In wake to a lot of people working from home, I thought it would be good to share some of the tips I have used to be productive at home.
Working from home can be tricky. It is a big change, in your lifestyle. There are certain things which are hard wired into your brain.
Environment:
There are certain things that have efffect on you as a person as a whole, when you are used to working with people and coworkers around you, which you might be unaware of. You might be productive while people are around you and through continuous involvement you might find motivation to be more productive. However when you working from home, that entire picture changes.
Morning Routine:
You might have a morning routine, which may include having a breakfast at a cafe, listening to radio while you drive to work, read a book while you take train to work, which may be completely gone because of you working from home. Missing this morning routine can be critical, it might change your mood, your outlook on day and your overall thinking in general.
You might have a set schedule because you are planning your time with your coworkers, but now since you are working from home, you have to manage your time yourself.
Your Work-space:
Your work space is one of the most essential pieces of productivity. In regular environment, you might be used to having same professional work-space and your personal work. But having a separate work space for your professional work will give a totally different mindset. Having a separate space for your professional work, will give you a feeling of walking into an office where you leave your personal life behind and focus solely on your work.
Staying connected:
Healthy social interactions is very important for your mental health. Dopamine is a chemical produced by our brains that plays a starring role in our motivating behavior. It gets released when we take a bite of delicious food, when we have sex, after we exercise and when we have healthy social interactions.
Utilizing Free Time :
You might spend few minutes talking to your coworkers, your boss or just people around your work place.
So being productive at home comes down to giving yourself same circumstances as working at office.
Tips to improve productivity:
Meditation:
There are tons of science based facts of meditation, i.e. Reduce stress, enhance self awareness, fight addiction, lengthen attention span just to name a few. But believe it or not, if you plan to succeeding in achieving your goal of working from home productively those benefits will come in handy.
Task List:
Having a task list is a great way to stay productive. We are used to relying on small number of tasks or working in a team, its easy to stay on course your tasks, but when you presented with challenge of managing your time, managing your task becomes a big personal responsibility. Having a task list and working through those tasks will keep you on track and a slight dopamine release when you finish your task.
Pomodoro:
Pomodoro is a well known technique for productivity. While working through your daily tasks, you can get lost if there are sub tasks or need to do context switching to another task. Pomodoro technique is a great way to tracking and staying on the task. Pomodoro requires you to start a timer (usually 25 minutes), focus solely on one task. Take short break (usually 5 minutes) once the timer stops and repeat.
