5 tips for staying productive while working at home
Overcome new challenges that come with a new work environment
If you’ve recently switched to working at home, you may have noticed some strange behavior.
You find yourself in the kitchen roughly 1000 times a day.
Despite the lack of commute, you somehow seem to have less time.
Everything takes longer.
Even if you’ve never considered yourself a procrastinator, suddenly anything and everything distracts you from your work. (That shelf needs dusting.)
Cultivating a productive workday is a real challenge. The internet is full of tips to help you stay focused on your work. It seems everyone has different methods that work for them. We’ve tried and tested a whole bunch, and here are our top 5 tips for increasing productivity while working from home.
Staying productive while working at home: our top 5 tips.
1. Stick to a morning routine scientifically optimized for productivity
By now the novelty of being able to wake up 10 minutes before clocking on has worn off. If you regularly find yourself stumbling to your desk bleary-eyed and disheveled, you probably aren’t bringing your A-game.
Make sure you give yourself enough time to set yourself up for a productive day. Your routine should include:
- a good breakfast. Feed your brain by topping up your blood sugar levels.
- a glass of water. Good hydration boosts your cognitive performance.
- ideally some form of exercise. Morning exercise boosts cortisol levels, helping you feel more awake.
- a shower. Morning showers can help shake off sleep inertia.
If you’re in control of your working hours, try to maintain standard working hours as much as possible. Night owls might benefit from working in the evenings, but be realistic about what this means for your personal and social life. It’s much harder to stay focused when your friends are messaging you after they clock off.
2. One task at a time
The biggest gamechanger. By whatever means that work for you and your method of working, find a way to just focus on one task at a time. Here are some helpful ways to stay focused.
Keep a to-do list. Jot down future tasks and forget about them until you’ve finished your task at hand. If you find your mind wandering to another task, don’t give in. Every time you switch tasks you have to get into a new mindset, and that takes time.
Close all unnecessary windows and tabs. Calling all tab-hoarders out there. Get rid of the chaos. Only have tabs and windows open that relate to your current tasks.
Work in blocks of time. If you’re working on several large projects use a time tracker or set an alarm and dedicate a set amount of time to focus on one project. It can be 25 minutes (as with the Pomodoro technique), it can be 2 hours. Whatever fits your method of working best.
3. Schedule time for communicating with colleagues
One of the benefits of working in an office is being able to quickly resolve issues with your colleagues over your desk. Typing a series of Whatsapp messages and emails takes considerably more time overall. Set boundaries with your colleagues so that you’re not continually distracted. Have a channel of communication open specifically for messages that require a timely response. For non-urgent communication, schedule time with your colleagues at a time that suits you all.
4. Use your Fitbit to allow you to get chores done
If your work is sedentary, you need to get up from your desk and move around for a few minutes each hour. If you have a Fitbit or Apple watch, your device alerts you when it’s time to get moving. Use that time to clean that dusty shelf that distracted you earlier or put in a load of laundry or make yourself a cup of coffee. Break for 5 or 10 minutes at the very most, and make it count. Then get straight back to your current task.
If you don’t have a device, set an alarm for one hour and repeat.
5. Outsource or delegate tasks that you dislike or find challenging
Your time is money. Is there a task on your to-do list that takes way longer than it should? Maybe you disklike the task so you keep putting it off, or maybe you find it too difficult and it takes much longer than anticipated to complete. If that’s the case, ask yourself if there’s someone out there better suited to the task who can complete it more quickly and for less than your hourly rate.
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6. Forgive yourself
Cultivating a new habit takes time: 66 days on average. You will stumble, especially at the beginning. But don’t be disheartened, it’s all part of the process. You will still have unproductive days, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that these tips don’t work for you.
Staying productive while working at home is a continual challenge. To give yourself the best chance at following these tips consistently, be mindful of what has worked for you, celebrate your wins, and if you falter, forgive yourself and try again.
We hope you’ve found our tips helpful. Now stop procrastinating and get to work.
