There are some people who imagine a normal day of work happening only in the office. But some of the people, especially professionals like freelance writers, graphic designers, and photographers, have been working from home for years and years, and they couldn’t imagine working in a different way.
Unexpectedly, the year 2020 and Covid-19 has given a lot of us a chance to try and work from home for quite a long time. And you probably heard your friends or family tell you how their work at home has been and noticed them complaining about the colleagues that are procrastinating and completely unproductive.
But you need to understand that people do not always procrastinate on purpose. Some just struggle to cope in an environment that was supposed to be the place for rest and entertainment after work. If you catch yourself experiencing these problems too, and if you want to stay productive working from home, check out our tips below.
Tip #1: Have a Workspace
Having a dedicated place for work that is your daily workspace is very important and helps you cope and avoid procrastination a lot. Of course, the possibilities of having a workspace at home highly depend on the work that you do and how much space you have at home.
For example, for a content writer or social media specialist, it is enough to have a desk and a computer. But for such job positions like logistics manager or programmer, it is more difficult because they often have two monitors for their work and not everybody has space for that. Especially if there is more than one person working from home.
When you finally decide where your workspace is going to be, make sure you keep only work-related things on your desk to keep you away from distractions. Also, do not spend your breaks and free time sitting in your workspace – try to eat and rest elsewhere so that your brain understands that this is a place where it needs to be focused.
Tip #2: Put Your Personal Phone Away
We all know how in these times of the social media era, it is very easy to be distracted every minute. Most people already have an evolved habit to either check their phone every minute to see if something new happened on social media or simply can’t look away from their phone when they hear a notification.
And it is very easy to get distracted and forget that you are at work when you are working in your leisure time environment, and nobody is watching you. So it is best that you put your phone in the drawer until your break or put it on silent. This way, it will be easier for you to focus on.
Tip #3: Focus on the Goal Rather Than the Working Hours
If you find it difficult to keep away from distractions like chatting, checking social media, watching tv, or talking with your family members, try a different method of working. Always plan your workday ahead – it is best if you do it every morning or even better – a day before. You can either write down the tasks that you need to accomplish, or you can plan your tasks on a virtual calendar like Asana or Google Calendar.
Then, when you start your day, you start it with specific goals that you need to achieve. So instead of just working for 8 hours, try to focus on accomplishing your tasks. This will help you focus on something rather than just procrastinating and waiting for the workday to be over. Also, you can plan your breaks between the tasks too – plan to do something nice after you finish a bigger part of your tasks.
For example, you could plan to make a cup of coffee and sip on it on the balcony. This will encourage you to finish the task faster and will make you more productive as a result.
Tip #4: Use a Separate Browser for Work
This is another method to keep you away from distractions. We can illustrate this with a simple example. Let’s say you have a lot of work, but you are using the same computer for work and entertainment, and you have an online shopping window and a Facebook window open next to work-related windows.
Even if you do not plan to constantly check your Facebook and chat with your friends when someone messages you, you will notice it, and you will get distracted. This might even end up with a half-hour-long chat with your best friend about which shoes to buy. Which is far away from being productive. So it is best to do your work-related tasks in a separate browser window to keep yourself away from distractions.
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