Stay Motivated Working From Home
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused millions of people to work from home. Most of us have been experiencing the challenge of home office for the first time. How to make the best out of working remotely? How to keep your productivity up and stay motivated? Find out below the 15 tips to stay motivated working from home.
Our Tips How to Stay Motivated Working From Home
1. Make yourself a dedicated working zone
When you work from home in the place where you are most comfortable, it is likely that you will not pay much attention to set up office area. Without knowing it, you find yourself sitting on a favorite sofa or even lay down – working from your cozy bed. Well, this is not a good idea.
Your brain loves when you have a clear separation between working space and home space. Therefore, getting a home office can be a small challenge. A key point is a physical transition between work and life.
It can be a corner in your room where you can get enough natural lights. A little bit of decoration such as awards, certificates, or inspirational quotes can create a work environment and keep you motivated. Also, locating work supplies and tools – like a printer or video conferencing equipment – where it is easiest to access. This way you will get a productive working space at home.
2. Preparing concentration and productivity playlists
There are two types of people in the world. Let’s say people who are able to focus while listening to music and those who cannot. If you fall under the second, make your work area as quiet as possible.
On the contrary, a group of people whose low-background noise helps you focus, there are plenty of playlists for you. Open your preferred online music streaming platforms – Spotify, Google Music, Youtube, and the list goes on.
Then you can try searching for keywords like ‘working playlist’, ‘focus music’, or ‘productivity music’. Some people find natural sounds and classical music a good option as well.
3. Getting Dressed Up For Work
Working from home, especially in your bedroom, does not equal wearing pajamas all day. Besides, dressing up in your normal office wear is a good way to help you mentally prepare for work.
At the same time, you still get the pros of working from home by wearing more comfortable and cozy than your actual professional uniform. There is an option that you can mix your home comfy and a business piece together.
Somebody will choose to wear an office top and sweatpants. This way they will smoothly join a video meeting with their colleagues worry-free about changing their clothes.
4. Wake up early
Being an early riser is a golden rule to stay motivated during this WFH period. It helps you keep up with your morning routines. A good thing about working remotely from the office is no more spending an hour on the road to get to work.
So, this work-from-home ‘early’ does not mean the same extreme ‘early’. In order to make it a routine, the rule is to set up your alarm the same waking up time from Monday to Friday.
Additionally, you will have enough time to do more things in the morning, for example, some household chores, taking a morning shower, and exercise. Apart from spending time efficiently, these activities also help you get ready to start your working day.
5. Know Your Distraction And Avoid Them
That five minutes on the phone is super tempting and it turns out to be fifteen or half an hour eventually. If you really want to check on your favorite sports team or glance on Youtube, do it on your break times instead.
Checking an email can be a distraction too, even though it is part of your work. Overreading and responding emails lead to the opposite of productive working.
A suggestion is to schedule email checking times. It can be the first task before work starts, after the morning break, again after the afternoon break or at the end of the day.
6. Get Yourself Digital Assistant(s)
Being a digital citizen, there are tons of software and applications to ease your tasks. You might find the right one that helps you manage your project and keep you organized.
During this work-from-home opportunity, the list below is the top application that remote workers recommended.
Project management tools
- Trello
- ProofHub
- monday.com
- Workfront
Team communication
- Slack
- Skype
- Zoom
Collaboration and file storage
- Google Drive
- Dropbox
- Microsoft Teams
- Confluence
Together with
- Spark – a personal assistant that helps you manage and prioritize emails.
- Skitch – brainstorm helper that allows you to manage your thoughts using annotation, shapes, and sketches.
7. Get off social media
You often find yourself checking on your Facebook profile, scrolling down Twitter feeds, or keep searching on Pinterest? There is no way you are going to get your work done.
More than that, it is hard to concentrate on your tasks again when you get cut by using social media while working. To get off social media, you can use a distraction blocker that prevents you from opening apps or websites, for example, Freedom, LeechBlock, and Mindful Browsing.
Besides, think about locating your phone where it is inconvenient to grab. Just make it hard to mess around on social media so that you can buckle down on your work.
