Work from home is a new trend after Covid-19. People are looking for different methods to improve productivity. If you are looking for work from home tips, read this out.
It’s a blessing for some people because they love to be at home. They hate waking up early in the morning, no formal clothes, not struggling with outfit selection, all according to their plans and wish, but for some people, it’s a curse. You have to attain meetings after meetings, poor connections, distractions, dealing with a number of zoom calls, and ultimately you get, zoom fatigue.
We don’t have a magic stick to fix all these issues but at least we can improve work from home situation. We are sharing the best work from tips with you, read out first and thank us later with your comments.
It depends on us how we are making the work from the home environment more productive and a fun process. Accept the good and mitigate the bad things that interfere during your working hours. How to make it more productive, less stressed, more fun, here are the super work from home tips for being more productive while being at home in your pyjamas.
(Also Read: How to Fight Zoom Fatigue? )
Best Work from Home Tips
1. Is your workspace Clean?
This is a universal tip for you. Everybody loves clean space, either at home or at the office, any space it be. Make this your golden rule, your workspace is your temple and it should look like a temple. Cleat every shit around and make it look like a home, not a barn.
A study has also proved, that working in a disorganized environment, either it’s your desk, meeting table, study table, or even your desktop, all can drain down your brain power and can reduce productivity. That means the mess could be digital or physical, can demotivate you.
2. Don’t bound yourself
Who does not love to work while lying down, or with a cup of coffee? This is also human nature that, if you are working anywhere other than your office table, you would love to lie down. Of course, there are a lot of benefits of working from your office table.
If you have back pain do your stretching on the floor, take your cup, while working on your project. The ultimate goal is to focus and to be productive where ever you are at your home. Buckle up are start doing your favourite work.
3. Set Your Daily Resolution
Start your day with some positive energy. “Today is gonna be a great day” say this magical sentence to yourself and see the changes in your life. Saying this word to yourself will set up a positive mindset for your daily work routine, and you will be much productive and happy. This mindset is also called “Maui Habit” as well. Sometimes things don’t go smooth, but that doesn’t mean you cannot be optimistic about the other happy and great moments throughout the day.
4. Keep Your Morning Routine Simple
Many offices ask you to get up and put on your formal clothes. This is rubbish, right? These are the perks of working remotely. Why spend hours and hours getting ready in the morning and who on earth is wearing suits while working from home? Why cannot you work in your pyjamas? I personally hate getting up and dress up for the office.
But get up early in the morning, it’s the healthiest thing you can do to your body. Getting early means you are fresh throughout the day. It helps you to reattach to your work. The night is for rest and sleep. We detach from our work at night for that purpose.
If your office is planning to call you soon for in-office work after this pandemic is over, this morning routine will help you. It won’t be difficult for you to wake up early in the morning. Give yourself a chance to wake up and complete your routine work, like have a bath, brush your teeth, make a coffee, eat your breakfast and clean your desk and get ready for work. Be consistent like this every day. Don’t mess up the routine.
5. Take a Hot Shower
Taking a hot shower in the morning is a great option to start the day. If you are taking a bath, that is even better, and studies have also proven that baths are more beneficial than showers, to our physical and mental health.
I guess you do not a study to prove, either taking a bath or shower in the mornings is beneficial or not. Simply it refreshes you for the day. If you feel sleepy, taking a bath can disappear this feeling as well.
6. Set your working hours
Set your schedule always, you are working from home that does not mean you are always available for your office and constantly keep working from home all day. Convey your available hours to your boss or manager and stick to your hours. Start your work at the same time every day and shut down your laptop at the same time you do always and keep yourself busy with your other work at home.
The other side of the story is, working from home does not mean you will complete your assignments at any hours of the day, no, do not do that. It will mess up your schedule and also will be a bad impression.
7. Choose Your working Corner
Every corner at your home can not be your workplace. The best thing you can do is to select your working corner. Some people have limited space, but try to build an area that’s just for your work. The benefits of having a separate area for work is that it will help you stay focused despite having a lot of distraction like Netflix and scrolling down social pages.
8. Let Light Come In
Let natural light come in and illuminate your interior spaces especially where you work. If possible, work near a window so that you get some vitamin D while completing some tasks. Natural light can also help you feel good if you are going through zoom fatigue or any other depressive symptoms.
If natural light is not coming into your room, light up with some extra lamps, do not work in an environment where there is no light or very dark space. Brighter light will brighten your mood as well as ease eye strain from laptop glare.
9. Take Short breaks
Take short breaks during work. Taking breaks between your work can refresh you are will make you more productive. The recommendation would be after two hours. Because sitting for more than two hours in one place can disturb your blood circulation. So, get up from your chair, walk around, have some stretches, drink water, take snacks, or do whatever you want to do. After a break when you will get back to work, you will feel more relaxed and you will be able to focus more.
