Are you working from home because of the COVID-19 outbreak and wondering how to stay productive? The California Governor’s Executive Order N-33-20 “is ordering all individuals living in the State of California to stay home or at their place of residence, except as needed to maintain continuity of operation of the federal critical infrastructure sectors.” For more information, https://covid19.ca.gov/stay-home-except-for-essential-needs/
What does that mean? Can you go out for a walk? Yes! Walk the dog and get fresh air. In fact, taking a walk is a great break from staring at your computer screen or making conference calls if you are one of many Americans who have now found themselves working remotely from home.
10 Best Tips for Staying Productive While Working From Home
Here are the 10 best tips for how to stay productive and check off your to-do lists while working from home:
1. Create a schedule –
Even if your supervisor said that “as long as you get the work done, log in whenever” the best way to manage your workload is to create a schedule. If you want to do something mid-day, then work 7am -12pm, then 4-6pm.
Try as much as possible to separate your work time from personal time so that you feel comfortable stepping away from your laptop at the end of the day because you know you’ve put in a full day’s worth of work.
2. Get ready –
Yes, although it is tempting to be in PJs all day, taking a shower, getting dressed, and cleaning yourself up helps boost your mood. It also makes it easier to do #4.
3. Choose a spot –
Whether it is the corner of your living room, the end of the kitchen table, or you are lucky enough to have a separate room as your office, choose a physical location as your “office”. If you are working from home laying in bed, then your bedroom becomes a place of work and not sleep.
4. Talk over the phone or video chat –
It is easier to misinterpret an email which doesn’t convey tone or facial expressions, than it is to misinterpret an in-person meeting. While social distancing is requiring us to avoid in-person meetings, we can still do video conferences and phone calls.
Google Meet, Zoom, and other video apps help make your workplace can keep you and your team connected.
5. Friendly Emails –
This is the time to sprinkle in an extra “please” and “thank you!” You don’t know what the person on the other side of the email is going through right now and a little extra compassion can help make something more impersonal feel less cold and austere.
6. Take breaks –
Eat lunch away from your laptop and take a quick 10 minute walk for fresh air at 3pm when you used to chat with your coworker in between projects. Once you get into a groove with no interruptions you might want to crank through several hours without getting up, but working from home is a marathon not a sprint.
7. Shut your computer –
Shut your computer down during your lunch break and once the day is over. The separation between your work life and home life can be hard to maintain, but a boundary like shutting your computer down means that after work (even if you are still in the same room as where you were working that day) you feel free to engage with your family, housemates, or go on the rest of your evening not preoccupied with the next Slack notification or email.
8. Ignore the house –
You are working from home, not doing house work. During work houses, allow the laundry to pile up, dishwasher to not be unloaded, and trash to not get taken out. You waited until after work to do that before, so in-between emails is not a good time to start cleaning out your closet.
9. Pump up your playlist –
Pick a motivating playlist and listen on Spotify, Apple Music, or Pandora. This is definitely a perk of working from home because you are the office DJ!
10. Ask clarifying questions –
Are you not sure about what Karen’s email means? What about an ambiguous project outline? Ask clarifying questions! It is easy to forget that working side-by-side with someone you might ask more questions than you think. Send a chat or make a phone call if you are not clear on the exact details!
What are your best #WFH tips for the working from home crowd? If you are staying inside this spring because of coronavirus, then we hope you still can have a productive work day!
