Working from home can seem like an easy ride, but sometimes it can be more difficult to work in familiar surroundings compared to working in the office. Being a home worker can leave you open to all manner of interruptions and distractions that send you off course and prevent you being as productive as you should. Whether you’re just starting or have been a home worker for years, putting these tips into practice will help you stay motivated and productive when working from home.
1. Keep Organised
Use a detailed schedule such as Passion Planner to break up your time into manageable half hourly chunks that you can use to plan exactly what you need to do in a day. This works much better than writing a plain list because you can see precisely what you need to do and when, making sure that you fill your time wisely and don’t run over when completing tasks. A little pressure is a good for being productive when working from home, it helps you to stay on track and manage to get everything done within the working day- just because you work from home it doesn’t mean that you should be completing work up until bed time.
2. Choose a Wise Workspace
While waking up in the morning and turning on the laptop while you’re still in bed may work for some, staying in bed all day isn’t a great way to be productive. Choose an area that is quiet and calm, away from the usual living areas of your house. This will help to keep you motivated when working from home as you won’t have the distractions of noise, people or household objects like the TV.
3. Go Cold Turkey
Services like Cold Turkey help you to stay motivated and productive while working from home by blocking an unlimited number of websites from being accessed on your computer. You choose the specific sites, which can be things like social media, personal emails or shopping sites you like to browse. Cold Turkey’s settings apply to all browsers, plus you can use the timer to block websites until a certain and lock you out of changing the settings until your time is up. This is a great little tool for boosting productivity and limiting distractions when working at home.
4. Get Your Blood Pumping
When you’re working from home you miss out on a lot of daily exercise- there’s no running for the bus, walking up and down stairs or dashing out to grab some lunch. There’s nothing like a short bout of exercise to clear your head and help you come up with new ideas. Getting out of the house for a 10 minute walk when you need a break will get some fresh air into your lungs and get your blood pumping which can be just what you need after a solid few hours work.
Alternatively, the free 7 Minute Workout app (iOS, Android) provides great motivation for exercise while working at home by providing the maximum benefit of working out in the shortest time possible. The app starts you off with three lives that drop to zero and resets your progress if you miss three sessions within a month, so there’s no excuse for not working out when it only takes 7 minutes!
5. Find the Tools That Work For You
Sometimes technology can get in the way of getting things done instead of helping, so finding the tools that work best for you is the best way to ensure productivity while working from home. Some people like to write notes down with the old fashioned pen and paper, while others like to use note taking software such as OneNote, Evernote or Simplenote to keep track of their ideas. Similarly, some browsers or word processors may be a hindrance instead of a help when working from home. Finding the tools that work best for you will help you to stay motivated and productive and when working from home as you’ll be able to get down to your tasks without a fight.
6. Set Your Own Goals
Setting goals can be as simple as remembering to reply to an email or as complicated as completing a six month project. Setting your own goals can challenge you and keep you motivated to stay on track and maybe complete a task quicker or to a higher standard than before. Services such as Lifetick can help you on your way to completing your goals with visual progress bars and charts to track your performance.
