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How to Increase Productivity While Working from Home
- Schedule Breaks: Working remotely from home could be more challenging for some professions than others. Maybe you get lots of calls, deadlines, meetings, and tasks, but taking care of your health is also imperative. You can do this by planning regular breaks and define a schedule, including lunchtime and more. Else, you will feel tired and won’t be able to work efficiently. Also, consider recharging yourself with small meals, snacks, quick walks, and other activities. If possible, create a workplace at your home and follow the same work schedule that you follow in the office.
- Minimise Distractions and Set Limits Online: Computers and the Internet are the basic resources used in most of the work from home process. And, if your work involves the use of the Internet, you know that there are lots of distractions online. You may fall to those captivating Facebook posts, Instagram images, or any other social media distraction. Thus, before beginning your work, check out all the notifications and distractions and break them. Then close all the websites not related to your work until you finish for the day. For instance, if you are keeping Facebook, Instagram, or any other site open during your work hours, you can fall to the distraction quite easily.
- Avoid Unnecessary Delays: Make a note of your entire task list and plan to work on it and finish on time. Do make sure that you complete everything on the list without putting any delays thinking that you can work later. Once you form a habit, you will get used to pushing things to the next available work schedule. Any emergency on a later date can cause unavoidable delays, and not working regularly can cause serious problems. Thus, it is advised to do your work on time, similar to how you would be performing in your office!
- Download Apps That Block Out Internet Distractions: While social media sites aren’t the only distraction over the web world, ads can also interrupt your workflow. To your benefit, there are numerous ad blockers and other tools available that you can use to block out distractions. There are many ad blockers available online. You can also use apps and tools like Freedom, Offtime, and Moment or Chrome extensions like Work Mode to disable access to social media. With this, you can even control your urge to check certain sites again and again, especially when you feel bored.
PROs of Working from Home
No Commute
The only travel you need to do during this mode is to and from your workstation or work desk at home. There is no need to travel through the crowded city or in trains and buses to reach your workplace. Even if you are riding your vehicle, you don’t get stuck into the annoying road congestion as well. Those traffic jams and unwanted delays are a common source of frustration, stress, and tiredness among people. And, daily commuters face such situations twice a day, during the mornings and evenings.
Working from home is a great way to avoid all such commuting hassles. Besides, it also saves a lot on your money and time, alongside reducing the level of regular stress. You feel more relaxed and energetic in the morning and can work more productively from home.
Save Time
This one’s a great benefit for those who spend lots of time in the morning to get ready for work. Working from home saves this lot of time. Further, no need to commute from one place to another saves considerable time as well. On a general note, when you choose to work in pyjamas at home without traveling to the office, you can save around 1-2 hours daily.
And now, when you have some extra time, you can utilise it to do other productive things. You can either take a longer nap, enjoy a healthy breakfast, or take a walk around that improves physical and mental health. Apart, you can also choose to take some extra work during that saved time to earn more, learn more, or fulfill other work- or family-related responsibilities.
Greater Flexibility
Whether you are a business owner or a freelancer, working from home is a great option. You can work whenever you feel more productive. While some feel more work-oriented in the daytime, others are late-night workers. Thus, you can choose to work as per your flexibility as long as it doesn’t hamper your deliveries and responsibilities.
Another flexibility comes in the form of your attire. You can choose to wear the most comfortable outfit. And, you will only need to dress up like for your office when participating in a video conference or a video meeting with others. Thus, make a schedule that is suitable for you, take a lunch break of three hours, or do all the work at night. Moreover, you are also available 24x7 to fulfill your responsibilities towards your household chores.
More Productivity
Introverts, here’s one of the work from home pros that you will love. If social interactions aren’t your piece of the cake, you might be looking for a secluded environment to work. And, your private cabin at home gives you just the right place where your colleagues and their chit-chats aren’t present.
With this, you gain the benefit of fewer distractions and better focused, ultimately turning you into more productive at work. Lower stress due to no daily commuting also adds to extra productive hours every day.
Better Work-Life Balance
As professional responsibilities grow, struggle to find the right work-family balance also increases. Working from home allows you to achieve the desired outcome with easy maintenance. As a remote worker, you get enough time to spend with your family, do household chores, and complete all your work-related responsibilities.
