Top Tips To Work From Home
Working from home might sound like a dream; no commute, no colleagues chatting to you for an hour about total nonsense, all your favourite snacks to hand, you can choose the music…. but trust me when I say that sometimes it can be a real nightmare.
It’s so easy to get distracted by thinking “I’ll just put on a laundry load” or the most dangerous thought of all, “I think I’ll work in bed this morning”. Sometimes I wonder how anyone ever manages to work successfully from home when there are so many things to sort, tidy, clean, reorder and play with in your own home.
As someone who works from home daily, I understand how difficult it can be to actually just get on with the task at hand and ignore all of life’s little distractions. So, let me share some of the best tips and tricks I use to keep my focus and make sure the day doesn’t run away with me!
Get Dressed.
This might sound like an obvious one but two months into the grind and you may find that this applies to you more than you thought. It’s so easy to slip into the habit of working in your pyjamas, or dressing gown and telling yourself that you need to be comfy in order to focus. And while it is important to be comfortable, it’s also important to be in the correct frame of mind. Getting up every morning and getting into your daily routine as if you were leaving the house is super important. It wakes you up and tells your brain that now it is time to hustle.
Have a dedicated work space.
Say it with me; “working on the sofa is not a good idea”. Now repeat that to yourself until you believe it. Write it down and stick it on your fridge if you have to.
With portable laptops and phones that can do everything, it is super easy to throw yourself down anywhere and start working. But in the long run, not only will your body suffer with your bad posture, but your mental health will too when you no longer have a boundary between relaxing and working. Pick a dedicated work space, make it yours and stick to it. The beauty of working from home is that you often have more freedom than in an office to decorate, design, move, change and adapt your work space to suit you. Whether you have an entire room as a home office or you’re working on the kitchen table, make it yours and make sure anyone else who uses the space knows that when you’re sat there, it’s work time.
Pace yourself.
You know when you’re in the office and you head to the kitchen for a refill and a colleague grabs you to ask your opinion on their project, or the intern starts asking you career questions and suddenly your two-minute break has turned into ten? Well, as frustrating as it seems at the time, it’s actually better for you because it forces you to take a proper mental break and think about something else. When I started working from home I congratulated myself on how productive I was being and how few breaks I was taking but I often found myself burnt out before the end of the week. Pace yourself. It’s so tempting to tell yourself to get a head start on tomorrow’s work, and sometimes that is helpful, but don’t feel guilty for just calling it a day. Afterall, it’s a marathon and not a sprint!
Take a lunch break.
I often use my lunch break for everything except lunch! I use it to run errands, head to the shops, visit family and friends, exercise, anything which takes a significant amount of time. If I’m taking lots of short breaks then generally my mind is still working so I’m not really taking a proper break. The only thing getting a break is my laptop! So, I set myself an hour a day as a lunch break. Today, I used my lunch break visit my parents. Yesterday, I took my lunch break at 10am and went food shopping because I was out of tea. The beauty of working from home is that there is much more flexibility about how long your lunch break is, when you take it and what you do with it. Maybe you can’t take one today because you’re up against a deadline. Take a long one tomorrow. Whatever you do, make sure you take this time. It’ll help you focus in the long run and, most importantly, it gives your mind a proper break.
Set timers.
Sometimes everything flows. The work, my focus and motivation, everything works well and I blink and it’s dinnertime. Other times, it’s not like that. Other times I’m staring at the screen willing myself not check the time again. Whatever kind of day you’re having, you need a break. We all do. But it’s easy to get carried away or to feel guilty and force yourself to sit and work. That’s when a timer comes in handy. I find that having that reminder burst into my thoughts and forcing me to take a break is the only thing that makes me actually do it. Sometimes I set a phone timer for an hour. Sometimes I use the washing machine timer to take a break and put on a new load. Sometimes my timer is the oven defrosting my lunch. Whatever it is, if you’re struggling with breaks, either because you take them all the time, or because you never take them, remember that a timer is your best friend.
Bonus tip: time your breaks. Many a time I’ve intended to take a 15 minute break to grab a tea and change the laundry only to find it’s been 45 minutes, my tea is cold, my laundry is half done, so is the ironing and last night’s washing up and I’ve watered the plants. Sometimes, we all need a gentle nudge to get back to work.
Set your expectations and then tell someone.
It’s all very well setting daily goals but if no one knows if you’ve hit them or missed them then you can often feel flat when you’ve over achieved or secretly guilty when you haven’t. This is when sharing your goals comes in handy. Every morning my partner asks what I’m going to do today and we discuss how long I think it will take, any frustrations or issues I’m having and anything which could stop me hitting my targets. Then, every evening, he asks me if I achieved what I set out to do, if I did, he congratulates me, if I didn’t, he asks why. This way, I’m held accountable if I miss my target because I spent two hours on Instagram.
Say no.
Even once you’ve got the hang of working from home and you’ve got your routine down, friends, family, ex-colleagues, basically anyone who doesn’t work from home, will assume that you have an abundance of time to meet for coffee, water their plants while they’re away, take their dog for a walk, come their dance class with them or any other number of random tasks that actually take up a lot of your time. Just say no. It might feel harsh at first but ask yourself, would they be asking you to do this if they knew you had a 9-to-5 office job? If the answer is yes, either because it is a one-off, an emergency or takes no time at all, then of course, helping others is always a good thing. If not, and especially if it’s going to take you away from work, just say no. Not everyone will appreciate how hard it can be to work from home and how difficult it is to set boundaries and stick to your plans. Make sure that anything extra you take on; you actually have time for.
Find what works for you, then do it.
TV off, TV on? Snacks to hand or snacks in the kitchen? Music, no music? Phone on loud, phone on silent? Do the laundry, leave it for later? There are a million different things to consider when working from home. And just as when working in an office, there are a million right answers. I find that having the TV on low in the background helps me focus. I have a friend who has to have the TV off. I use the laundry as a timer to guide when I take a break, she finds chores distracting. Whatever you find works for you and keeps you focussed, motivated and positive is what you should be doing. It can take time to really find your groove but keep going until you do because when it all clicks, you’ll notice a big difference in your productivity levels.
Finally, give yourself a break.
You’re doing great and not everyone can be a perfect, super-focused work robot all the time. Like when you work in an office, you have good days and bad days. Some weeks seem to drag and others fly past. When you work in an office it is much easier to leave your work stress behind when you leave at the end of the day. Working from home can be much harder because even if you close the door to your office or shut your laptop, it’s never very far from your eye line. Give yourself a break and don’t let the guilt of a bad day ruin your evening, even if your work seems to be staring you in the face. It’s okay, take the good days with the bad, come back tomorrow and try again.
