7 Productivity Tips to Help
Get More Done at Home
Having trouble focusing? Feel like you’re not accomplishing what you should be? Here are some tips for getting more done while working from home.
1. Inside Your Home Office: Shoes On, Pajamas Off
If you do not run into colleagues, don’t have meetings to attend, and the postman is the only person you tend to see, you might be tempted to work at your desk in an XXL sweater and sweatpants. What’s the problem? If you wear the same clothing while working that you do when you are sleeping or relaxing, you will not develop a good work ethic. This is why every morning you should dress for work – like you were headed to a client meeting or to the office. Some people even claim that it is a real game-changer to wear shoes in your home office.
2. Play Attention to Set Working Hours and Your Closing Time in Your Home Office
The boundaries between leisure and work can become blurred when you work in a home office. It isn’t so easy to maintain a good work-life balance. But it is not good for either your recovery or your productivity. This is why you need to have clear and set working hours and then stick with them. Tracktime24.com can help you to manage your time effectively.
One positive side effect to having fixed times is that the pressure is increased. If you know you are wanting to finish your work right at 6 p.m., then you will work more quickly than if you were to stretch your work out until late into the night. And you can only perform at peak performance at work if you take time off, in the form of breaks and weekends. Therefore, keeping fixed working hours is essential in a home office.
3. Adapt to Your Own Biorhythms
You have probably heard the saying that the early bird catches the worm. However, this is only true if you are a lark instead of a night owl. You may be a lot more productive in the evening or at midday compared to the morning. When you have a home office is gives you the advantage of being able to work around your schedule and when you are the most productive. This does not contrast with our earlier point since you need to have set working hours. If you work at home you don’t need to start early if you don’t fully wake up until 9 a.m. Your regular, fixed working hours should be adjusted to your biorhythm. Also, ensure that you are available to meet and work with clients during main working hours. That can make a significant difference.
4. Limit Your Work Area to Your Home Office
Does your house have a small office where you can close the door and separate your private life from your work life? If you are able to set up this type of office, definitely do not hesitate to do so. It is very practical to not be reminded constantly of work after the end of your workday. If your house does not have a spare room or space, there are other ways you can separate your living area from your work area:
Don’t sit on your bed, at the kitchen table, or on the sofa with your laptop. You should not do any work in those places. Get a desk set up in a corner and think about separating the area by using a room divider or curtain. This way you can stay in work mode better while you are working. Also, during your spare time, your work will not be constantly in front of you.
5. Tidy Up on A Regular Basis and Keep Things Orderly
Your work ethic is affected by your environment more than you may think. Inner order is created by outer order. This is why you should ensure that your desktop, your desk, your home office, and all of your computer’s folders have a system so they don’t become lost in the chaos. This will save you a lot of time. Spending five minutes tidying up before leaving work will allow you to feel relaxed when you start working the next morning. Also, ensure that your workspace doesn’t contain any private things – they end to distract you from work.
6. In Your Home Office, Put Aside Your Smartphone
When it comes to the biggest distractions at work, the biggest time suck is social media along with your smartphone. People do need to be able to contact you by phone. However, you should attempt to minimize the number of private messages that you answer during your working hours, It is also a good idea to break the bad habit of scrolling through Facebook, Instagram, and the like constantly out of fear that you will miss something. Those activities really kill productivity and in your home office, you should avoid them as much as possible.
7. Set Your Deadlines Strategically
With so many individual tasks or projects, there are always deadlines that you need to meet. One effective way to boost your efficiency is to set your deadlines one to two days earlier than they are due. This way you will work under pressure, will be more focused, and it will give you a bit of a time buffer in the event something arises. If you have projects without official deadlines that you are working on, then you set ones yourself. Without deadlines, you will have a tendency to put tasks off. Mark them on your calendar in red and treat the deadlines that you set as if a client gave them to you. This will increase your commitment and help you work more efficiently.
