While working from home is super convenient, it can also be extremely distracting. There are times when you may want a quiet place to do some work but are surrounded by countless distractions. So in this article, we explain how you can maximize your productivity and get the most out of your work.
Being able to work from home gives you the flexibility to manage your schedule. Although it’s possible to be productive while working from home, it’s not easy when you are surrounded by distractions.
In such situations, getting things done on a daily basis and achieving maximum productivity can be challenging. While WFH will have good and bad days, consistently being at your best is a herculean task.
As work has evolved, staying focused and avoiding distractions have become more challenging. In today’s workplace, productivity is key to success in your career. Being productive will make you feel happier, more engaged, and fulfilled at work. But if it is not planned well, this can turn into a missed opportunity.
Although there are multiple productivity hacks and tips, I have shared a framework that you can apply in your daily routine and get things done consistently. So, here are some tips to be productive while working from home.
Set goals
While working from home, it is very easy to start the day without any goals. That’s why it is really important for remote workers to have at least 1 and no more than 3 goals in a day. When I say goals, I’m referring to deep work like writing a blog post or fixing a crucial bug. As long as you accomplish all of your set goals, it can be consider to be a productive day.
Without goals, it’s natural for us to focus on routine tasks like replying to emails. It’s because routine tasks are easy and fast to complete, and people may be hesitant to do deep work for various reasons.
Remote Work Tip: If you have more than three daily goals, put the rest on a to-do list. On the days when you have more time, select items from your list to work on.
Eliminate distractions while working from home
Distractions hinder your ability to be productive at work. There are generally two types of distractions: Ones you can control, others that are out of your control. For example, you’ve been hard at work for hours. Suddenly, a family member walks in the room and you’re tempted to say hello, take a quick break, or just talk about the weather. This is a type of distraction that is not under your control. These are difficult to be avoided. While other distractions, such as Slack, email, and social media, are ones you can avoid.
It’s hard to keep work at the forefront of your mind when you’re distracted, yet the distractions can pile up pretty quickly. One study found that 99% of employees report they get distracted while working in their personal workspace.
While working toward your goal, eliminate as many distractions as possible. To begin with, you can keep your phone away from your desk for most of the day; if that’s not possible, keep it away for a few hours at least.
Break large tasks into small chunks
It is often difficult for us to take on large tasks. This is because the way a task is presented has a huge impact on how motivated you will be to complete it. Thus, the first step is to figure out what mental blocks cause you to procrastinate.
After that, you should break your large task into smaller, more manageable parts that are easier to complete. Next, plan a timeline to complete them, and ensure that you stick to it. Breaking a task down into smaller steps can make it more manageable and less intimidating. It will now be easier to focus and work on a specific part of the task rather than the entire thing.
Minimize context switching
Every day, most remote workers work a number of different things. Let’s say you might have just come out of a meeting and have half an hour before the next one begins. During that time, you would work on a deep work item, like creating social media post. Context switching happens when you stop one task and begin another, even if you haven’t finished the first one yet.
Context switching reduces productivity and increases stress, so you should do everything you can to minimize it while working remotely. By nature, it is difficult to completely avoid context switching. A simple way to reduce context switching is by organizing similar tasks into groups so you can focus on only one area at a time. For example, you can consolidate meeting times, scheduling office hours, blocking time in your calendar for deep focus work.
Author Bio
Shahul Rashik is a community lead at Remote Clan & Remote Tools. He’s passionate about remote working, tech & startups.