8. Reward Yourself
When the days are tough and you know you have been burning the candle at both ends to get the work done. There is no guilt in treating yourself. After working for three consecutive hours, get yourself a cup of coffee, the best one from your trusted cafe.
Or also when finishing a big project, you can spend some time watching a 30-minutes show or an episode of a TV series or playing Animal Crossing on Nintendo Switch. By doing this, you will be able to combine a reward, relieving stress from work, and getting a break together at a time.
9. Get Outside For a Quick Walk
Work from home does not equal staying inside for 24 hours, 7 days a week. Get a chance to go outside for a quick walk. Your weary body will tell you when you need it. A quick activity outside allows you to stretch your tired back.
A change of scenery is also good for your eyes after four or five hours staring at the screen. Not to mention that exposure to sunlight is associated with the release of serotonin hormone that helps you feel calm and focused.
10. Get Some Exercise
Play around your house, try some new and fun home work out. It does happen sometimes when you are stuck with the same task. Writing and deleting repeatedly, go back and forth again and again because everything does not make sense.
Getting much worse to the point that your creativity does not exist anymore. This is the time for a little bit of movement! Thanks to the kind-hearted trainers out there because these days we can find tons of home workout videos on Youtube. Go ahead home workers and get ready to boost some energy and keep your productivity flowing!
11. Human Interaction is important
There are no coworkers sitting next to you when you are working at home. When the dynamic environment of a workplace suddenly shuts off, we cannot help but feel slightly isolated working alone. That also means as social animals, you lack human interaction days by days. First, it directly has an effect on your mental health.
To be able to cope with stress and major life changes, we need social contact. For that reason, next meeting with your colleagues apart from work stuff you might ask them about their well-being. Or sending your friends some funny memes is also a good idea that you can relax together.
12. Structure your day
Being your own manager at home and working during this most flexible environment requires extra self-discipline. In fact, your working hours should be more clear than before. Besides, the working from home schedule can be the same as your office hours, plus, this will be beneficial when you switch back to your office later.
To stay on track, countless schedule or reminder tools will come in handy. When having an actual schedule and knowing what has to be done, you will be more focused then finish and start new tasks easier.
13. Schedule Breaks Properly
Give yourself proper break times during the day. There is one interesting way to schedule breaks called Pomodoro Technique. The technique uses a timer to break down work into intervals. Basically, you will work 25 minutes straight and take a 5-minutes short break. After 4 short breaks, it is going to be a longer break of 15–30 minutes.
This time-management method was developed by Francesco Cirillo, which “Pomodoro” was named after the tomato-shaped timer used mostly in the kitchen. Regular breaks not only let you relax physically but also help improve your attention span and concentration which has positive impacts on your productivity and creativity.
14. Cooperate with people in the house
If you live alone, it is fine. But having others to share a house with, let them know you are working. It can be quite a challenge at first but this is a D-Day for setting specific ground rules. Creating clear dos and don’ts list for your kids when they are home.
Get a sign of no disturbance stick at the door when you are having a meeting with your colleagues. Along with these, you might have to communicate with everyone in a family that because of you at home, it does not mean you can take care of your pet or flash out for some cleaning.
15. Before bed, plan ahead
Before going to bed, plan your tasks and what you will do in advance. You can start by collecting a list of all your tasks and put it in order of its priority, especially any work that will have bad consequences if you are not hitting a deadline in time.
If all of them carry the same priority, plan to do the most difficult one first. Based on a bestseller book ‘Eat that frog!’ by Brian Tracy, if you can finish the most unwanted work in the Morning, it gives you great energy throughout the day because you get the feeling you’ve accomplished something worthwhile.
All in all, when we talk about working, the ability to get work done meeting its deadlines and under the highest standard seems to be very crucial. But apart from that, you have to keep in mind to maintain a healthy work-life balance. Who said you cannot be both successful in your career and your personal life? Today, after the home office is closed, treat yourself and come back tomorrow – fresh and healthy!
