20 Ways To Improve Productivity When You’re Working From Home.

Well, everyone is at home now, lockdowns and the curfews in different parts of the world have forced many to stay at home. The world economy is on its knees and these has forced many to work in the most uncommon places-away from there offices. It may be challenging if you were always used to office work unlike those who are able to stay at home all alone for some good time enough to make money.

So how do you go about it, how do you ensure you remain productive even if the little one(s) is always around demanding your attention, how do you maintain your productivity when the little ones are ever fighting over the remote in the living room? The constraints may overwhelm you, coupled with the current scare, you may end up losing productive hours. 

Here are some of the ways of creating a distraction-free work environment and setting up a home office to help you level up your home productivity:

Set up Home Office

Depending on the size of your house, you can always set up a space for the basics you need to work. Here are some tips for setting up a home office:

·   Get yourself a standing desk

·   Ensure your lighting is appropriate

·   Your posture matters; an ergonomic office chair is the best

·   Get yourself a business communication line; just to separate the work from home affairs.

·    On top connection; get yourself a high-speed internet.

·    Make your furniture plan flexible.

·   Make the area serene; go green for our eco-champs, the gentlemen I bet have a thing for blue.

·   Maximize your vertical space.

·   Style; just a desk and laptop may be too lonely.

Have a Plan.

Saves time and saves the mind, lessens the mishaps lessens the ups and downs. A work schedule is very important for working from home. Make a list of the tasks you are to work on in their order of priority, set your working hours, work based on the rhythm of your body, and take meaningful breaks. Substantially, remember to allocate time to tend to the family and your social life.

Start It Off Early

There is always an advantage of starting off early, you get yourself a couple of hours ahead. Get up early and do the chores, set everything ready; prepare breakfast, clean up, your workstation, and get started. For others the preferred method would be to get up early and start it off; working while the body is still fresh, only be careful not to let the sluggishness of the morning wear you off. Your motivation heavily relies on how you coordinate your morning.

Office Mode

There is more productivity that is mentally associated with the office. With your home office set up already, all you need to do is wake up to it. Prepare your meals, do chores, and dress up as usual; you’ll see yourself as more set to work. Setting yourself to office mode will help you avoid distractions and drooling back to bed.

Limit Social Media

Getting social isn’t bad until an hour elapses while you are still on Facebook, Twitter, or some online debate. One thing you need to be aware of is that the moment you like a video, article, or any web content, the site brings suggestions on similar content that you’d also love. Social media sites always customize content to keep you much engrossed in their sites and so should you with your work. Tick tock, tick tock, the second hour elapses, any way you are home, no one is after your neck after all. Do this, have a work schedule with breaks to look at your phone, or check social updates as you’ll find it much easier to get back to work.

Maximize

Working from home should mean you can do more than when going to the office based on the time factor. You have more time to do your chores, prepare meals, have some social media fun, and tend to the family. Convert this time to work, that project that usually takes up three days, makes it two, two weeks, make it one; be more compelled to work using every single opportunity you have; needless to say, starting off early is just one way you are already maximizing, back it up with office mode.

Work From Home Team

At the moment all your colleagues are home; go ahead and make the team live again. Get everyone up and establish a platform for sharing tasks and monitoring progress. With the knowledge of all your colleagues working and delivering, you will be more compelled to work and achieve more in turn increasing home productivity.  

Do Daily Stand-ups

With the team already set up, just how well do you manage it? Daily stand ups are vital in bringing more life to your work and getting you started for the day. The basic components of daily stand-up that will make your day more productive are:

·        Focusing on getting updates from the team

·        Being on time

·        Making the meetings as short as 15 minutes and minimizing long discussions

·        For the life, going visual

·        Identifying and raising concerns to the team

Set up Calls for the Afternoon

The morning is too precious to be attending to calls that can wait, anyway don’t make your boss wait for the afternoon. Calls and virtual meetings at times are more than many and become too much, take the morning and crank through whatever is left of the day before, acquire a new task and finish up the more dynamic or complex parts. The calls in many cases may be about the progress of what you are working on and the best way to deal with them is to work for the morning and have something better to present during the afternoon. This is also a way of maximizing your work and producing more as you expect to get approval for the work and signing it done for the day as you will be presenting.

One Distraction and One Only

And that is getting the job done, on time, perfectly and without constraints, while also tending to one and only one home distraction. This may be tending to the young one, doing chores, or preparing meals for the family. Let it be the only thing that takes off your mind from work and once it is done, you will find it much efficient to work more. The more you focus on a task, the more you find new ways of tackling it, the moment you get your morning started in motion, you will forever be in motion, if you are at rest, Newton’s law of motion say you’ll just stay at rest.

Stay Connected

One important reason why you needed to acquire a strong internet network is to stay connected. Besides being at home, several things are happening in your outside environment such as the news, social, and financial trends which are equally important in being informed.

Communicate Your Expectations With the People at Home

Tell your family the importance of your work and what you expect of them in giving you a peaceful stay at home. With the established understanding, you will efficiently coordinate with your family and get their support with the little but costing distractions.

The House May Be Too Small

True to agree, at some point you may find yourself straining to figure out something, being bothered with the kind of work you have done or just feeling hella cool after achieving your targets. You may need to take a walk and go outside, breathe the fresh air, and get back. It helps you clear your mind and gives you the chance to start like a new but motivated continuation.

Look Up For New Opportunities

Do you work for only 8 hours a day? That is for the company, you have all the time left for the day to maximize your output; go ahead and seek new opportunities. It may be a hobby or side hustle that can generate some income for you and increase your home productivity. Go ahead and do it, a few bucks after on top of the basic saves a lot.

Reward Yourself Don't be Too hard on yourself

One challenging part of life is when you train yourself to get up early, maximize, look-up for new opportunities and the cycle continues. Day in day out, six straight hours of sitting down and working, you will snap one day. Take meaningful breaks to chat with the family, friends, get yourself some grabs, or even watch your favorite series or show. Particularly, the joy of taking a break is only after accomplishing something. Remember not to overdo it, it entangles.

Be Positive

Working from home may be stressful more so for persons who enjoy the company of colleagues at work; it may not just go well for everyone. The mind plays a very great role, so start your day with a positive affirmation, focus on the good, turn failures into lessons, and focus on the present.

A little Low Music For the Background

Your background matters a lot when working from home, to avoid home distractions, lace your work with customized music on the background. Listening to tunes that you enjoy puts you in a better mood and relaxes your mind and notably to some, it’s a hack, you get new ideas. You should only ensure you listen to the music in the background and not enjoy it as you risk getting distracted.

Get Enough Sleep.

Just enough, don’t be too compelled to sleep, the company of your blanket never ends, the comfort will always draw you back. Getting enough sleep helps improve concentration, home productivity, and saves you the trouble of depression, heart, and weight disorders.

There is no Sin in Disruptions

The little one may just be too overwhelmed by your presence at home and will always want to stay around, maybe it’s the pet or just the neighbors and neighbors’ situations. Prepare yourself to be once or twice leave something more important to tend to some events also important. Approach your work from home with a positive intent to help you manage all the disruptions and distractions.

Tracking Progress.

If you are working from home, you may feel like not doing enough. Employ the following: break down bigger tasks and track the subtasks, time spent on very tasks, and the energy you give in addition to having a journal or going back to the schedule, practicing gratitude, visualization, and finding accountability.

All in all, working from home may be challenging for the start but with the right measures, you’ll find it much easier. Get yourself started using these strategies to help you achieve more and improve your home productivity.