Working From Home: 10 Ways to Work From Home Effectively

Working from home is awesome as it gives you the flexibility of working on your own without being monitored. Following the harsh effects of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, most businesses and organizations forced their employees to work from home to adhere to various Covid-19 guidelines.

To some, working from home is more of a luxury as it gives you the flexibility of doing whatever you like right at the comfort of your home. To others, transitioning from a structured office environment to an online-only environment can seem disturbing.

You see, some people enjoy the social benefits of their colleagues when working in an office environment. When working in a home office, such people are quickly distracted by pets, kids, and other family members when working. So, in this guide, we’re going to discuss at least 10 ways to work from home effectively to boost your productivity.

1. Maintain Regular Hours

When working in an office, it’s easy to adhere to a schedule or a routine as you have people watching over you. This is quite different when you’re working from home. Since you’re all by yourself, these lines can become blurred as there’s less accountability.

You see, without a schedule, you’re likely to experience some imbalance in your working routine. Sometimes, you’ll notice that you’re overworking yourself while other times, you might notice that you’re underworking hence failing to meet deadlines.

So, to solve this time issue, you need to have a daily schedule that will include your morning routine, midday, afternoon, and evening activities. Have time for taking breakfast, taking a shower, taking your dog/kids for a walk, and time for chatting with your friends, colleagues, and family members.

2. Schedule Breaks

If you’ve followed our first point to the latter, then it means you’ve scheduled some regular breaks in between your working hours. According to Ginny Mineo, taking an hour for lunch can recharge your energy making you more productive at work. He continues to mention that working for an entire day doesn’t make you productive especially if you’re working from home.

Other studies have also proven that taking at least two breaks during work can make someone more productive than taking no breaks at all. You see, the human brain has a maximum amount of working hours after which your performance begins to decline significantly.

So, if you’re working from home, you should take your eyes off the computer for some time. You can go out for a walk, stand up for some time or just enjoy some fresh air to allow blood to circulate throughout the body.

3. Dress Up For the Occasion

Working from home means that you’re less likely to interact with other people all day. The only pal you’re expected to interact with is your canine or feline friend. Although a lonely environment will make you more productive, there’s one problem—you’re likely to wear your pajamas when working.

Although sleeping pants and pajamas will give you a sense of freedom and comfort, they’re likely to lower your productivity as you’ll feel sluggish throughout the day. So, to stay productive when working from home, you need to follow these simple steps.

First, you need to take a shower every morning, brush your teeth and wear clothes that you feel more comfortable on. These can be sweatpants and a T-shirt or any other casual wear that makes your body comfortable and confident.

The trick behind taking a shower and changing your clothes in the morning is that it signals your brain to wake up and start working as if you’re in a physical office.

4. Create a Home Office

When working from home, it’s easy to fall into the temptation of working from your bed or at the coach. Just like changing your clothes when getting ready to work, moving from your bed or your coach to a designated space meant for office work is really important.

You see, with a designated space, your brain will learn to distinguish between personal life and work life. If you have enough space, you can decide to place a desk next to the window to have enough air circulating in and out of the room.

You can even decide to have a separate computer dedicated to office work or you can partition your laptop’s hard disk to create two accounts—one for personal use and the other for office use. When it comes to comfort, you can have a supportive chair, an ergonomic desk, quality peripherals, and a fast WIFI connection.

5. Limit Distractions

Working at home doesn’t mean you’re at home. There are times when you’ll need to be quiet for you to focus. If you live with family or friends, then you need to set strict boundaries on when to meet and have a chat. Now, there are times when you might be so busy with work then you suddenly notice that your kids are distracting you.

In such a scenario, you need to set strict rules and regulations on when to play with the kids and when to focus on your work. This way, you’ll have enough time to focus on your work and boost your productivity.

In most cases, it’s good to negotiate meeting times and quiet times with friends and family members. It’s also advisable to set a separate place for office work to ensure that you limit distractions as much as possible.

6. Interact With Your Employer and the Team

If you’re working from home for the first time, it’s easy to get confused as you’re used to being surrounded by your colleagues. If you’re an extrovert, this can be even more confusing as working remotely from home can deny you the chance to socialize with your colleagues.

So, to avoid feeling bored, you need to stay in touch with your colleagues by staying connected. You can do this by downloading various video chat apps such as Google Meet, Skype, Zoom, Google Hangouts, Microsoft Teams, and Google Duo among others.

With such apps, you can create a strong remote culture that can help you interact and socialize with your colleagues while working from home. You can conduct video conferencing at least an hour each day to discuss matters related to the company.

7. Start and End the Day With a Routine

According to Greg Anderson, “Wellness is the complete integration of body, mind, and spirit.” If you happen to start and end your day with a routine, there are higher chances of being productive at work than someone who just starts and ends the day without any routine.

There are many ways you can do this. One, you can decide to have a good and sound sleep that lasts for around 6 hours. You can also decide to have a cup of hot coffee in the morning to freshen up your day. However, if you’re not a fan of any of these two alternatives, then you can switch to our third option which is yoga and meditation.

Yoga and meditation have several therapeutic effects such as reducing stress, strengthening focus, and improving self-awareness. To do this, you need to wake up an hour earlier, take a shower, take a cup of hot coffee, fold your legs on a mat, sit upright with your backbone straight, close your eyes and meditate for around 10 minutes.

8. Eat and Sleep

The best thing about working from home is that you have unlimited access to your kitchen, bedroom, and everything around you. This slight advantage sometimes tempts people to develop unhealthy eating habits. Instead of eating healthy foods, most people end up taking the wrong diet leading to obesity.

When it comes to sleep time, you need to develop a proper sleeping schedule that will allow you to sleep for at least 6 hours. If you’re a fan of movies and TV shows, then you can schedule that for the weekend to create enough time to sleep.

To keep your energy levels high, you need to eat foods rich in iron, protein, and complex carbohydrates. You also need to eat fruits, nuts, juice and a lot of water. If you have a tight working schedule, then you can try taking some short naps during the day to compensate for the odd hours you’ll be working in the middle of the night.

9. Take a Walk

When you’re working in an office, it’s easy to break the monotony by taking tea breaks, lunch breaks, and chatting with your colleagues during office hours. This is quite different when you’re working all alone at home.

Since your goal is to accomplish a lot within a very short time, taking a walk can be quite difficult, especially if you’re an introvert. So, to boost your energy and improve blood circulation, you need to take a walk at least once a day after your working hours.

You can decide to visit a friend, take a walk across the streets, or walk up and down the apartment stairs for around 10 minutes.

10. Have Quality Technology

Working from home has its own fine share of pros and cons. In most cases, a poor internet connection and an outdated system can make the ultimate difference between a successful and a struggling work from home experience.

To avoid struggling when working, you need to install a fast and affordable WIFI network that will allow you to interact with your colleagues effortlessly during video meetings. You also need an updated working system that’s fast enough to keep the job done.

To make things super easy, you can try adding more devices into your home office such as a Smartphone, tablet, laptop, and desktop. At least with these tools, you can conduct chatting, videoconferencing, and whiteboarding assignments with less ease.

Conclusion

As you can see, working from home offers a lot of flexibility, liberty, and a whole lot of opportunities. However, many setbacks are involved. One of them is regular disruptions from friends and family members while the other is feeling bored, especially if you’re not used to this new culture.

Thankfully, this guide has discussed 10 ways to work from home effectively. These tips will help you boost your energy levels and stay productive throughout a busy working day. So, with that said, in case you need to motivate us with your thoughts or maybe you need to share something, please don’t hesitate to do so in the comments section below.