5 Tips to Make Yourself More Productive When WFH
A little caveat before we get on with things! I realise this post is about tips on how you can make yourself more productive while working from home. BUT. If these are difficult times for you, and all you feel like you can do is just binge Netflix, without working out, without eating while paying attention to nutrition, and have just spaced out, it’s completely okay. It’s a pandemic at the end of the day, so do what you have to that can best help you cope with this difficult situation. If it feels like everyone around you is having productive Zoom calls, organising their work and personal life so well while baking chocolate chip cookies and banana bread (by the way, don’t you feel like everyone is baking either banana bread or chocolate chip cookies? I’ve not seen anything else other than these two on my Instagram), just tell yourself that maybe that’s how they cope best too. Don’t let it or what I’ve written in this post dictate how you should live your life!
When I went from working a proper 9-5 to working for myself, I thought I would be efficient. I thought I would meditate, do yoga, phase myself to working out twice a day and cook varied and nutritious meals all while being hyper-productive at work. All because I could finally tap into my own flow, and my productive hours without having to box myself into the conventional 9-5 hours. What a joke. Without any enforced system and only myself to be accountable towards, all my pre-existing routing, discipline and structure went out the window. It took me some time to find my way back, and find a routine/ structure that works best for me. And in the past two and a half years of working from home, this is what I’ve learned is important.
Don’t beat yourself up if you feel like you didn’t have that productive of a day.
There’s a HUGE shift between working from home and working in a space where everyone around you is working as well. You’re not interrupted by colleagues popping by to quickly check on something and you don’t have the buzz and activity of an office around you that makes you feel like you’re part of the ‘productive’ world. Without these constant interruptions that happen by just being in an office space, you might find yourself finishing your day earlier than the usual 9-5 hours. Or even though you consistently worked through your to-do list for the day, the fact that you sang some classic Britney Spears at the top of your lungs in loungewear and a top knot might not give you the impression that you had a productive day. When this is the case, remember to pause, take a breath and understand that as long as you have done what you need to for the day, it’s fine. It doesn’t matter how productive or unproductive you feel. Especially now. Because you’re not just working from home, you’re trying to work from home during a pandemic. Don’t make yourself skip meals and sleep just to feel like you’ve ABSOLUTELY done everything you can for today. You walked over to your fridge and stared at it for a good five minutes? That’s okay. When you’re in the office you probably wander over to the office pantry to “get some water” under the pretence of “taking a break” or “stretching your legs” anyway.
Set boundaries
I cannot stress this enough. Especially now, when everyone in the house is working from home, you probably can’t afford to lay claim over the dining table. If your situation means you have to confine yourself within the 4 by 4 space of your room, make clear boundaries and do your best not to overlap them – e.g., don’t work on your bed. See if you can makeshift a desk temporarily. If that doesn’t happen and you have to work on your bed, make your bed and then sit on it to work. Don’t tuck yourself into the comfort of your duvet. Or perhaps try working while facing one direction of the bed and the other when sleeping (i.e., sit where your feet would be when you sleep).
If you’re having lunch, you’re having lunch. You’re OOO. Whoever called you or sent you an email will have to wait. Don’t feel like you have to be available 24/7 just because you have high-speed internet or that having your phone or laptop so close to you precludes you from taking a break.
Don’t turn your home into your office
I.e., Don’t roll out of bed, shower and then get to work. And don’t end your day by hammering out one last email, switching off the lights and going to sleep. This is literally sacrilege. You are in your home. So, don’t morph it into your office space. You are saving all that commute time so use it to actually have your breakfast, scroll through Instagram, watch a show, or enjoy that cup of coffee without having to gulp it down because you didn’t have time for it at home in the morning. Give yourself some time to feel a little more human before you start the day. And once you have called it a day with work, spend some time with loved ones, or wind down while eating dinner. If you used to knock off at 5, keep it at 5. If you’re enjoying the luxury of working from home and starting the day later, then end it a little later. Whatever it is, have a specific time where you log off from work. Altogether.
Human touch
We all know that taking breaks helps you to be more productive. We have seen a million different articles about this, the Pomodoro technique, the block method, etc, etc, etc. So use breaks as an opportunity to join an Instalive workout session, talk to someone you’re in the same space with or send a voice note/ call/ FaceTime to your loved ones so that you don't feel like you're on no man's island. I suppose messaging would be fine but one of the aforementioned ways to contact people somehow just does a better job of making me feel less lonely than reading a wall of text. Human beings are social. We need that human contact whether we are introverted or extroverted.
Check your PMW
Posture, meals, water intake. Don’t give up on your clear, structured meals. When working from home, it’s easy to grab something because you don’t have time (refer to set boundaries). So, don’t give up on the meal-prepping habits you had before. Make sure you’re regularly drinking water and enough at that. One of the first mistakes I made when working from home is that I stopped having a water bottle on my desk. And with that, my water intake went out the window and I would only drink 300 – 500ml water in a day – somehow, the accessibility of it being right in the kitchen made it easier to dismiss it as “I can get it later” and just forget about it altogether. Stretch ever so often to help your posture regardless of whether you’re working from a traditional desk and chair situation.
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