Working from home, and working remotely has been a big adjustment for most folks. Remaining productive while completing remote work can be challenging especially if you’re new to it. For others, it was a seamless transition and productivity hasn’t been affected as much. This is why I’m diving into tips about how to be productive working from home to help ease the transition.
For myself working from home was incredibly exciting as to me it felt like I was more balanced and felt more productive. However, I ensure to keep up utilizing these strategies and tools to ensure my productivity remains high.
Whether you’re new or a seasoned pro at working from home. These tips and suggestions on how to remain productive while working from home can hopefully help you! Each individual works differently with different working and learning styles. With this being said hopefully, you can a suggestion or two from this post to implement.
A Clean Work Space
It’s easy when working from home to worry less about clutter and a disorganized desk because well who is going to see it? When you were in the office others could see your desk or spend time in your office so you likely put effort into ensuring it was presentable.
Having a clean working space is a great strategy for remaining productive. I found my first week or two of being home full time with my job that everything was everywhere as I was transitioning unexpectedly. I found my mind often wandered to the clutter and did not have a system for cleaning. Here are 8 decluttering tips for your home office.
When I was in the office, I found setting aside 20-30 minutes once or twice a week to tidy items up and clean out the garbage and that was incredibly helpful. I began to implement this at home by scheduling time to clean the items on my desk and in my drawers. Whether you schedule this or not, it’s important to ensure your space is clean so your mind can remain productive and not wander or feel frustrated by the mess.
Organization
Knowing where your items are is key to continuing to work day uninterrupted. One of the worst feelings is when you are deep in a project and feeling super motivated and you need something you wrote down last week and it’s buried somewhere in a mountain of Post-Its or note papers.
The organization helps you keep being productive by providing quick and easy systems so you can effectively work and find your items. When working from home it’s important to purchase items that help promote organization. To increase your home productivity check out -Desk Organizer, Gold Wall Panel Board Organizer, Desk Storage Stationery Organizer, and Monitor Riser with Storage.
Everyone organizes differently so it’s important to find a method that works best for your working style. This is for your business and for your personal life, what makes sense and what works is likely what you already know. Don’t make this more complicated than it needs to be with how to be productive working from home.
Building in Breaks
When working in an office, it was likely that you had some natural built-in breaks such as a co-worker popping in, walking to refill a water bottle, going to the washroom, walking to the break room, going outside for lunch break walk, or visiting a colleague’s office.
However, when working from home this is a big shift as most items are a couple of steps away from you and you don’t have colleague or co-worker social interruptions. For myself, one of my cats is usually sitting in the doorway begging for attention so you might still have distractions if you’re a parent/pet parent. It’s important to build in 10-15 minute breaks every couple of hours to get up and walk or take time to do a different activity. When working from home it’s easier to just do one task in one sitting – getting up and moving helps your mind rest and reset which does make you more productive in the long run.
For myself, I implemented that in the morning around 10 am, I would take 10-15 minutes to make myself tea, have a snack such as grapes or an apple, and walk around my living space. In the afternoon I took a break around 3 to go on a walk around the block or go check the mailbox. Both helped me reset and focus my energy which led to being more productive for the remainder of the day. I also allowed for flexibility as at those times I sometimes had meetings scheduled, so some days the timing needed to move but I tried to remain firm on 2 breaks happening.
Daily Goals/Tasks
When transitioning to working from home, some folks can find it easy to use work time to get other things done around the house or use the time to do personal errands. To help keep up productivity for work life, I find it helpful to make a list of daily tasks and goals I want to accomplish to help me feel accountable for the task.
I use Monday as my planning day, I look ahead at my week to see what is already allocated in my schedule, and then look to fill in the remaining time with outstanding or upcoming tasks. If you’re unsure where to start with setting up daily goals and tasks I encourage you to look into some goal tools.
Water/Snacks
Fuelling your body and brain is important to how to be productive working from home. When working from home it’s easy to think, oh the kitchens are not far I’ll go and grab something when I need it. When working it’s best to ensure you keep water and snacks on hand to keep fuelling yourself and staying productive. Eating helps boost productivity and creativity which leads to a more engaged and happy mood.
I find I’m much more productive when I have a water bottle, and a small snack bowl of apples, grapes, or almonds beside me. These high-fibre snacks help with feeling less like I’m going to stop working and less likely to run out of steam working on a project.
Environment
Setting the mood is important, in a work environment way! What I mean by this is setting the space up so you enjoy the space which will help increase your mood and productivity.
For myself what this means is having my podcasts set up to play so I can listen in the background as I do admin tasks, having my essential oils diffuser going, having my salt lamp on, and my footrest. Here are 7 essential oils to help boost focus and productivity.
When I have all these items in place I find I’m very productive as that’s my happy work zone and makes me want to spend more time near my computer. Everyone has different things such as music, fidget toys, essential oils, candles, podcasts, mood lamps, footrests, and/or flowers.
Social Time
When your job becomes always through a screen the social interactions we use to naturally have in hallways, break rooms, offices, and at the water fountain/cooler no longer exist in the same way.
For myself, I build in with my colleagues sometime twice a week for friendship time where we could connect online but not about work items and just chat about how our lives were going. This was important and it gave me a mental break which allowed me to be more productive when I returned to work. Often these interactions led to laughter which left me in a heightened positive mood when returning to work which led to increased productivity.
Hardest Tasks in the Morning
This might not be shocking to some folks, but we are typically more productive first thing in the day! Putting tasks that are more challenging or require a consistent stream of attention usually works out better in the morning. As our productivity is higher in the morning and tends to slowly decrease as the day goes on this means you can give your all to your morning tasks. If your finding tasks take a longer chunk of time than the morning, write it down on a piece of paper and you can tackle it again the next morning (scheduling permitting!).
