When you work from home, it is up to you to motivate yourself. While on one hand you don’t have that chatty co-worker cornering you, on the other hand, you also don’t have the threat of the boss catching you scrolling Instagram again. If you are starting a new business, the need to stay motivated is even more important. Losing hours of focus can mean important tasks just don’t get done.
Most of the Dangerous Words team have worked remotely or as freelancers at one point in their life and want to share their top tips with you. Here are our 5 tips for being productive when working from home.
Set Your Tasks At the Start of the Day
Nothing wastes more time than deciding what to do next. At the start of the day, create a to-do list with up to 3 needle-moving tasks that you want to complete. These should be the most important things you can do to get you one step closer to your goals. Depending on the amount of time you have available to you and the client-work that you need to complete, you may set just one or two priorities.
These are the tasks you should aim to get done at the start of the day. Block off an hour or two to work exclusively on those priorities each day. This means if something happens that throws you off course, you have still had a productive day.
Don’t Get Caught Up In Busy Work
Some busy work may be more important than others, but busy work is busy work, and it takes your focus off the important things you need to do. The world is not going to blow up if you don’t check your email every 5 minutes, and a client will not self-implode if it takes you a few hours to get back to them. Find a good balance for responding to your emails based on your job role. Some of our team check emails twice a day; others check them every two hours. Even if you need to be in constant contact, checking your emails every half hour would be okay. It gives you blocks of uninterrupted focus which means you get a lot more done in less time. Turn off desktop notifications and phone notifications for emails and watch your productivity improve.
All other types of busywork should be relegated to an hour or two. Get it all done in one sitting, preferably at the end of the day, so that you do not kill your focus by constant task switching. As a new business owner, you may need to do some of this busy work at the start but aim to hire an assistant to take these off your plate as soon as you can afford to.
Take Regular Breaks
When you are tired, hungry, dealing with leg cramps, or just busting for the loo, you are not focused on your work. Aim to take a 5-minute break every hour where possible to go to the toilet, get a drink, and stretch your joints. Giving yourself a short break will reduce the chance of hitting the mid-afternoon slump and will help you sustain your productivity over the course of the day. A 3-hour session of powering through your work may feel good, but you will be so exhausted afterwards that it will be difficult to get much else done.
Also, make sure you don’t work through lunch. Give yourself half an hour to an hour off, where you switch off from screens and move about. Eat something nutritious that will keep you full throughout the afternoon. You’re home with access to a full kitchen, so there is no excuse not to prepare something that will nourish your mind and body.
Change Into “Work Clothes”
As tempting as it is to work in your pyjamas, getting changed into clothes will help your productivity. The simple act of changing clothes gets your body into work mode. Now, you do not have to change into office wear, but just have a set of clothes that are your official “work clothes.” This could be loungewear or casual clothes; it just needs to be a set of clothes that you only wear when you work. This will help switch your brain from lazy day mode into work mode.
Switch Off At the End Of the Day
Once you have finished working, switch off. The separation between work and personal life is much harder when you work from home, especially as most people do not have a home office. But once you are finished work, shut down the computer and go live your life. Ignore any work emails that come in and power down the work phone. We find going for a walk helps you get from work mode into leisure mode, just as a commute would.
As an entrepreneur, you have a little more flexibility because you don’t work a traditional 9-5. When you finish the work you have to do, take the rest of the day off. There will be plenty of days that you will need to work late, so don’t find busy work to take you until knock off. Enjoy the extra downtime and do something you enjoy doing. This will help you to prevent burnout and make sure that you do not hustle your business into the ground.