Working from home: You may have to science the s*** out of this
“In the face of overwhelming odds, I’m left with only one option — I’m gonna have to science the shit out of this” — Matt Damon, at some point
Struggling? I know the feeling. Working from home may have started off well, but now you’re flagging. You’ve got plenty of excuses, of course. The kids are driving you nuts. Your bed looks so much more comfortable. It’s okay not to be productive as the world burns all around you.
But we still need to square with the fact that we all might be in this for the long haul. After four years of working from home, the jury’s still out on whether I’m truly cut out for it. And yet here we are, and I consider myself more productive today at home than I’ve ever been in an office environment.
Doing so has required some serious science though, and it’s best to consider yourself a quasi-cyborg. In fact, if Neuralink were to allow me to interface with a computer in order to form “a more perfect union” — I might give it a shot. As my system has worked well with the way my brain is wired, don’t be afraid to experiment with what works well for you, and I’ve listed the below in accordance with my personal order of priority. Productivity runs against our evolutionary wiring, which is why we need to do everything we can to help neutralize our natural inclination to just lie around and do absolutely nothing.
The Snowball Effect: First, Stack the Deck in Your Favor.
Sweat the small stuff — it’s more important than you think. Malcolm Gladwell once claimed in Outliers that more pro hockey players are born earlier in the year, since players were grouped by age as kids. Just a few months of physical development can make the difference between a January-born kid receiving special coaching attention and resources building up in a snowball effect vs a December child with similar abilities who fails to stand out.
That’s why you should never underestimate the ability of small things to build into a snowball effect that can ultimately yield tremendous productivity gains over the long run. Implementing scientific, evidence-based productivity improvements to your workspace can matter a great deal in the long run, and snowball your chances to be productive. Make sure you have every advantage. Here are some of things that I’ve done:
- Make sure your workspace is clean, uncluttered and free from distraction.
- Get comfortable seating.
- Exercise for at least 30 minutes a day.
- Make sure you have almonds, fruit and protein bars within eyesight and reach (no sweets).
- Get a home office humidifier.
- Add a few “productivity” plants. The Peace Lily is a great start.
Fortunately, we’re hyper obsessed with productivity, which means you can probably find ideal ranges for everything from office temperatures (22 C (71.6 F) to the right amount of sleep within a 24-hour span (7 to 9 hours). Even pets are observed to have a measurable effect.
You get the point. Treat the science of productivity like a superstitious starting pitcher treats Game 7 of the World Series. In other words, try everything on the off-chance that something (or a combination of things) can help you get points on the board. You don’t need to do everything at once. But you need to at least feel that you’ve gone to great lengths to set yourself up for success, which can make a huge difference.
It’s not really about whether you feel the effects of these changes immediately. It’s about giving yourself the best chance to break into a flow state. While you might not be able to get into the zone every day, you’ll find that every one of the below recommendations is designed to increase your chances of doing so.
The Pomodoro Technique: Break down your work into standardized units — then gamify it
My ability to be productive lives and dies by the pomodoro. Essentially, the Pomodoro technique has been the only method that’s effectively kept my inner procrastination monkey at bay for the past five years, after over 20 years of trying and failing at other productivity hacks, including the Pareto Principle, the Two-Minute Rule and the Eisenhower Decision Matrix (some of which I’ve incorporated in my work).
The Pomodoro Technique, in short, is a time management tool that employs a timer (digital or analogue) to break down your work into 25-minute intervals, punctuated by 5-minute breaks (as well as a longer 30-minute break after 4 / 5 pomodoros). Pomodoro forces you to focus on one thing at a time (i.e., not multitasking) and stick to what you’re doing for at least 20 minutes. If there are many things to be done (such as emails), batch similar tasks together. The time frame is not a hard and fast rule, of course. Should you hit a flow state (which usually takes 10 to 15 minutes to get to), ignore the break and keep on going. If you want to stop, then stop (flow states aren’t everything). If you feel too distracted, stop the pomodoro and start over. If you’re done with your work before the pomodoro ends, then go back and check your work.