Working from home is certainly an adjustment if you’re used to working in a traditional office setting. Everyone has different working routines and schedules, so all of the above strategies may not fit precisely with your job, but hopefully, it helps give some ideas of natural ways to build in more productivity when working in a space within your home. Hopefully, this post helped provide a couple of ideas on how to maintain and increase your productivity.
Talk Soon!
It’s so important to work in a clean environment! I’m lucky that I work in the hospital so managed to avoid working from home too much during lockdown! When I was, I was always making sure my space was tidy and fresh!
A very fitting post for these strange times where lots of people have had to get used to working from home for the first time. Some really good tips and advice here. I think my main struggle is that it’s harder both to motivate myself to start work but then also to stop at the end of the day and not just keep working.
I haven’t had to work from home but I can imagine just how big of an adjustment it has been to some people. You’ve mentioned some great tips and I completely agree that doing the hardest tasks in the morning is the way to go.
Oh, a big yes to all of these! I wouldn’t say I do the most hardest tasks in the morning but I do the most important for sure! I thrive on to-do lists so it’s needed for me as well as coffee Lol! Thanks for sharing xx
Lynn | https://www.lynnmumbingmejia.com
My main issue with working from home is just getting motivated to start working, then it’s normally the pain in my coccyx that makes it hard to keep on task. My ergonomically designed desk chair just doesn’t live up to its claims
Thanks for reading and commenting – wonderful to hear either at work or at home you enjoy a clean space – it is so important to a clear mind! Thank you for your work in the hospitals through the pandemic!
I’m glad to hear you enjoyed some of the tips – motivation is understandably hard (even if we are in office!)I agree – when I first started working from home I had to set reminders in my calendar of when to stop work so my computer would chime and that would alert me to stop or else I would go for hours after I was suppose to! Thanks for reading and commenting!
Thanks for reading and commenting – hardest/priority tasks are so important to get done with a fresh set of eye and mind in the morning! Sending safe and good thoughts with your working environment!
SAME – except Tea for me, haha! I’m glad to hear you enjoyed reading this post and connected with some of the strategies. Thanks for commenting!
100% understandable – especially in todays environment motivate is really hard to build up some morning. Sorry to hear your chair isn’t living up to it’s claims, and wishing you well and safe in your working environment! Thanks for reading and commenting!
These are some great tips. I need to work in a clear space and make regular to do lists.
YES! A clean desk is so important – I’m glad you found this post helpful 🙂 Thanks for commenting!
Wonderful to hear you enjoyed this post – best of luck with clearing your work space and making regular to do lists – I find leaving a stack of post its out helps me always be jotting things down as needed. Thanks for commenting!
Definitely organization and taking breaks is the key to working from home. I decided to start taking breaks by scheduling it on my calendar as a reminder to take one.
This is an amazing and helpful post. Thank you for writing this. I actually have a post coming out next week about how to make the best playlist to help with productivity. It could a layer to your comment here. Let me know what you think.
Fantastic to hear you’ve found a system that works best – I found at the beginning of the pandemic I was the same with needing my computer to pop up a reminder so I would leave my desk! Hope you’re keeping well and safe while working from home!
These are all great tips! Making lists of tasks and goals for the day helps me so much! I should really get a better space to work in instead of my bed, but that’s what I have for now. I really need to learn to get the biggest task out of the way in the morning, thanks for sharing x
Great post! I always have to have a clean and tidy area before I start working. Helps me think better! Also, loved your point of doing the harder things first thing in the morning because it’s so true! I’m so much more productive at the beginning of the day!
Great to hear this post was helpful with giving some ideas. I can relate to not having the best space, when we first started work from home I did my 9-5 job on the couch most days because I had nothing else set up at the time. Whatever you can do (even little things) to produce a space for you that’s clean and organized is so helpful – best of luck with getting your biggest tasks done in the morning, it’s been a game changer for me! Thanks for reading and commenting!
A clean work space is just one of the best things! It was a total game changer for me when I learned that I was the most productive in the morning and I started stacking my tougher tasks earlier in the day – hope it helps with your scheduling as well! Thanks for reading and commenting!
Definitely having a clean work space helps so much to stay focused while working from home. I always like to make sure that after I’m done for the day I clean up my area. It helps for the next day for me to get up and be focused for the work ahead. I enjoyed reading.
Love this! I’ve been working from home for like 5 years now so I’ve had to contend with so many things in order to establish a productive routine! I get all the boring jobs done in the morning which REALLY helps. Having a clean and dedicated work space is so crucial as well!
These are good tips! I’m an introvert. So I love working at home more than going to the office. It saves money and time. I don’t understand why some people don’t like it.
These are amazing tips! I find if I do my most difficult tasks in the morning, my whole day just runs smoother. Thanks for sharing these! So helpful!!
Thanks Jenny – I’m glad to hear this post resonated with you! YES to boring and hard tasks for the morning, it makes the rest of the day so pleasant! Thanks for reading and commenting!
Thanks for reading and commenting – it sounds like working from home really matches with you (and me too!) I hope you’re able to work from home as it sounds like a good match!
Thank you for reading and I’m glad you connected with this post! IT really does make the day so much more pleasant when the tough stuff is done!
Great tips! I was really bad at taking breaks from work until recently but after having multiple headaches at the end of work days and being drained of energy, I’ve learned to take breaks now and then during work to go talk to my mom or fill up my water bottle. Over a year in and I’m still not fully used to this!
Wonderful to hear you enjoyed this post! I’m glad to hear more recently you’ve been taking breaks and ensuring to be well hydrated! It sounds like you’re doing fantastic with slowly incorporating new routines as you can! Thanks for reading and commenting 🙂