Work From HomeAmid the deadly health outbreak (COVID-19), most of the businesses have been started to function from working at home facilities. However, many of us have already thought of working from the comfort of our home for the rest of our career. Some researchers have already found that working from home or working remotely decreases overall productivity whereas around 40% believe that working from home has its benefits.
To help yourself and your team do work efficiently and become more productive, here are a few tips that could help in maintaining a healthy work-life balance.
1. Create An ‘Office Environment’
Working remotely can be at a disadvantage if it doesn’t feel like you are actually in an office environment. Creating a working environment at home helps in increasing productivity. Follow the same rules that you would when you were working at your office, like having a well-lit room, a comfortable chair, keeping all distractions away. Researchers had found out that around 33% of employees spent 3-4 hours of their working hours to distractions while working from home.
2. Follow A Schedule
It helps when you have a routine made. Since the lockdown, it has become difficult to follow a schedule, but you can motivate yourself and your team to follow a similar schedule as they had before. Following a routine will help you in becoming more focused and structured.
3. Create A To-Do List
Write down goals to accomplish for the day and mark them off as soon as they are completed. It has been found that 30% of the employees feel more productive when they know what their goals are for the day. It makes them work for longer hours minus any distractions. While working remotely, communication within the team is quite critical. It is important to be on track with your team goals, therefore it is recommended to have weekly meetings to motivate your team is working efficiently.
4. Prioritize Tasks
While making the to-do list, make sure to organize it in such a way that casts urgent and important tasks in the topmost followed by important but not urgent and so on. The Airtasker Survey also revealed that 30% of remote employees reported that keeping a to-do list helped their productivity.
5. Take Breaks
Taking breaks is found to be the most effective way to make an employee feel productive. Use the Pomodoro Technique while taking breaks.
Pomodoro Technique follows this method:
- Choose a particular task
- Work on it for 30 minutes
- Put a mark on the to-do list for the work completed in 30 minutes
- Take a 5-minute break (marking the first Pomodoro sprint)
- After every 4 Pomodoro sprints, take a break for a longer period
- Continue this method until your workday is over
6. Exercise & Stretch Regularly
Exercise is a natural booster for endorphins, increasing happiness, energy influx, and interest levels- all of which is important for increasing productivity. Stretching regularly helps in maintaining a good body posture. Exercising in the morning boosts motivation to get through the day. While taking breaks for a longer duration, get up and stretch your body for 3 minutes to feel relaxed.
7. Consume Healthy Food
Research has shown that consuming healthy foods is directly linked to overall productivity levels. You can also avoid eating unhealthy snacks and focus more on healthy fruits and snacks. Reward yourself with a small snack bite after having a productive day or a week. If you are an avid snack eater, then make it a point to make yourself eat a healthy meal, one time a day.
8. Invest In Quality Technology
While working remotely, make sure you have quality internet when connecting through with your team. Since working from home requires communicating with your team quite often. Set up good quality technology which would prove useful when meetings are held through video conferencing. It is important to connect with people other than your team. Investing in important things, especially technology makes working remotely efficient.
9. Invest In Most During Your ‘Cream-Time’
Cream-time is that time of the day when you feel the sharpest. Every individual feels most productive at different times of the day. All of us want to move forward and wish to do big in life, but we waste our most productive hour doing baseless, senseless stuff, that is when we start feeling guilty and empty. Make sure you discover your high productivity periods and make the most of it. During this time, make sure you focus all your attention on the important task that you are currently handling.
10. Take Care Of Your Mental Health
Mental Health is an important part of yourself. This means eating right, focusing on your mind, keeping your body active, and getting a proper 7-8 hour sleep. While making your schedule for the day, try to include meditation and yoga as a routine to keep your mind in check. To maintain a proper sleep schedule would mean not to binge-watch online TV series late at night. Eating healthy also suggests reducing your caffeine intake (coffee) throughout the day. It has been found that watching TV, consuming coffee and alcohol may temporarily relieve your stress, but maybe harmful in the long run.
Conclusion
For the people who are not used to working from home or who don’t have an organized work station, being in a situation like this can disrupt their productivity. After all, you are in your personal space and not your professional space. Focus on things that in your control and look out for what else you can learn.
It is rightfully said;
It takes 21 days to build a new habit.
