Telecommuting, working at home, working remotely … These last weeks we are hearing a lot of these concepts as a recommendation and / or consequence of this isolation imposed to stop the expansion of the Coronavirus or Covid-19.
Work From Home has become one of the best recipes for all those workers who have had to change the office for their home and for companies, which, with this formula, will be able to prevent major ills and prevent their staff from overnight being greatly diminished by a spread of the virus among their employees.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Work From Home
Like everything, Work From Home has its advantages and disadvantages and all that glitters is not gold. Although it can have many advantages for workers and companies, it also has some disadvantages.
How To Make Work From Home More Productive?
When starting an activity from home, many of us have realized that the context is different from what we were in the office until now. In the company most of the time we spend it in a work / professional atmosphere. However, at home other scenarios are mixed. And even more now that our children are also at home. You have to work and sometimes combine it with household, family, and relationship with your partner.
This situation can make us a world and cause us more stress and anguish than we already have because of the current situation. In addition to reducing our labor productivity. But following these 10 tips that we offer you, we will ensure that it does not happen and we can even increase it.
Tip #1. Create A Workspace
It may seem absurd, but having a space at home dedicated exclusively to work will help us create efficient work habits and improve our productivity. In addition to helping us differentiate work moments from family moments.
Tip #2. Establish Schedules And Routines
We must learn to make the most of our workday to increase productivity. For this, we have to establish some schedules and routines that help us to concentrate better and abide by them to the letter.
We will organize our workday in blocks, which will allow us to intersperse breaks and leisure time. This will help us to be focused and work more efficiently in the blocks focused on work.
Tip #3. Plan Your Day
Before starting work we will define what will be the three most important tasks of the day and we will not add other things (email, phone, meetings, etc.) until they are finished. This exercise can also be done at the end of our day to plan the next day.
Once each task is finished, it is best to rest, get up, and stretch your legs. We will not need more than 5 minutes for it and we can take advantage of it to move our body.
Starting the day without clear planning will make the much-feared procrastination appear and our productivity will drop considerably.
Tip #4. Make A List Of Tasks/Actions
Once the tasks that we have to carry out during our workday have been defined, the next step is to divide them into actions and write everything down in a list.
This will help us to be clear about what actions we must take to achieve our objective and, in turn, clear our heads of other things to focus on what we are doing.
As we carry out and finish the actions noted in the list, we will cross them out and thus we can see the evolution of our tasks.
Tip #5. Work In Blocks
Once the three most important tasks of the day are finished, we will continue with the rest of the work commitments by blocks. We will define blocks of time to attend to all the actions that we have to carry out (emails, calls, less important tasks …).
By working in blocks we take advantage of the inertia of concentration in tasks with the same mechanics and we will be much more productive.
Tip #6. Avoid Interruptions
This is what works. If we want to be productive we have to avoid everything that moves us away from our focus.
In the office, distractions can come from colleagues, unforeseen meetings, emergencies, etc. At home it is different. The thieves of our time are different: a domestic chore, caring for a family member, an unexpected visit, etc.
The success of our productivity is to focus on what we are doing and avoid distractions. So we should especially avoid the following:
- Telephone: at home, we are freer to make personal calls at any time. So we have to be very aware that these types of calls must be made outside of the time assigned to work.
- Social networks: it is best to silence them during work hours. You will have time to consult them when you have finished your tasks.
- Email: Despite being one of the main working tools, it is also a great distraction. To avoid being distracted more than we should, we will mark several exclusive time frames to check the email (for example, 10 minutes 3 times a day) and we will avoid checking it the rest of the time.
- Online purchases: it is prohibited to make them during the workday. Forget about Amazon, Netflix … and thus you will avoid wasting time from work.
- Housework: we must avoid interrupting our day. We will do them before or after the time dedicated to working, but never during it.
Tip #7. Prepare to Work
Just as we get ready to go to work at the office, we must also do it to work from home. Pajamas are prohibited in Work From Home. It is not necessary to dress in a suit, but the idea to get a habit and get into a routine is to get rid of pajamas and wear “street” clothes, even if they are more comfortable or informal.
Continuing with the same morning rituals (hygiene, breakfast, clothing …) that we have to go to the office will help us overcome laziness and have a greater feeling of work and responsibility.
Tip #8. Maintain Fluent Communication With The Rest Of The Team
To avoid possible physical isolation we must maintain fluid communication with our team. For this, it will be necessary to mark some rules of action and how the communication will be: WhatsApp group, a corporate messaging tool, videoconferences, email.
We must also distinguish between specific communications and meetings. For this, the most recommended is to establish two different communication channels. For example, for specific communications, we can use a corporate messaging tool (Microsoft Teams, Slack, Yammer …) and for meetings, we will use video conferences.
Tip #9. Don’t Forget About Breaks
Well-programmed Work From Home with the appropriate means usually implies an increase in our concentration. There are usually fewer distractions at home than in an office, so it is important not to forget to rest.
Our brain can maintain a high level of concentration for a maximum of 120 minutes. From then on, our concentration declines and it is easier to get distracted.
By resting every 2 hours we will help our celeb to stay focused. These breaks can be 5, 10, or 30 minutes and it is best to get up from the chair and away from the computer. Thus we will clear our minds and our sight will also rest.
Tip #10. Apply Productivity Techniques
Another of the formulas to make Work From Home more effective is to use productivity techniques to avoid losing focus.
These types of techniques will help us improve the way we work and our productivity, but not all of them are equally valid for everyone. That is why it is important to identify the one that can work best for us and apply it to make it one of our habits.
About the Author!
Puneet Sharma is content marketing head at CuteHR – Best HR Software and an author in Human resources, online businesses. He is specialized in reading and writing about human resource management and automating online business management.
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