Working from home offers many allurements – comfortable clothes, flexible hours, no commuting. But home presents endless distractions threatening productivity critical for remote professional success.
Master these 10 work from home productivity tips minimizing disruptions honing success-driven home office habits and rituals. The better your focus, the greater your career results.
Create a Dedicated Workspace:
Set up a strictly work-only office, nook or desk avoiding beds and couches. Condition your brain associating the space solely with working mindsets boosting effectiveness.
Invest in a solid ergonomic chair reducing physical strains. Personally decorate areas infusing professional affirmations when lacking social motivations onsite teams provide.
Invest in Quality Noise Cancelling Headphones :
Homes harbor loud unpredictable ambient noises – kids, gardening, construction – continually diverting attention. Bose QuietComfort or Sony XM series headphones actively mute disruptions so you hear literally nothing but work.
Listen to music without lyrics or white noise blocking chatter while the physical cue focuses minds on writing, data and other demanding cognitive efforts.
Use Separate Work and Personal Computers :
Keep different devices for professional and personal needs avoiding temptation playing on the same machine simultaneously.
Log out of distracting social media and entertainment accounts on the dedicated work computer further minimizing temptation to stray saving leisure profiles just for tablets and phones out of line of sight.
Set Strict Working Hours :
Treat home offices like any other job location with set work hours and clock out times. Avoid wandering into kitchens during days destroying structures.
Define periods through schedules outlook calendar blocks or timed site blockers only enabling social and distraction sites after 6 PM for instance. Consider times after kids sleep for late night focused work.
Schedule Mandatory Regular Breaks :
Working from morning bed to night non-stop will inevitably burn out productivity. Build in mandatory 10 minute movement or snack breaks each hour moving locations avoiding chained desk positions.
Use apps like Stretchly gently reminding movement periods avoiding overly tense long sittings. Consider 45-60 minute digital detox walks midday nourishing creativity.
Dress Professionally :
It seems silly preparing work outfits without coworkers or customers seeing into home cameras. But professional clothing wears certain confidence boosting attributes minds respond to – even if over zoom hoodies.
Shower, style hair and value preparing boosting mental readiness associated getting more deeply into working mindsets.
Avoid Working In Bed :
Beds should be for sleep and intimacy exclusively or else minds begin wrongly associating locations with work rather than deeply restful states destroying sleep cycles long term.
Reserve different spaces from restful sleeping avoiding negative neurological associations from anxious working thoughts compromising essential nightly recharging.
Embrace Remote Collaboration Tools :
Remote work isolates workers from energizing social engagements and accountability expectations from peers overseeing progress.
Install collaboration apps like Slack or Microsoft Teams keeping conversations flowing. Share screens co-writing documents together. Enable cameras removing loneliness.
Use Project Management Platforms :
Trello, Asana, ClickUp and other dedicated project management programs provide missing visibility into workloads and statuses avoiding feeling overwhelmed juggling otherwise invisible tasks.
Map all responsibilities into trackable boards colleagues contribute towards providing motivational progress even working apart.
Automate Everything Possible :
From sending scheduled emails to customer outreach cadences to accounting reconciliation, automate admin functions through apps like Zapier minimizing dull repetitive manual efforts.
Automation eliminates mindless hourly churns freeing mental capacity towards higher priority strategizing and creative efforts only humans can provide.
Stick diligently applying tips defusing disruptions while introducing structure, socialization and tools fostering productivity. Master home offices through recipes personalized optimizing success exceeding old commuting jobs!
The better you structure days, the better concentration strengthens without physical oversight coords typically provide. Build rock solid habits your mind expects minimising wandering working from home.