Girl Boss Boutique
People often say you shouldn’t bring your work home, but when you are a work from home business owner, that’s just what you’ve got to do.
Working from the comfort of your home, there are so many ways to be more productive, and so many more things to distract us from work.
Running a business from home is an admirable feat; achieving the kind of organization and work environment you often find only in offices is no easy task.
If you’re a stay at home mom doing this on the side, the effort it takes is unimaginable.
The key to successfully working from home is to strike a delicate balance between home and work.
Here are some work from home tips you could use to keep your workflow smooth and more productive:
1. Time tracking
It’s a good idea to keep track of where all your time goes.
Sometimes, when we engage in certain activities, we lose the sense of how quickly time passes.
This is especially true when we sit scrolling through our phones.
Using an app like Toggl which tracks our time will help us know where we waste time unnecessarily and change our habits accordingly.
2. Sacred workspace
Although you work from home, it isn’t enough if you simply sprawl your laptop on your bed and work.
You should have a scared workspace dedicated to working only.
If you can spare yourself a room for it, that would be awesome.
Otherwise, a simple corner or desk would be enough.
Try to keep it away from the things that normally distract you.
And use it only for work. If you get bored of just one space, you can even vary it a little bit, adding two or three places in your house that’s only for work.
This way you won’t suffer from the monotony of working from one place alone.
3. Find out your productivity peaks
When you work in your office, you have people around you who are working, and constant reminders of all the work you need to do.
However, that’s not the case when you work from home.
You tend to be more productive for some hours than others.
You need to find those times of productivity peaks and schedule your work accordingly.
You would want to do the hardest parts at this time, and leave the easier parts for later.
4. Work according to routine
One way of standardizing the work you do from home is to work according to a set routine, just like what you would have at an office.
Set a routine with exact times to start and work each day specific times for breaks and intervals.
Once you develop habits, you’ll see your productivity surge in no time.
5. Dress for work
If you’re thinking you can work from home in your pajamas, that’s a bad idea.
Just like having a workspace, it’s better if you change into practical, working clothes.
Working in your PJs will only tempt you to go and take a nap every now and then.
You don’t have to dress fully, complete with make-up and accessories (unless you want to, that is).
Just wear practical work clothes.
6. Talk to people too
It’s easy to get lonely when you work alone from home.
Sometimes you have to take a break and get out and talk to people.
If you are more of an extrovert, you will feel this urge more than anyone else.
Call a colleague once in a while, even talking to your neighbor will do the trick.
Do make it a point to get some human contact.
7. A change of scene
Doing your work in the same spot day after day is bound to make you bored.
It’s okay to go out once in a while.
Take your laptop to a coffee shop, or even your local park.
A change of environment will actually help you quicken things up a bit.
Working outdoors, in a park, or even on a bench on the sidewalk is a very refreshing change for me, and sometimes I tend to work at double my normal speed.
8. Non-work-related things are also okay!
Now that you’re fully responsible for your time, you don’t have to spend all your time doing work only.
You should make time for your interests outside of your job.
You should spend as much time as you would spend on these things if you were an office-going employee.
Only then would you be able to strike that balance between work and the rest of your life.
When you become a work from home business owner, you let your work infiltrate certain personal, physical spaces of your life where you wouldn’t work otherwise.
The best part of this is that you can work at a level of flexibility that can’t be reached in offices.
At the same time, there are many things in the environment that can cause our productivity to plunge.
All you have to do is to fight such tendencies and develop a healthy work habit, and you’re good to go!
