Working from home is becoming increasingly popular in many professional fields. While this is amazing from employees, it can sometimes become difficult to remain productive in the isolating home setting. Chloe has come up with some amazing tips to stay productive and work from home.
One of the most impactful changes that have arisen with the dawn and flourishing of the internet age is that connectivity is leagues above where it has been historically. The effects of this are wide-ranging and diverse, transforming industries and day to day life all across the globe. One of the most affected areas is the average work culture.
It is frequently not in the interest of an employer to have an employee in the office when what they do can be easily achieved from within the comfort of their home. Similarly, if employees need to take business trips or even personal trips, work can still be completed quickly and effectively.
Statistics show that 10% of the American workforce work from home, with that figure looking set to continue to rise as more and more tasks, require a computer, a smartphone, and an internet connection.
One issue which does arise when working remotely, freelance or not, is that working from home presents its own set of challenges. As lovely as it is to work in your pajamas on your bed, it can be isolating and can suck productivity to the point where you can get to the end of the day and not name one thing you’ve achieved. So, with that said, let’s take a look at how you can keep your productivity levels high when working from home.
Work With Someone
Working with someone seems a strange piece of advice to come first on the list when talking about working from home, but there are some real benefits. Given how popular freelance work is, it’s more than likely that you will know someone who is working freelance as well as you. If you’re good enough friends, then you can develop a sort of informal office atmosphere.
In this atmosphere, they come over to your place every day for a few hours, and you work together, holding each other a bit accountable for your work schedule. The only thing to remember is that you probably don’t want to be too close with whoever it is, since, if it is your best friend, then there is a good chance that you’ll distract one another with a conversation. But, done right, this can maintain the informal atmosphere while creating a pseudo-office out of your home.
Build A Working Area
Another way to create an office-like world for you to work in relates to space. Working from bed is usually a pretty good recipe for drifting off for a delightful afternoon nap, not a formula for conquering objectives and leaving the day satisfied at your work. A quality working space will usually involve a desk, a comfy, ergonomic chair, a source of natural light and some bright lamps, a clean space, charger ports for a laptop and close enough to the kitchen and toilet that you don’t have to break your mood any time you need either.
The advantage of creating a workspace is manifold. On the one hand, it allows you to formalize your work in a way that will make you feel satisfied. Working from home can sometimes make people feel like what they do isn’t really work because it isn’t in an office. It will help you stay organized because all of your work things will be in one place not spread around the house.
Finally, it will help delineate between work time and free time. Working from home can breed an unhealthy lack of boundaries where work can either be non-existent or entirely consuming, taking every waking minute and destroying your private life. Both are bad for productivity in the long run. Having space where, when you are in it, you know it is work time really helps solidify your work-life balance.
Make A Schedule
This seems an obvious one but it’s certainly worth saying. There’s no need to block out a 9-5 slot with 45 minutes for lunch as if you’re in the office. You ought to experiment with the freedom that designing your own work schedule gives you. Are you most productive 4-7pm? Then start work at midday! Do you have 20-minute attention spans? Then do 40 minutes work every hour from 9 – 6. Figure out what works for you and what you’ll likely discover is that the traditional workplace ours are actually conducive to high inefficiency. You’ll be amazed at how much of your average 9-5 work can be achieved in a couple of super concentrated hours.
Make Sure To Communicate
Your productivity will very likely drop off if you aren’t communicating with people on the outside at least a little bit. The difficulty shows when everything you do you can complete from home, the practical reasons for meeting and talking with others disappear and that then kills the desire to meet with people. Isolation like that can be dangerous and can lead to depression as well as unrealistic standards for your volume and quality of work. Make sure you stay in touch with the outside world.
Conclusion
Working from home is a blessing and anyone locked into a dull office schedule Monday to Friday will be able to tell you that easily. The challenges it presents are actually very difficult but certainly not overwhelmingly so. Hopefully, this list will give you a good sense of what to look out for.
Meet the Author
Chloe Bennet is a productivity writer at Academic Writing Service and Assignment Help portals. She enjoys working from home and writing while on the road. Also, Chloe teaches proofreading techniques at Paper Fellows website.
