In the wake of COVID-19, many of us have been working from home. However, although it might have seemed like a dream-come-true in the beginning, it has been slowly and gradually becoming a nightmare. Many of us are losing structure and working hours are mingling with daily life.
There are several ways in which you can tackle this challenge. Here are some tips that can help you stay focused and organised while working from home.
Create a productive schedule/routine
A great way to keep yourself organised and focused while working from home is by creating a productive schedule or routine. You can do so by deciding the work hours.
Do note that your work-from-home timings don’t have to be absolutely strict. You can create a feasible schedule for yourself. Simply defining a time limit to your working hours and following it can improve your focus, organisation, and overall capacity to get things done.
If you’re a freelancer then you’ll have even more flexibility with your schedule as some people are more productive early in the morning, while others at night. It’s up to you to decide which time works for you and schedule the rest of your day around it.
However, if you work in the corporate hierarchy and are only temporarily working from home, then you need to work with the hours that have been already set for you. This may be challenging, but not un-doable.
Here are some great tips to create a productive schedule:
- You need to wake up at the same time every day so that you don’t mess up with your sleep cycle or work schedule.
- It’s better if you don’t check your email until the workday begins.
- You need to map out your entire day, and the best way to do that is by getting yourself a planner. This way, you’ll easily know where you left off previously and which tasks have already been completed before you begin again, and what needs to be done later.
Reward yourself
Keeping yourself motivated while working from home plays a huge role in your productivity. The best way to keep a seamless focus is by creating a reward system for yourself. So, for example, when you complete a complicated task, you can celebrate the small success by giving yourself a little treat. This technique can be further developed when you create a to-do list for yourself.
A de-cluttered office space
Styles like minimalism and Japandi have become popular for a reason. Their distinct lack of clutter tends to make the user’s mind feel more free and organised. A similar philosophy also applies to home offices and how they impact our working situation. If the space is cluttered, you will automatically feel lethargic, averse to work, and your focus will fly out the window.
So, we can say that for most people, a clean office results in a more organised mind as well. Space itself will propel you to focus because there will be zero distractions. So keep your desk tidy, the walls bare, and the furniture as minimal as possible. In case you have a small home office that’s full to brimming, you can always move the stuff that you don’t need to storage units until you’re back in a professional working environment again.
Limit the desire for social media
One of the biggest distractions, when you’re working from home, is the urge to just jump on your social media! You might think that you’ll just check it for a minute, for before you know it, you’re just sucked into the endless rabbit hole and an hour passes by.
This is why you must put all your social media notifications on silent if you really want to focus on your work. This way, your phone will have less of an impact on your overall attention span. The idea is to make your work tasks the nucleus of focus, so it would be good if you could disable your desktop social media notifications as well.
Fight the procrastination
The one thing that always bogs us down and takes away our precious focus is procrastination. It usually hits when you’re only just starting to build your focus and typically comes in the form of annoying reminders, cleaning up, getting a text message or a call from a family member.
Here are some tips that can help you tackle this problem:
- Task uncertainty is one of the reasons why many people procrastinate so clearly defining your work goals and eradicating any confusion can help you get focused again.
- Getting rid of distractions around your ‘’home office’’ is also helpful in fighting off procrastination.
- If unwanted calls and text messages are keeping you from your work, then you can start screening them. Assign different ringtones to family and work contacts in your list, so that you know which ones to ignore when working from home.
- Other than that, you can busy yourself with office-tasks when the urge to do household tasks becomes un-repressible.
- You can also listen to calming music to anchor yourself to the moment.
So these were some handy ways in which you can elevate your focus and organisation while working from home. Hopefully, with a little bit of patience and practice, you will manage to create a productive and creativity-sparking working space.
