Working from home isn’t taboo anymore. In fact, many professionals choose to not spend endless hours in a cubicle if they can help it. But skeptics will question the productivity of this trend and there are many of us work from homers who give them enough food for thought. But fact is you do get a lot more done from home base than waiting at work for multiple other things to align just so that your job can get done. These tactics should offer a helping hand:
Stick to your goals. Yes, the New Year just happened upon us and surely you have an endless list of goals you plan to stick to. In your head. Come day two and those goals are nowhere in sight. Does not have to work that way. Give yourself a few goals at a time instead of a long laundry list of everything you had been planning since Y2K hit us. Better yet, divide them over months and give yourself time to adapt a few new habits each month. That’s more on the workable side of things. Announce it to a partner or friend so you have someone to discuss your achievements with.
Intersperse work, home and personal. Most days a list of to-dos helps guide the hours but some days I simply detest the list of to-dos I have conjured up for myself. Fun way to get it all done? Alternate between one work assignment, one house errand and one ‘me’ time task. Add more excitement to it by scrambling all your tasks into a box and picking up random tasks to do. Or add them to an excel sheet and organize based on alphabetical order. This way you get your work done and don’t try to stay away from accomplishing things you don’t feel like.
Feed yourself. And do it well. Some work from homers like to give themselves a good hour to have a nice lunch, read a book, catch up on calls to friends, even step out and meet someone. Important thing is to remember to eat. Work can get ahead of you and you might end up feeling overwhelmed with your professional commitments and managing a home but don’t let that affect how you nourish yourself. If you like to be planned about it then use your weekend to plan out your meals and snacks, have them prepped and ready so when times comes to take a break you don’t sit around wasting a half hour thinking what sandwich you want to make! If you like to eat only when hungry then make sure you have a diverse range of healthy snacks like fruits, nuts, bars that you can turn to. Allow yourself a guilty pleasure once in a while but don’t make that your go to snack just because you are hungry and you forgot to put something proper together for your tummy.
And no, we did not overlook exercise. The best part about working from home should be about having the time to do all the things you could not do working in a cubicle. If you can make time for the gym or a brisk walk or run that would be ideal, but if you can’t, there is still no reason to flake out on this. Between one assignment and another, take a stroll in your own backyard or community. Between a professional task and a house chore, try to get some stretches in. When you are tensed about a deadline or stressed about a project, get on the floor for some deep yoga breathing and core exercises. Have a conference call? If it doesn’t require you taking notes or being in one place to check on stuff then walk around your home and use that time for some stretches.
Have more suggestions to add? Do share with our readers is you have tips and tricks up your sleeves on being more productive working from home.
Woman working from home image and traffic sign image from Shutterstock
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