages, you can easily be distracted and therefore less productive. If you can incorporate some or all of these tips into your work routine then you can really improve your productivity when working from home!
