Make your home an office away from the office
Transform your home into a productive office space by following these helpful tips, as the pandemic has shifted many employees to remote work, presenting both challenges and opportunities for a successful work-from-home experience.
At the start of 2020 COVID-19 tossed our lives and daily routines like a bowl of freshly made salad. For most people, we’ve gone from spending hours a week commuting to and from work to waking up, making a coffee and heading on over to our laptops to start our morning Zoom meeting with the team. Camera off.
This pandemic has forced most employees to work from home. For some people, this is a dream come true. For others, this can be overwhelming and very busy at times. The tricky task is to create an office-like environment in your home so that you can mentally prepare your mind for the workday ahead. Also, you need to show your boss that you can work better from home. To do this, you need to create a productive environment and routine that will help you achieve your work and personal goals. Here are some helpful tips for turning your home into the office way from the office:
Create your at-home work station
It’s important to create an office space and work environment that helps you perform at your best. If you feel most comfortable sitting behind a desk, then it’s best to consider setting up your at-home office in an unoccupied bedroom or the dining room table. Let fresh air and natural light warm the room. This releases endorphins in our brains that can help us enjoy our work more. Enjoying your dedicated workspace seems like a good outlook as maybe your office for the foreseeable future.
Use routine building apps to help create your new work from home routine
Once you have your work from home station set up, you need to construct a new work routine - it’s easier than it sounds. Thanks to technology and apps, creating new routines and habits are easier than ever. The Fabulous is great for helping you set up new daily routines and habits. You can set up your morning, afternoon and evening routine goals, set reminders and get coaching when you’re struggling. Timepage is your daily productivity booster. It combines your important tasks, calendar, events, maps, contacts, and weather into a beautiful, smooth application that helps you manage your schedule. This is really helpful for combining your work and personal calendar to manage your life more effectively.
Install your work from home mindset
Working from home requires a strong work mindset. It’s the mental process of getting dressed for work but in your mind. This work mindset is crucial for you to get work done - to the best of your abilities. Once you start your work mindset, it’s important to minimise distractions, like turning off the notifications on your phone. Avoid distractions like your social media channels when trying to focus on work. Multitasking might seem like a great way to get things done but it’s proven to be bad for productivity. Focus on accomplishing small milestones and offer yourself short breaks as a reward for all your hard work.
Headphones on. Let the work commence.
Distractions are a slippery slope - one minute you’re in the work zone, the next, you’re playing fetch with your foster pup and you’ve completely strayed your work train of thought. One way to avoid distractions is to create a work from home playlist on YouTube Music or Spotify. When you are ready to work, plug in your headphones, and push play. Studies have shown that employees are 12.5% more effective when working while listening to music. There are two possible ways that music might be beneficial in the work from home environment: by making us smarter, or by making us feel good, and therefore helping us to plod on with otherwise boring tasks.
Setting goals
Setting and tracking work goals for each day is helpful because it allows us to prioritise our work and get things done instead of procrastinating and forgetting tasks. Write down your work goals for the day and plan your day around achieving them. The feeling of completing your daily goals is a rewarding accomplishment that helps construct a healthy habit-forming routine. Once you have completed your goals for the day, you can clock off and enjoy some family time.