10 things to make your Work From Home more productive
Adapting quickly to the new work style
Its April 2020 and the time is getting more difficult, the situation more grave as you read. Global pandemic in form of Corona Virus famously referred to as COVID-19 has impacted us in ways we never imagined. However, resilient as always, everyone is putting up a fight and is committed to handling the situation better. Companies and workplaces are not any different.
In order to ensure business continuity and avoid economic meltdown arising due to this global pandemic and recommended Quarantine directions from the government bodies, most of the companies are exploiting remote working style as the way forward. This has led many of us shift our work style from an office setup to working from home.
I am Pratik Hegde and I am a User Experience Designer working for a Healthcare IT Company. With my experience of working from home, I have collated 10 useful points to help you adapt to this new style of work.
That Perfect Workspace
Let us first address the biggest challenge; The Environment. Your professional and personal life is mixed; you are no more just working from home, but you also find yourself working for home. In order for you to be focussed more on work, it is very important that you find or create a workspace for yourself, preferably that separates you from rest of the home.
The Basic Setup
Find a place with sufficient space where you can lay out all essential things like your laptop, stationary, maybe a coffee mug etc. Ensure the place has bright lighting and enables a good sitting posture.
Good sitting posture means sitting erect, chair which helps rest your spine. If you can get a chair that has decent lumbar support, nothing like it!
Giving Tadka : Adding Your Flavour
Once done with basic setup, you can then start personalising the workspace; making it more playful. Some of the ways can be lining up toys, office plants, photographs, paintings or posters. Get in a speaker and let the music play (pun intended!). Keep changing things and experiment with your workspace.
Managing the Work
From the time I have started working from home, I believe I sometimes lose sense of time and put in way too much time in things that used to take me significantly less amount of time in office, with the same work and same set of people too! As days passed by, I started identifying the things I can do to establish work-life balance once again.
Create A To-Do List
When your day starts, write down 4-5 key tasks that you want to finish for a day. Simple tools like pen, diary, post-its, notepad or spread sheets so that you can track your progress over those tasks.
Tip : Commit less, work more. Prioritise tasks and take on them.
Task Based Day v/s Time Based Day
We are institutionally trained to associate an 8-hour-day as a complete work day. Spending those 8 hours continuously and daily might look very productive on paper, but not so much in reality. Stop focusing on time spent at work or the time you sit on your desk or keep your machines on. Start focussing on your tasks. If your tasks are done, your workday is done.
Tip : Get a peer review on the tasks before you close on the day. Discuss about how productive you feel and whether you need to push yourself for more tasks.
Find You High Impact Time
Managing work between family members and household chores brings its own sets of challenges. Find chunks of time when you can give undivided attention to your work. These are the time capsules you can consume to boost your effort and churn out maximum work.
Tip : Create a flexible schedule, the one that suits you and your nature of work.
Focus Sprints And Breaks
Studies have shown that a human brain has attention span of about one and half hour i.e. 90 minutes, post which it needs some time to rest. Perform multiple 90 minutes focus sprints, during which you isolate yourself and just focus on tasks.
Tip : Something that I follow. Spend first 15 mins in defining the sprint goal, 60 mins on work and last 15 mins to do sprint retrospective.
After this intense mental activity, rest! That is the best thing you can do to help yourself. It is better to be focussed for shorter periods of time instead of being partially focussed throughout the day. Taking breaks can help avoid getting mentally exhausted and stay productive.
Mental energy, though a renewable source of energy, does not get renewed by itself. Shutting down and relaxing for about 15 mins will help rejuvenate and regain.
Managing Mental Health
It is very imperative that you take care of your mental health more than ever.
Keep A Check On Emotions
Times like these will test you. It is ok to feel low on some days and perfectly normal during others. You should not fight these feelings since they will get bottled up and hit you hard in slightest of tough situations. Let yourself free to feel these emotions. Remember, they are as important as your identity.
Find Your Goto Zone
If you are a Netflix and Chill person, good for you 😛. Else, find out what excites you, a leisure activity that connects you with yourself. It can be meditation, yoga, dancing, writing, games etc. It will act as your escape route and reenergise you when needed. I personally find comfort in gaming and resort to it as a stress buster.
Stay Positive and Motivated
During this Quarantine period, it can be daunting to stay positive and motivated, when you are sitting at the same place doing the same work day in day out. Sooner or later, you will get frustrated and will let in some negativity every situation you are in. How to fight that?
Make a list of things that ARE NOT in your control and the things that ARE in your control
You cannot go out anytime you want, cannot meet people you want or go to your favourite coffee shop down the street. But there are still things in your control, like clothes you wear, your hairstyle, food you eat, place you sit or laze around in — Go ahead, think about that huge list and start experimenting with them, each day is different and so can you be! Pick up your phone, make a video call your friends, family, office colleagues. Listen to music, your favourite podcast; whatever motivates you.
You are not alone in this. Spread positivity to as many as you can!
The Perfect Time To Build
Did you always want to do something but never had enough time on hand?Well, this is the perfect time to invest in self growth. Time has never been so generous to us when it comes to developing ourselves. Finish that book you always wanted to read, learn that musical instrument you always wanted to play, new language you wanted to speak, cook that recipe you always wanted to try; List-Plan-Accomplish.
Most precious is the gift of time. Use it to lay down strong foundation for your future.
Let us promise ourselves, we are not going to just survive this situation, but we are also going to come out much more knowledgeable, much more skilled, much more stronger and much more accomplished, both personally and professionally in comparison to what we were when we entered Quarantine life.
Thank you for giving your time to stay with me and read this article. I wish you and your family good health and safety. Share this if you think it will help someone.
