Intro

Over the last five years, more and more employers have begun to offer working from home for their employees, the options gaining popularity in recent times. There are many benefits of working from home, including flexible scheduling and freedom of time management.

However, there are of course some negative points that must be considered when working from home.

It can be difficult to stay focused on your work tasks when working from home, your day-to-day tasks being affected by this lack of productivity.

So, what productivity hacks can you use that will transform your work-from-home experience, ensuring that you become a better employee?

This guide will serve you well, teaching you how to:

• Create a home office that is effective
• Develop a productive daily routine
• Utilize productivity hacks that will ensure you stay on track

There are numerous benefits that come hand in hand with working from home, but these benefits are hard to experience if you are constantly stressed about meeting your targets and getting things done on time. So, with that in mind, put the following tips into practice to ensure you overhaul your work-from-home experience:

Setting up an office space that is personalized and creative

The first stage in the creation of a work environment that is positive for your remote working experience is to set up a unique office space.

Working from your kitchen breakfast bar or table doesn’t inspire you to be motivated

If you haven’t already, you should consider buying a desk. When you have a workspace, you will accomplish a separation of spaces, this being a very important concept for those that choose to work from home.

Separation of spaces is not complicated; it is exactly what it sounds like; you need to dedicate spaces in and around your home for certain activities and only for those specific activities. While it really is not that important if you eat your lunch on the couch instead of at the table, it is extremely important to be able to create a workspace in your home that is separate from the rest of your house.

The psychology behind why this is so important and how it will ensure you focus on your work better is called context-dependent memory.

This term was coined back in the 1940s; the concept is born from a study that showed that recall is partially dependent on context. Memorization is based not so much on the internal ability of the individual, rather on the external environment.

Whatever is happening around a person when they are trying their hardest to focus on a work task serves in their mind as a reminder. When talking about memorization, such objects may serve as a catalyst to remember, but in regard to the ability to focus in general, these objects can help to remind the brain to stay on track.

1. Picking your Location

Select a location in your house that offers quiet and privacy, and good lighting. When it comes to good lighting, there are two main types to consider for your new work-from-home space:

• Warm Lighting: Warm lighting is characterized by red and orange undertones, these undertones stimulating relaxation in the body.
• Cold Lighting. When you choose cold lighting for your home office space, you will stay alert and be highly productive.

An example of warm lighting is an open fire or artificial fireplace

Cold lighting on the other hand is the natural daylight that shines through your windows and the sun.

If you are looking to increase your productivity, you should ideally opt for cold lighting. Warm lighting risks you feeling sleepy at your home office desk. So, the best location for your new home office space is somewhere in the house where there is plenty of natural daylight and plenty of windows.

Where possible, you should try to choose a location that has a door, like a bedroom that you currently don't have. When you have this type of dedicated workspace, it is easier to separate yourself from everyone in the house by simply closing the door.

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2. Setup for your Workspace

Once you have decided on the location for your new workspace, the next stage is to set up your workstation. As we mentioned earlier, buying a desk is the best starting point; this however is only part of the battle.

Designing your home office needs to also include the design of your desk space. You should aim for a minimalist lifestyle and feel, removing all potential distractions. You should aim to replicate a professional office space, but with your own personal touches and flair.

If at all possible, keeping your mobile phone in another room is a good idea too; this will prevent you from stopping work to look at it during the course of the day.

One aspect of creating a home office that is often overlooked is the importance of greenery. Were you aware that human beings are connected to nature innately?

A study from the Sydney New University of Technology in 2010 found some really interesting information. The main goal of the study they carried out was to determine whether having greenery in office spaces helped employees stay more focused and maintain more positive emotions. Some of the results found were:

• A 44% reduction in hostility and anger
• A 58% reduction in dejection and depression
• A 64% reduction on overall change of negativity

So, what can we learn from these numbers? We can learn that plants have a positive impact on your energy levels as well as on your mental health.

Whilst living plants are the most ideal due to the oxygen and other benefits they provide, even plastic or rubber plants can make your home workspace look livelier, this in turn having a positive impact on your productivity.

Create a Routine by Fighting Fire with Fire

The single and most important part of being a successful remote worker is possessing an effective schedule.

Depending on your style and individual tastes, you may feel comfortable working in your kitchen, whereas other people are unable to work efficiently unless they have a dedicated workspace. It doesn’t matter what your preferences are, to transform your work-from-home experience, you must build an effective routine.

Think about what daily distractions you have in your life. What are the biggest distractions and the one that is currently preventing you from getting on with your work? If you are like most people who work remotely, the answer to this question is technology.

A report covered by MIT Sloan back in 2012 discovered that companies are losing as much as 10 thousand dollars per worker each year, all due to digital distractions. The study also reported that more than 60% of workers will spend at least an hour of their working day using their phones.

The human brain wasn’t designed to be able to handle so many inputs as those that we receive every day, so sifting through the noise and distractions and staying focused can be very difficult indeed. When it comes to employee productivity, it is safe to say that technology is here to stay.

