Working from home has become a new norm as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. It seems working from home is the best way to ensure the continuity of our work as well as maintain our health and safety at the same time. However, staying productive, motivated and disciplined could be a challenge when we have to work from home. Here are five useful tips that could help to improve your productivity while working from home!
1. Keep a strict work schedule
First of all, you should tell your body and mind you are now working from home instead of on holidays. Suppose your working hours start at 9 a.m. and you usually wake up at 7 a.m. to clean up yourself, you shall stick to the same schedule when you work from home. Clean up, have breakfast and get ready at 9 am sharp to begin your work. Let your body and mind get familiar with the new norm by keeping a strict work schedule.
2. Dress for work
People might think dressing casually is an advantage of working from home, but it could reduce your productivity for the long term. Wearing office wear during working hours at home is ideal. Putting on office wear on at least two working days per week is still acceptable if you think wearing office wear every day is inconvenient. Most importantly, avoid working with your pyjamas as your mind might think it’s time for relaxing and refuse to function. You may wear on the watch and name tag if that’s how you usually dress for work. These could remind and alert your body and mind that you are now working and you need to stay productive.
3. Designate an appropriate space for working
To improve your productivity, you may designate a space that is appropriate and specific for working only in your home. This simple act could keep you from distraction and help you to stay focused during working hours. Never work in front of the television or beside your bed unless you can resist the temptations firmly. You can also place a clock, calendar, some files and folders on your desk, making it look like a real office and helping you to complete your work.
4. Take a short nap during lunch break
One good thing about working from home is that you could take a short nap during your lunch break. It might be difficult for you to do so when you have to attend to the office physically since there is no suitable place for taking a nap in the office. Well, you can now take a nap and rest well before or after your lunch since you are working from home! Studies showed napping for 15 to 30 minutes in the afternoon could increase the mental alertness and improve your working performances with quicker reaction time and better memory. Hence, feel free to take a short nap to replenish your energy and then only resume your work!
5. Evaluate your productivity daily
Evaluation on your productivity can be done daily to assess whether you have completed all the tasks assigned and detect if there are any shortcomings that you could work on for improvement. To-do-list can be a great tool in helping you evaluate your productivity. Try to create your to-do-list before you start working and record it when you complete the tasks. At the end of the workday, you may check on the to-do-list to assess whether you achieved productivity as expected. If it does not, try to figure out the reasons behind and work on the improvement. If it does, you could continue your current plan to stay productive while working from home!
We must recognize that this COVID-19 outbreak brought a significant change to our lives and forced us to practise a new norm, including working from home nowadays. The struggle to maintain the balance between work and life is real, especially in this difficult time. However, we should not regard it as a reason for our retreat! You may try on these useful tips if you are determined to improve your productivity while working from home. Good luck!
