10 tips To Make Working From Home More Productive
Do you love or hate working from home? Maybe a little bit of both?
While there are many benefits to working from home, it can be incredibly difficult to create a clear distinction between your work and home life.
Since the pandemic started, you may have experienced growing pains figuring out how to make it work and stay productive without impeding on your personal time.
If you’re planning to stay remote permanently, here are some tips to make working from home a little bit easier and lot more productive.
Table of Contents
Create Your Ideal Day
Pick One Thing to Make Your Day More Productive
Create a Calmer Morning Routine
Create an Intentional To-Do List
Set Boundaries With Family or Roommates
Find an Accountability Partner
Take More Frequent Breaks
Steps to Prevent People From Interrupting You
Reduce the Negative Impact of Your Screen
Have an End-of-Day Ritual
Create your ideal day
Start by noticing what bothers you the most about your day. Is there anything you’d like to immediately see change? Are there any habits you’d like to change?
Try imagining what an ideal day would look like. Pretend you’re looking into a little window in the future where you’re having a really great, really productive day working from home.
What does your morning routine look like first thing?
How are you working throughout the day?
What does the end of your day look like?
Now I want you to take these answers and compare it to your current routine. Think about what looks different, making note of what actions you’re taking in this ideal day that you aren’t now.
It doesn’t matter how unrealistic it seems right now, just let yourself brainstorm that ideal day. Write down any specific actions you saw yourself take to see how they compare to your current actions.
Related: How to Stop Wasting Your Free Time
Pick one thing to make your day more productive
Then I want you to think about what is one action you could take tomorrow that would make the biggest impact for your day?
To give you some ideas, here are some ideas to get the ball rolling:
Setting your alarm later so you stop hitting snooze and get up immediately
Lock social media apps on your phone so you don’t mindlessly check them during the day
Use a “gamified” productivity app so you get rewards for staying focused (the Forest app for example)
Start with one thing at a time so you know what helps and what doesn’t help. Keep building these small habits into your day and set reminders if you tend to forget or fall back on autopilot.
Related: How to Stop Procrastinating
Need to Set boundaries but aren’t sure how?
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Create a calmer morning routine
If you’re prone to checking your phone or email first thing, you’re rushing to get ready, or you struggle to get started, see what happens if you do something different.
Try a radically different morning that primes you to feel focused, energized, and productive.
Take some time to mindfully drink your coffee or tea (or other drink of choice) and take a few breaths. Eat breakfast or a snack, chat with your partner or roommate (or a friend over FaceTime), and then engage in an activity or hobby you enjoy.
After you’re done, you can then check your phone, log into work, or whatever else you need to do.
Commit to trying this new routine for two weeks and assess afterwards whether it helps. Your mind will probably tell you that you don’t have time, it won’t work, or any number of negative things.
You don’t know if something will work until you try it, so test your mind’s hypothesis to see if it doesn’t work! You may find that having a morning routine that doesn’t involve work will also help you shut down at the end of the day.
create an intentional to-do list
Take stock of how you organize your day to see where any bottlenecks are happening. If anything isn’t working, experiment and try something completely different.
Here are some examples:
If you’re unfocused and going from task to task, try setting a timer for 10 minutes each morning (or the night before) to pick the order of tasks for the day
If your list is too long to possibly accomplish in one day, set a timer and pluck out only the most impactful tasks for that day
If you have tasks written down in lots of different places, pick the one place you check the most and start putting everything there
Just like with your new morning routine, commit to your experiment for two weeks to see whether or not it’s getting you results. You need to give it some time to work, even if your mind says it’s not working on day two.
Related: How to Get More Done In Less Effort
Set firm boundaries with family or roommates
If you’re struggling to concentrate because of your partner, kids, or roommate, think about what you’d like to see change.
What kind of boundaries and expectations do you need to set with them?
How can you hold them accountable for respecting these boundaries?
Figure out what’s bothering you the most so you can ask them to do something different. Try turning any negative complaints into positive requests. People are more likely to follow through when we give them something to do rather than ask them to stop doing something.
An example of this difference might look like:
“I can’t concentrate when you talk loudly on the phone.”
“I’d appreciate if you could step outside when you get a phone call. It’s very hard to concentrate when I can hear you on the phone.”
Related: How to Deal With a Bad Roommate
find an accountability partner
If you’re struggling to concentrate or get your work done, see if you can find an accountability partner. Start the day by going over what each of you hopes to accomplish and then check in at the end of the day.
You may want to do quick check-ins throughout the day or you might find checking in once a day works. Figure out what works best for both of you.
If you’d prefer to not involve friends or family, try a resource like Focusmate. They will match you up with something to work over video as often as you request.
Take more frequent breaks
Hopefully you’re already taking breaks since quality, restorative breaks are key to remaining productive!
You might be telling yourself that you don’t have time, but even a minute or two has been shown to make a big difference.
Find small pockets throughout your day and schedule them in like you would a meeting. Set an intention to do something restorative or invigorating, whether you feel stressed out or not. This could be as simple as taking a short walk, listening to music, or talking to a friend or loved one.
Pay attention to anything that energizes or drains you and make a note of it. It’s important to give your brain a chance to rest between tasks, so make sure you’re building on energizing or relaxing activities and minimizing draining ones.
Related: 5 Ways to Reduce Daily Stress
how to prevent people from interrupting you
If anyone in your home constantly interrupts you, schedule time during your day when you’re available and other blocks of time when it’s emergencies only. Block out that time on a shared calendar.
If they disrespect that boundary, try to respond differently than you normally would. If you typically give in to their request, yell, or do anything that doesn’t work, try something else.
Let them know they need to wait until whatever time you’re available, then return to your work. Make a note to check in with them as soon as you’re available.
It may take some time, but eventually you can influence them to come to you when you’re available instead of whenever they feel like it! And if it keeps happening, it likely warrants an honest conversation. Set expectations around your availability and what constitutes an emergency.
Reduce the negative impact of your screen
Blue light and brightness from our screens can wreak havoc on our physical health! While it’s good to reduce screen usage in the evening to improve sleep quality, staring at a bright screen all day can also cause problems.
If you’re noticing any headaches, achiness, or your eyes hurt, your screen brightness might be too high. Experiment by reducing the brightness for the whole day to see if that makes any difference.
Try to go as low as possible, while still being able to see everything you need to. This will make it easier to be on your computer for long periods of time.
In addition to brightness, most computers and phones have a night mode setting that creates a warmer screen, reducing blue light. I recommend setting a time every day for it to automatically switch to night mode.
Have an end-of-day ritual
Whether it’s driving around for a bit like you normally would on a commute, taking a short walk, or even saying out loud, “I’m switching into home mode”, it’s good to create a habit around transitioning from work time to personal time.
Turn off any notifications or whatever else you need to do to hold yourself accountable to switching out of work mode. If a running to-do list in your head distracts you, write down tasks for the next day as part of your end of day ritual.
Then set an intention to refocus on what’s important in your personal life. Give it your full attention by staying grounded in the present.