So, with this in mind, use this tech to your advantage

As we said earlier, if possible, keep your phone in a different room. If this is not possible, turn off as many notifications as possible and keep your phone with you only to receive urgent messages or calls.

By turning off lock-screen notifications, you will actually need to go into your phone to check for messages. When your phone is lighting up every other minute, you won’t have the same temptation to check for messages.

If you wish, you can take this a step further. Many companies that employ remote workers use Zoom or Slack for communication; however, keeping track of your workload would then fall on your shoulders. If you find that this is your case, use free project management tools or desktop time tracking apps to ensure you organize your working day efficiently.

Two options to consider are as follows:

Google Calendar

The first step you need to take towards the creation of an effective work-from-home routine comes with calendar planning. You will feel a lot less pressurized and more organized when you can see your entire week or weeks at a glance.

Simple and effective calendars can be created using Google Calendar. One added bonus of using Google Calendar is that you can edit permission and give anyone access to your calendar. This in turn streamlines weekly planning and employee collaboration.

Trello

To become an effective remote worker, the other portion of building a routine that is effective is organizing a to-do list, day by day. Spaces on your calendar should be reserved for blocking out chunks of time when you are not available and for reserving meetings. Your to-do list however is a great dumping place where you can jot down anything and everything that you need to do.

Trello features Kanban boards and is completely free to use. Kanban are visual signals that list the tasks you write down in a board style. When you use Trello, these boards can be used for days off for entire weeks, allowing you to see your to-do list for the entire week at a glance.

The best part about Trello is that you can integrate it with your Google Calendar, so at a glance, you can see all your meets as well as your to-do list.

Bonus: Notion

If you are looking for software that can combine Google Calendar, Trello, and note-taking, Notion is a must for you. If your job is technical, you can also create databases for tasks and store code snippets using the software. Although both Google Calendar and Trello are great, for more advanced project management and for a more efficient organization you should try Notion.

As a final note, during working hours, turn off notifications from all apps you have that are not related to your job, thus ensuring that your distractions are minimalized.

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Famous Productivity Techniques that Will ensure you Stay Focused

You can have an amazing desk with multiple monitors, and your whole life planned down to the last detail, but unless you stay focused, you are wasting all the time you spend on organizing. For many people, more steps are needed besides organizing tasks and desk spaces.

If you feel that you fall into this category, here are a few strategies that you may like to try.

Pomodoro Technique

The Pomodoro technique was created by Francesco Cirillo for the original purpose of improving effectiveness, and the estimation of how long an individual task takes to complete.

The technique is actually really quite simple:

• Turn off distractions and all notifications
• Set yourself a timer for twenty-five minutes
• Work consistently until the timer buzzes or rings
• Take a five-minute break
• Repeat the stages for 3 more sessions

Once you have completed 4 sessions of the Pomodoro technique, it’s time to take a slightly longer break

What makes this technique great is that it ensures you stay focused intensely for shorter periods of time. It is possible to get a fair amount of work completed in twenty-five minutes, and the five minutes break to ensure that your brain resists fatigue.

Overall, it is possible for you to set the length of your breaks and the periods of time you work. If you find that 25 minutes is too long, you could start with 20 or even 15. Once you get used to things, you can increase the times of each work session, ensuring that you get even more focused and motivated after you see the amount of work you were able to complete in 4 sessions.

To make this technique work even better, avoid using your smartphone as a timer, using a Pomodoro Timer instead. By not using your smartphone, you will resist the temptation to keep unlocking your phone to see how much time you have left.

Zen to Done

In an attempt to streamline the planning process people use every week, Leo Babauta presented his Zen to Done idea. This strategy follows ten simple principles:

• Capture ideas in a document or notebook
• In regard to your inbox, make quick decisions
• Set the most important tasks each day
• With no distractions handles your tasks one by one, this technique is one that you can combine with the Pomodoro technique
• Make sure you make to-do lists on a daily basis
• Make sure everything is organized
• Ensure that your reviews your tasks and goals every week
• Only store the tasks and goals that are most essential
• Create effective routines
• Make sure you are passionate about the work you seek out

Zen to Done focuses on identifying the tasks that are most important to you on a daily basis and simplifying them, thus ensuring that your mind stays focused and doesn’t become cluttered.

Working from Home as a Lifestyle Choice

The problems that you will encounter when you work from home stem from the benefits. You won’t have a boss physically looking over your shoulder, and this, in turn, means that it is tempting to have a longer lunch break or stop working to do some online shopping.

Despite this, being able to do your job from home does not mean that your job is not important. In order to gain your own unique experience, use the above strategies to stay focused. Create an energizing office spay where you can stay focused, create an effective routine, and stay on track by using our productivity hacks and techniques.

When you work from home you must hold yourself accountable, but by doing so, you will be able to experience the perks and freedom that come with remote working.

About Author

Georgi Todorov is the founder of ThriveMyWay, a place for online entrepreneurs, bloggers, SEO specialists, and freelancers to find success in their own way. Check his LinkedIn: Georgi Todorov and Twitter: @GeorgiTodorovBG profile.