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Last Updated on January 20, 2024 by Work In My Pajamas
An increasing number of people are opting for working from home. The travel, the time spent at office and the conference calls take a toll on your life. Finally, there comes a day when you find that you no longer feel like travelling to work. But, you can’t quit working either. So, you decide to exchange your cubicle for a home office. Smart thinking! But, this shouldn’t let you become lazy and you start missing deadlines.
While the benefits of working from home are many, like spending more time with your family, there are many pitfalls too. You get more caught in your home life, putting work on the back burner. If you seriously mean to work from home, then follow the tips given below to enhance your productivity –
Respect Your Time – When you are travelling to work from an office outside your home, you have a schedule to which you adhere. You work for specific hours and have a short break in-between. Working from home should not change your schedule. Respect your time, even though, it is now your own. You are your own boss but you still have work to do and a deadline to meet.
Have Deadlines – Even if your client does not give you a deadline for some work, it is necessary that you impose deadlines on tasks so that you don’t spend more time than necessary doing it. Procrastinating with a work will be wasting your own precious time. The deadline can be 15 minutes, 1 hour, 8 hours or 1 day, as long as you think is necessary to do the work. If you are unable to concentrate on the work at the time, then move on to another task and come back to it when you feel refreshed. Setting deadlines will increase productivity.
Turn Off Digital Distractions – Digital distractions, like your phone, email, social networking sites and messenger should be for times when you take a break. When you are working, disconnect the Internet and switch off the phone unless you need them for your work. If you need Internet for your work, then make use of Internet utilities to curb surf time on social sites. I used to spend 2-3 hours every day in playing games on CookingGames.net before I realized how much it affects my productivity.
Have a Separate Workspace – Have an uncluttered separate office when you are working from home. This will keep your personal and professional life separate. So, while you are spending more time with your family and children, you are also working from your home office. Have a table, an ergonomic chair and all the other necessities you need for your work. Make sure that your workspace is uncluttered and out of bounds for your children.
Audit Your Work Time – Sometimes the whole day flies by and you find that you have been unable to finish a lot of tasks. Conducting a time audit will tell you how you have spent your time. Even though you are self-employed, time management is essential if you are to succeed in your work.
Apart from these, you can also create task lists according to their priority. Take breaks so that you are refreshed and not too tired to continue working.
Thanks for this motivation! Yeah, distraction is one of the reasons why people become less productive at work. Although, for me, you can put your phone next to you in case of emergency but it doesn’t mean you always have to answer all phone calls. So take your work seriously and get some project management tools that will help you cut your bad habits and turn them into a productive one. By the way, you really did a great job on this article. Thanks a lot!