The benefits and drawbacks of working from home are discussed. People may now work from the comfort of their own homes, without having to deal with traffic or peak hours. Employees might also spend more time with their families while at work, as well as prevent the COVID-19 infection from spreading.
Some people, however, may find this arrangement particularly difficult because they will be juggling both job and domestic obligations at the same time.
If you’re having trouble staying productive in this situation, reading this article could be able to help you learn more about accomplishing more tasks.
Pro Tips To Enhance Productivity
The sudden shift from working on-site to working at home created many changes in people’s daily routines. It also becomes a significant challenge for many employees regarding productivity and efficiency. Fortunately, they can use plenty of alternatives to perform work tasks efficiently, including sending and receiving a fax from a computer, using software for meetings, and utilizing cloud storage.
If you’re also concerned with your productivity levels, listed below are simple yet efficient ways to help you stay on top of your tasks and accomplish more deadlines.
- Divide Household Responsibilities
For people with work-from-home arrangements, juggling the demands of work and home concerns can be overwhelming, affecting their focus and productiveness while working. This is more of a concern for working parents who are also responsible for their children and domestic tasks.
Preparing meals, cleaning the house, doing the laundry, and working on deadlines can be exhausting. So, if you’re one of them, it’d help create a clear schedule for the family about specific house tasks. It’s to ensure that there’ll be someone to attend to the said chores while you’re working, allowing you to focus more on existing workloads.
Apart from that, dividing household responsibilities could help foster harmony and unity among family members and finish tasks simultaneously.
On the other hand, if you’re a working student with a remote work schedule, having a work-schedule scheme could help you sort things out and prioritize important tasks. It’d also help you learn how to manage your time and finish deadlines on time.
- Make A To-Do List
Aside from employing a fair division of labor within the family, a to-do list could also help you organize daily activities, including work duties and home responsibilities. Since usual work schedules require a standard eight-hour shift from employees, you might need the remaining time for taking rests, doing chores, and taking care of the family.
With that, keeping yourself guided with a daily to-do- list could help you get off to a good start and prevent neglecting vital tasks. Jotting down a specific task list for the next few days could significantly reduce wasted time and help you get things done ahead of deadlines.
- Setup A Comfortable Workspace
One of the many considerations you need to consider when working at home is your workspace. You may not know it, but the space you use for work could significantly affect your concentration and productivity in many ways. For instance, working in a messy, cluttered place could reduce your focus and make you feel unmotivated. It’d also make it more difficult to find necessary things when needed.
Or, if you’re only working on the couch or near your bed, it’d only cut down your productivity and feel sleepy and tired. It’d be better to have personal space designed specifically for your work in such aspects. Whether big or small, a makeshift workspace at home could give you more privacy while working and ensure that essential papers and devices won’t get misplaced.
Plus, a personalized space could allow you to have all supplies and work equipment close at hand and arranged accordingly, including a computer, headphones, printer, papers, and fax machine.
- Start Early
Upon waking up, many people often have routines before getting to work. Some prefer to exercise or do household chores first, while others check on social media platforms. These things are part of everyday occurrences, especially for people working at home. But not without any consequences to their motivation and drive.
While there’s nothing wrong with these activities, starting later than your usual work routine could affect your drive to work. It might make you feel unenergetic and lethargic.
To better push yourself to stay productive, it’d help to get up and work early. Setting the alarm or so before the entire household wakes up could give you plenty of time to enjoy work peacefully. It’d also boost your concentration levels and efficiency. While doing it, you’ll be surprised by how much work you can accomplish when the house is quiet.
- Eliminate Distractions
Working on-site may prevent you from checking social media that much. But that isn’t always possible when you’re working remotely. One peek at specific posts, and before you know it, you’ve already lost hours of work time.
If not appropriately addressed, digital distractions might cut down your focus on work. It’d result in poor concentration levels and lower productivity rates. Consequently, your position may suffer. You can change that by eliminating digital distractions and removing social media platforms from your bookmarks. Logging out of your accounts, disabling notifications, and hiding away your phone may also help boost your focus and productivity levels.
- Take Short Breaks
Whether you’re a full-time worker or a part-timer, you’ll have to rest a bit after long hours of work to avoid getting overwhelmed and exhausted. Know that you can only work for so long before collapsing or breaking down. Even in many workplaces, employees have rest time to recharge and re-energize themselves.
An hour or so would be a great help to rejuvenate yourself. It’d also be better to take a few minutes to stand, re-hydrate, eat snacks, pet your dogs, or do refreshing things to avoid burnout.
Besides that, you can take longer breaks to interact with your loved ones during rest times. By taking your mind off work for a bit, you can prevent mental exhaustion and maintain a healthy, energized well-being while working at home.
- Set Time For Specific Tasks
Unless your work requires you to check your emails constantly, it’d be better to allow a specific time to visit them. You may not know it, but being on the watch for new emails could be a huge distraction in your work.
Like any other digital distraction, it’d take away your focus on tasks at hand, disrupt your concentration, and prolong the time you need to accomplish tasks on your to-do list. With that, it’s best to designate time for tending to emails and do it in chunks if possible.
- Try Meal Prepping
Mealtime responsibilities are among the tasks you need to consider when working at home. It’d be extra challenging if you’re busy doing work tasks and have no spare time to run to the grocery.
With that, it’s best to try meal prepping and learn how to make meals in bulk. Dividing a few meals into portions and putting them into food storage containers for the next meal time may help save you more time cooking. It’d also help plan your family’s meals and prepare necessary ingredients at night, so you’ll have no trouble preparing in the morning.
This alternative could also help you prepare healthy, balanced meals for the family and prevent food from getting spoiled. Since not all of your family members may get hungry, meal prepping allows them to eat when they want. Plus, it’d help you avoid stopping work to prepare meals, which could affect your concentration levels and productivity.
- Practice Multitasking
It’s well-established that doing different things at once could significantly affect one’s focus and quality of work. But, doing it may lead to negative or positive outcomes. For instance, Multitasking could result in poor work performance or more efficient time management.
Working at home might require you to do things simultaneously. You might need to attend virtual meetings, do dishes, run laundry, or feed the dogs. It’d be better to multitask to keep yourself on top of these activities. Working on small tasks may help you accomplish things while you’re not too busy at work.
- Follow Proper Working Hours
Unless you’re a freelance worker and you don’t have specific working hours to follow, it’d be better to have proper working hours as much as possible. Although one of the notable benefits of a work-from-home setup is allowing people to work at their own pace since their colleagues can’t see what they’re doing behind the computer screen, it might negatively affect your productivity.
For instance, starting later than usual might make you feel unprepared for work, reducing your productivity levels. It may also influence you to skip work or disrupt your focus on the tasks at hand, resulting in poor work performance.
Following proper working hours could help enhance your discipline and concentration levels and bolster productivity levels. Setting boundaries in your professional and personal life may also help avoid affecting your work-life balance.
Bottom Line
Being in the work-from-home setup comes with advantages and challenges. It isn’t only about giving employees more freedom to work in their homes and a sense of safety. But career-wise, this setup may negatively impact one’s work performance and productivity levels.
With that, you might need to learn something about simple techniques to promote efficiency and stay on top of your work duties. Establishing work schedules, creating a makeshift workspace, eliminating digital distractions, and multitasking might do the trick. You can also consider some of the tips listed above to resolve your concerns.
