Article by Czarizel | 8 min read
“Work at the comfort of your home”
“Work at your own schedule”
“Remote work”
“No stressful commute"
This has been becoming a new normal and trendy nowadays, especially considering we are in a second or third wave of the global pandemic. Although it is true that having to work remotely has its advantages to you and your employer, we all know that there’s always two sides of the story. It means it also has its disadvantages, like lacking motivation or productivity, feeling burnout due to overworking, frequent small breaks that most of the time leads to long breaks for the reason that you work with no supervision, many distractions and the list goes on.
Some were forced to work from home while some are used to working remotely, e.g. freelancers. Most often than not, most people tend to work ineffectively from home. And if you are here, most probably you are having difficulties adjusting with your work from home routine, or you may want to know how you can work better.
Three important factors that you have to keep in mind: these are your environment, time and mind.
Now let’s talk about these three.
Environment
One of the reasons why it’s hard to be in “work mode” or you have a hard time extracting those “creative juices” or you simply feel tensed / stressed at your own home is because your mind is confused whether the environment it’s in is a working space or a relaxing space. And of course, there are also a lot of distractions that comes along with it.
Some could not afford to have a designated room as an office at home, but could always improvise or designate a corner in their house.
For instance, having a makeshift office, but we have to keep in mind that the work area we choose can also make or break our productivity. Please check our other article: 3 Tips for Creating a Home Workspace.
Now, in order to make an effectual workspace, you also have to define what we can consider as distractions surrounding your home.
There are two main distractions, the auditory and visual distractions.
Take a moment and look around you, what are the things catch your attention right away? What can you hear?
Most common visual distractions are the unnecessary things that shouldn’t be on your working area, like clutters, make-up, game console controllers and etc. So, sort it out. Sometimes little disorganized things we see in our peripheral vision distracts us mentally.
Too much light or sun light, can also be a distraction because it makes our eyes easily tired.
While for auditory distractions: this can be the sound of cars outside, people talking, or sometimes dogs barking etc., you can listen to relaxing music, or white noise to drown any distracting noises.
If you live with roommates, try to avoid a spot near the door, since we tend to get distracted every time someone comes in and out of that entry way.
Now, if you know what are the possible distractions in your environment, it can be easy to find the best spot devoid of visual and auditory distractions. Now you have a comfortable element in your working environment.
Time
Manage your hours. Know your priorities.
Easy to say but can be somewhat hard to practice. But once you have mastered the art of time managing you won’t have to stress that much, because most of the time we subconsciously stress about deadline or other things we have to do. The question is, how do we manage our time?
Now let’s talk about the Rocks, Pebbles, and Sand analogy for time management.
photo courtesy of indymoves.org
Rocks: Big, Very important tasks
Pebbles: Medium, Averagely important tasks
Sand: Small, less important tasks
As you can see, if you prioritize doing the less important things (sand and pebbles) you will not have room to do the important tasks (big rocks) you have to do.
After you have identified what are your rocks, pebbles and sand in life, start planning. You can start with daily or weekly steps, then progress extensively to monthly planning.
You can use time managing techniques like; Pomodoro Technique, Ultradian Rhythm, knowing your Einstein Window
Mind
Do you realize that most of the time you unconsciously interrupt yourself?
When new ideas pops in, do a mindsweep, write it down/type it in a notepad / piece of paper, or you can simply record it. This helps you clear your mind and you can just simply go back to it after you’re done with what you were currently doing.
Switching tasks most often prolongs the duration for a simple task to be done.
Have meaningful breaks.
Avoid burnout, take time to pause and step away for a quick break. Most often these breaks can help you think of new things and new ideas. Our mind and body needs rest in order to work efficiently.
These three factors that affect our efficiency when working from home, should give motivation to effectively work unsupervised and most likely alone in the comfort of our home.
“Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.” –Paul J. Meyer
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