One more thing. Pomodoros are standardized units and therefore quantifiable, making them ripe for gamification, letting you stack multiple productivity techniques together. I personally use an app called the Productivity Challenge Timer, which lets you work your way up Soviet-era themed worker ranks based on how many pomodoros you can do in one day, but demotes you should you fall behind, and mocks you for your failures. There are other pomodoro-based gamification apps as well, depending on which device you use to work on, such as Pomodoro Moon and Forest. But the Productivity Challenge Timer has helped me the most in staying motivated. Although I do hope something else comes along — there’s only so much I can take of an app making fun of me for my laziness.
Breaking Down Your Project: AKA “What’s the least you can get away with doing in the next 24 hours and still be ahead?”
This one may look easy to follow, but it’s long eluded us since our college days pulling all-nighters to hand in a paper that we had months to work on. Set a deadline for every project and then work towards it. This will allow you to break up a large project into manageable chunks that you can work on whittling away over the course of a few days or weeks. Some believe they can do their best work against a tight deadline, but I’m not one of them.
So let’s say, for the sake of simplicity, that you have exactly 10 days to complete a project. This means you’ll need to complete 10% of it every day. Figure out how much work that is, and how you can go about doing this on a day-to-day basis. Even for the largest projects, I often find that it doesn’t take more than a few focused pomodoros per day to knock out. Focus on the most important sections first, so you can feel that if things don’t go according to plan, at least you have something usable to hand in.
The advantage of this system is that if you have time, you can do more, and come away feeling that you’re ahead of the game.
Breathing (or Mindfulness) Meditation: Take a deep breath
The link between meditation and productivity has been well established by now. It also makes logical sense why meditation would help.
The key to productivity is focusing on one thing at a time at the expense of everything else, which is precisely what breathing meditation (the common form of meditation) trains you to do. It’s actually quite a simple exercise — just pay attention to your breath: feel the sensations of your body as you move alongside it; the journey of the in-breath and out-breath; whether one breath is longer or shorter than the next etc. This helps build the quantity and quality of your attention — how long it takes before your mind wanders, how much you can retain and how long you can hold your focus.
Daily meditation exercises have helped me focus more, and successfully complete more pomodoros. While there are a few great guided meditation apps available, I personally use Headspace. Other meditation apps that have been recommended include Calm, Ten Percent Happier or Waking Up.
Music: The neuroscience of listening while you work
Your mileage may vary on this one, but music is a significant enough point that it warrants its own section. Music not only changes your mood, it changes your perception. Studies show that listening to music does make you more productive, but the type of music you listen to can make a huge difference. Complex music can lower your ability to focus. I used to work as an editor for a company that would dock $2 from my pay every time a proofreader caught a mistake. I lost more money listening to certain types of music, so you need to choose your soundtrack carefully.
Depending on the individual classical, trance or video game soundtracks might be best for boosting productivity while maintaining focus. If music doesn’t help, try white noise or nature sounds instead. Since lyrics are distracting (to me), I listen to instrumental, with a preference for jazz.
Everyone’s preferences can be different, so you’ll need to do some experimentation. And this may sound counter-intuitive, since you’re at home, but wearing headphones do help. Up until late last year, I used 8tracks — which featured user-curated playlists — before it shut down last year, and now I listen to Spotify or live music radio on YouTube.
Addendum: Other Platforms
Choosing your own productivity “tech stack” can also be quite important. Here are some platforms that I use that have worked for me:
- Before I transfer my work to Google Docs or MS Word, I like to first use Scrivener to draft, because it lets me look at two screens — my research notes and my writing.
- I use Evernote religiously to store all my personal notes and documents and manage my to-do list (based on the Eisenhower matrix).
Finally — and most importantly — if you have any productivity tips that have worked for you, let me know in the comments.
