Working from home tips: from two 'professionals'.
Ok, so that Easter break was very welcome hey! But doesn’t Thursday feel like a very long time ago?! Time to get yourself back in the swing of things. We’re all getting quite used to working from home now, the novelty has worn off and maybe you’re veeeeery tempted just to keep those pjs on until midday. Don’t! Don’t get yourself into those habits. We’ve been there, we both regularly work from home (Stephanie is full time and Nicole is part time) and it is so easy to get stuck in an unproductive trap, so let us help you give our tips on how to stay the most productive whilst at home.
Plan what you’re going to do.
This might seem simple and obvious, but you’ll be amazed at the amount of people that just get up and try to tackle the day with their to do list in their head. If you try and do it this way you’ll get distracted, won’t be focused and won’t have the same feeling of achievement at the end of the day.
On Friday afternoon or Monday morning write down everything that you need to do, everything that is in your head (we like to categorize ours: To Email: Invoices: Admin: ETC) and then write out all of the days of the week and assign the tasks to each day. This method stops you feeling overwhelmed and tackling everything on Monday morning. When something new pops up that you need to tackle, look at your week and add it to one of the days instead of dropping everything you’re currently doing.
Only give yourself 3 main tasks.
Following on from the point above, try to only give yourself 3 ‘have to do’ tasks for the day, everything else you write on your daily list will just be a bonus. Even if your currently not working its so easy to get overwhelmed with, ‘emptying every cupboard in the kitchen, learning to play the piano, mastering yoga and repainting the hall’ Just aim for 3 do-able tasks, 3 things that if you achieve you will feel that you’ve accomplished something today. This might just be ‘get up, get showered and get dressed’. It doesn’t matter what it is as long as it holds you accountable and makes you feel like you’ve achieved something.
Give yourself timelines.
It is very easy when working from home to look down at your watch and realise you’ve been sat at your desk for 7 hours straight slogging away at the same piece of work. Short, sharp bursts of work are usually much more productive than hours and hours. So set an alarm on your phone for 1 hour to see how much you can get done in that time, after the hour is up you have to get up and move for 5 minutes, go make a cup of tea walk in the garden or give yourself a social media treat.
If you feel setting an alarm won’t keep you accountable enough, one app that we love is Forest. It’s essentially a timer that stops you looking at your phone. You plant a virtual tree for a set amount of time (we usually pick 30 mins or 1 hour) and if you unlock your phone before the timer is up your tree will die. Succeed and your tree will be added to your other trees and a forest will start to appear.
Wear something comfortable, but do get showered and dressed.
Yes, the luxury of working from home is that you don’t have to necessarily put on ‘work’ clothes. But whatever you choose to wear it is so important to get up, get showered and get dressed. If you stay in your pjs then you’ll keep that same sleepy mindset with you all day. Enjoy being able to wear leggings to work, but make sure it’s actually helping you, not hindering.
Ok, so those are our best tips, it’s quite a beefy blog post, but we’re really hoping it’s going to help. Whether you’re working or not it is always great to have a structure to your day. If you have any more tips do let us know over on our instagram.
Imagery from Charlotte & Tazz’s Eggington House Wedding.