HNE Staff Are you new to the work-from-home setup? By now, you might have noticed a few challenges to make yourself productive working from home as you were in the office. Give yourself some time to figure out what works for you, how to separate your home life from work life, and what to do to make the most out of your current work arrangement.
It might help to follow these tips on being your most productive self when working from home:
1. Keep Regular Hours
Even if you’re working from home, try to keep office hours, or at least set a work schedule and follow it. Doing this will help you balance work and home life instead of getting the two mixed up, increasing the risk of burnout. You might want to use a time-tracking app to monitor your actual work hours. It also helps you check your productivity and lazy hour. Rearrange your schedule to set your most complicated work during your productive hours.
2. Establish a Routine to Start Your Day
It’s easy to get confused when work starts and when you can attend to household chores when you’re at home. You need to signal your body it’s time to work. It could be when you have your coffee ready in the home office or after you’ve dressed up (not in your pajamas) for work. Set this as a habit to start your workday.
3. Buy Quality Technology for Work
Your work setup at home might not be the same ones you’ve got in the office, but you can narrow the gap by investing in quality technology. Some employers might provide you with a laptop, desktop, or tablet. Others might even offer these with accessories, such as a webcam, noise-canceling headphones, an ergonomic chair, and a high-performance router. Depending on your type of work, you might need more hardware and software.
Learn the top 10 things you need for a productive work-from-home setup. Invest in the right items to encourage you to work harder and smarter.
4. Create a Permanent and Ergonomic Workspace
No matter how small your home is, it’s critical to establish a workspace. It could be a desk and a chair in a quiet corner, where you do all your office work and put your office supplies. It should be able to accommodate your computer or laptop, router, proper lighting, printer/scanner/copier, surge protector, and other computer accessories.
When you build your home office, regardless of how small it is, make sure to set up the monitor properly that the top of the screen is around 25 percent above your eye level. Some use a riser to put the monitor at this height. Your home office should have enough indirect light that helps you see objects and read clearly. Indirect light refers to a source of light that does not reflect directly on your monitor screen, which can be unpleasant.
5. Set Time for Proper Breaks
As a part of your habit of keeping a work schedule, set some breaks and take them in their entirety. Follow your work’s break policy, or set time away from the screen if you’re self-employed. Take an hour off for lunch, a 15-minute break in the morning, and another 15 minutes in the afternoon. If you’re mostly sitting down during work, stand up at least once every hour to get your blood moving.
6. Move Around
Spending your entire day working at home can be stifling. Spend some of your scheduled breaks out of the mouse or doing some stretching. It also helps to get some fresh air, look at things in natural light. Since the pandemic has made going to crowded places like co-working spaces, libraries, and coffee shops, what’s more, important is you getting out of the house and moving around.
7. Invest in a Reliable VPN
Some organizations strictly require their employees, even those working from home, to use their company’s VPN in accessing servers or websites with sensitive details. Keep your VPN on at all times. It is also the organizations’ way to keep track of what their off-site employees are doing on the clock.
If you’re a self-employed employee, protect yourself and your work by investing in a trusted VPN. Keep it on if you have no other option but to connect to Wi-Fi at public spaces, like cafes, airports, libraries, co-working spaces, and hotels.
8. Impose Ground Rules at Home
One of the pitfalls of doing business at home is that people sometimes forget that you’re working. It is even challenging if you have children who may not understand at first that you’re at work, even if you’re at home. Set clear rules on what they can and cannot do during office hours. Ask them for quiet times, especially during crucial meetings. Tell the other household members that even if you can receive delivered parcels or walk the dog during your break, it doesn’t mean that you’ll do other chores when you’re logged in at work.
9. Communicate with Colleagues
Among the top challenges of remote work is feeling isolated or disconnected. You might have gotten used to the lively atmosphere in the office with the casual chitchats and socializing during breaks. It might take some getting used to, but you can continue connecting with your colleagues through team messaging apps. You may use Slack, Discord, Microsoft Teams, and more, but don’t get distracted by all the messages you might get from these apps.
If you think audio or video calls are not enough and if the pandemic protocols in your city allow, you might want to request safe face time with your colleagues. It could be through an office check-in meeting, training, or team building.
10. Set a Sign-off Routine
Like how you should have a routine to start your workday, end it with a closing routine, too. It could be as simple as logging out of your apps, working out, or walking the dogs after turning off the computer. Keep doing this routine until it becomes a habit to end your workday.
Conclusion
Follow the tips mentioned above, or introduce your own twist to it until you find the formula that works for you. This work-from-home setup might become a permanent arrangement for some employees even after the pandemic.
Consider also improving your home office to look appealing and stimulate your productivity. You must be as comfortable as possible so you can give your work the attention and effort it deserves.
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