CONS of Working from Home
While you may be willing to go remote after reading those pros, do take note of below-given work from home cons as well. This will help you produce better results at work with the right decision.
No Human Interaction
Though introverts see this as a benefit, others have to face the negative side of this. This could seem more troubling when you need to attend multiple phone calls and meetings through the Internet. Many people also start feeling lonely and isolated most of the time while working from home, particularly those who love to socialise. You start missing those lunch, and short coffee breaks taken together. Thus, staying home and working alone is easier for some, while others get frustrated and irritated due to the lack of social interactions.
Hard to Switch Off
You work, take rest, and do many more things when working remotely from home. And, in such a case, it becomes difficult to separate your business from private life at times. Independent from the office routine, many people start working early and stay on the desk till late. And then the entire life keeps revolving only around the workstation. If you love your job, this won’t feel like a disadvantage initially, but later, you end up like a burned-out workaholic. It’s also difficult to switch off, and you always overwork while operating from home.
Unhealthy Lifestyle
Working from home can affect your health negatively. An office decorum comprises of the proper furniture for seating employees that helps keep the posture right. While working from home, you might not have the right setup and spend days lying on a couch. While this feels comfortable, it may cause dangerous results like back pain. And, sitting at a single place while working from home severely affects the entire body as well. This is one of the serious work from home cons that can be avoided by investing in the right setup and following healthy habits.
Too Many Distractions
Though you may be able to avoid web-based distractions with a tool, there are many others for home-based workers. It may include your roommates, family members, and neighbors. When you hold the responsibility of certain tasks at home, those come in as distractions when you are staying at the place all day. Apart from your tasks, your family might ask you for assistance adding other potential distractions. For instance, you may be asked to do laundry work, clean corners, or other places and go shopping, among others.
Family members watching their favourite serials or movies on TV while you are working is another one on the list. To avoid this, you need to focus on your work and create a discipline to do things the right way. In addition to apps/tools for internet distractions, you need to create a dedicated workspace at home to avoid those coming in from family members.
Lack of Collaboration
Do you think collaborating with colleagues through video calls, emails, and other mediums is enough to work? This could be a perfect solution for your job profile, but the same doesn’t hold for all. At times, you can’t explain things via the Internet as effectively as you could do in person. Thus, the lack of personal communication options makes it difficult to collaborate at times. And, in case you are remotely managing a team of coworkers and members from home, you are surely missing on essential things they are discussing there.
Bonus Tips: How to Fight Isolation When Working from Home
- Think About How Much You Work (and Why): If you go on working all day, you might start feeling tired soon. And, this would also take a toll on your relationships with loved ones. This creates a space, to fill which, you take up more work. Another thing that compels people to take more work is the thought that they want to prove themselves equivalent to or better than on-site employees.
However, if you maintain a routine by defining a time table for work as well as personal life, you can do better. Start by evaluating how much work you are required to do and at what time you can do the same. Then, you can divide these number of hours into your daily schedule to ensure you make time for everything. - Communicate Using Video Conferencing Tools and Phone Calls: Text communications work quite well only for sharing updates and follow-ups. However, for an insightful discussion, you need to have 2-way communication. A phone call offers this facility, and if you need to have some visual interaction, a video call is just the right thing. You can put video conferencing tools available easily over the web to ensure a healthy and effective communication.
- Prioritize Your Health and Happiness: As already stated, working from home can negatively impact your mental and physical health. Though this makes you less productive, more anxious, and less flexible, you can turn things around with a healthy schedule. Discover things that give you happiness, make time for hobbies, and share enough time with loved ones. While this helps maintain mental health, choosing the right posture, diet, and routine ensures physical health.
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You Can Even Try a Change of Scenery!
Staying in one place doing the same thing goes boring and instills a sense of isolation. To tackle this, you should take breaks, go for short strolls, and, if possible, change rooms or work environments regularly. These are not mandatory but can make your life easier. We're all together in this pandemic, it is our request to all of you to stay indoors and help keep yourself and your loved ones safe from the deadly coronavirus!