10. When setting goals, be realistic
Working from home means communication with your office mates, boss or manager. This will help in setting clear goals. We have to understand that some tasks can not be performed from a working home routine and let them know what can be done and what can not be. Set deadlines for the job assigned, so that every task will be finished on a timely basis.
When you are sharing your room, then it might be difficult for you to meet deadlines. Especially if you have kids. In that situation do not promise and set massive and unrealistic schedules, until you figure out what works best for you in that situation. Massive expectations and workload can put you in depression and anxiety.
11. Stretch creative muscles
You can be creative while working from home and creativity will depend on how to manage your work. Because some people have improved their concentration while some people have lacked concentration in some areas. Depending on the task, some people hardly could motivate themselves, while working from home.
The best thing you can do to be more creative is that focus on the creative aspects of your job. This way you will be able to finish the task on time and with fun.
12. Check Your Internet
We all enjoy using a speedy internet, but sometimes when the speed goes down due to overload or technical issues, we just get annoyed right? Why, because, slow internet means interruption of our work which is not good.
How to tackle this problem, while all people at home using the same internet to watch videos, playing games and several other stuff. In this kind of situation, you have to worry about the zoom meeting because now the internet is overloaded with many things.
Well, the simple step you can take is to negotiate between the people at home to plan a schedule with respect to the timings and need for internet by every individual member. Deciding on prior will surely don’t create any mishap and disturbance of the internet during your zoom meetings because others will take care of not using the internet for the other high data task.
13. Get headphones
The transformation of office work to working from home has many things to take care of, like the background noises. They might be coming from your neighbours, children crying, laughing and might be because of outside noises.
These kinds of noises distract you a lot, so better be ready with your headphones up, try to play some soothing music or melody this will make your mind at peace and get you on to work.
14. Keep Your to-do list simple
I still vividly remember the days of setting timetables for the whole day. Now I know how important that was because it keeps us focused. Working from home brings you a lot more distractions and one of them is to forget major task.
To avoid this, keep a to-do list, write down some necessary task which needs to be done on a priority basis. Mark the status on the list; you will be over the top after finishing all today’s task. 😀
15. Don’t overanalyze
Communicating from home with someone regarding the work can give you a little bit stressful condition. Why though? Because it is not easy to construct every time that the other person conveyed through email, text or phone call.
Don’t get hyper when you in the same situation, I would suggest just asking them for clarification and that’s it. Susie Moore also recommended that “If you aren’t sure what somebody meant in an email, just ask.”
Remember your time in the office when someone just irritates you with their talk and work, recall this time and smile that this can’t be happening at work from home. Overanalyzing anything can’t solve this.
16. When in qualm, just call!
“Tring tring”! Remember you still got a telephone so when you are in doubt over a text or email go grab your phone and dial the number. A phone call literally ends the confusion so why not go for a call and make your work easier.
17. Have a cute video call
Who doesn’t love to stare at their face and admiring their beauty? I got you: P
It is not necessary to dress up and putting heavy make before every video call, it’s totally up to you. If you are feeling to put on some makeup go for it, no one will stop you.
Video call is not easy for everyone looking at your own face for almost 2 to 3 hours long online meeting can stress you out so why don’t getting yourself pampered before the video call with some makeup and jewellery and enjoy the meeting. <3
18. Take your lunch on time
Don’t get too much involved in work that you forget to take your lunch. Taking a mealtime is very vital to boost your energy. Make sure to eat your lunch otherwise you will end up tiring yourself.
19. Go outside
All-day sitting in front of your laptop will not help you to feel relaxed, so make sure to take some time during the whole day to unwind yourself and sneak outside for a while. Don’t underestimate because physical and mental health is very crucial to living a healthy life.
20. Do some stretches
Sitting on a chair for the whole day is not good, so try to stretch out a little bit, move across the home and make yourself physically active. Exercising a little bit in between the working zone can boost your energy level and help you to overcome working pressure, anxiety and any kind of stress. So stand up and shake a little, but: D
21. A call to a friend
Isolation can make people go crazy and depressed, a stuffy has declared this. This day of working from home can make you feel alone, how to handle this. The answer is simper connect to your friend, family, coworkers or loved ones.
Stay connected and social even when you at home all alone. This will definitely give you a sense of pleasure and satisfaction, so hurry up and get your phone up.
22. Don’t lie on the bed, its alluring
We all love to sleep till the last moment, even love to answering phone calls or email on the bed. This is not good as you will feel doubly tired by just lying down and doing office work.
I know how difficult is to get yourself out of bed, but you should get up every day at the same time. A tip is to don’t just start any work while you are in bed, give yourself some time to come out of your sleepy zone, fresh yourself and then start your work to bang on with high energy.
Still not persuaded? Then go on the internet and search how many studies have claimed that bed should only be used for sleeping or doing some other fun stuff. That’s it, don’t lie in bed and start doing office chores, it will ultimately drain you out.
To conclude, work and bed should be at distance to sleep better and work better in an effective manner.
