Maybe you’re newly self-employed and facing the reality of spending the majority of your working time alone. Or perhaps you relocated to your spare room from an office during the pandemic, made the change permanent, and now find the novelty of homeworking is waning.
Love it or loathe it, working from home is the reality for many small business owners. If optimising your remote working time is challenging for you, you’re not alone. I’m no expert, but I’ve figured out a thing or two in the last few years as both a remote working employee, and a home-based business owner, so read on for my top seven productivity tips for working from home.
1. Have a designated working area
I’m a big proponent of having a space that’s devoted completely to work. It doesn’t have to be big—it doesn’t even have to be a separate room; a corner of a room will do, but it’s important that the space, however small, is your ‘office’. It’s tough to work from your dining room table and have to reconcile work with dinner at the end of the day.
Do your back a favour and get a proper ergonomic chair that adjusts to your height and contours. My sway back thanks me for my lumbar-supporting chair every day. The days of my original makeshift WFH set-up, and spending 40+ hours a week on a dining chair are over (thank goodness).
(That being said, do I change up my working position from time to time, and decide to copyedit on the couch, or research at the dining table? Absolutely. What can I say—I’m a hypocrite.)
2. Set boundaries with family members
Now, to all my working mamas and papas out there, I get it. Toddlers don’t have much in the way of boundaries. Trying to explain to a two-year-old that Mummy can’t be disturbed between 9am and 5pm is a no-go, but for the older children and the adults with whom you share a house, establish some ground rules around your working time.
Just because you’re home, and not on the phone or Zoom, it doesn’t mean you’re available for a chat (although a silent delivery of a cuppa never went amiss in my experience!), so don’t be afraid to gently remind your loved ones that you need your focus time, and that you’ll catch up with them when you’re taking a break, or are finished for the day.
3. Take regular breaks
In conventional office environments, your day is punctuated by natural breaks from your desk. You might need to do a fire walk around the building periodically, or make a trip to the communal scanner, and end up chatting to Marlene (I’ve never worked with a Marlene, so it’s a safe name to use) from Accounts in the corridor. When you’re working from home, however, you’re less likely to have these business-led reasons for leaving your desk.
And whilst the lack of interruptions might be conducive to focusing on tasks, your brain also needs breaks. If you’re one of those hyper-focused people who forget to drink water or stretch your legs when you’re engrossed in a project, set yourself a timer for every 25 minutes. Get up for five minutes and make a snack or do some jumping jacks – anything but continue sitting at your desk.
It’s a cliché, but you’ll return to work feeling refreshed. Promise.
4. Accomplish at least one household task before starting work
There’s nothing worse than having that nagging feeling that you should have put a wash on before you started work – it’s inevitable that it will distract you until such time as you physically stop what you’re doing and address it. Try and accomplish at least one household task before you start working, thus minimising these offending distractions!
Plus, you can feel righteous about how productive your early morning hours are.
5. Don’t succumb to the temptations of multitasking
Whilst the temptation to multitask exists in other working environments too, at home it can be tempting to answer emails whilst catching up on your TV shows, cooking lunch, or walking the dog. Even if you don’t end up making mistakes because you’re distracted, you’re not giving either task your full attention, and you’ll lose time overall because you’re constantly task-switching.
6. No pyjamas
No hate, please. I’m as big a fan of pyjamas as the next person, but I draw the line at working in them, regardless of whether or not I have any Zoom calls.
I do believe that looking and feeling put-together is half the mindset for productivity. You don’t have to be wearing full makeup and a three-piece suit, but showering and putting on clean clothes is an empowering feeling.
It also gives you the chance to trade your work clothes for cosy clothes at the end of the day, which brings me to my next point:
7. Have a wind-down routine
Switching off after a busy day of working from home can be a challenge. It’s easy and tempting to go back to your emails or to do ‘just a little bit’ of that big project after dinner—especially if you’re a business owner. And if you work in a flexible way that means you have time free in the daytime to accommodate your kids’ activities, for instance, then that’s great.
BUT.
If you’re trying to stick to daytime working hours, and find that work time is constantly bleeding into evening leisure time, you need a wind-down routine.
As mentioned in tip #6, I don’t wear pyjamas or loungewear during the day, even when nobody is going to see me, but I do relish the ritual of changing into my ‘cosies’ after I’m finished work. Switching on some loud (compared to what I’d listen to whilst working) music and having a boogie around the kitchen whilst cooking dinner also sends some strong signals to my brain that the work day has ended.
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None of this is rocket science; it’s just a collection of concepts that help me maintain my productivity working at home. Happy (and productive) homeworking!
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