Working from home brings about new opportunities to re-evaluate how we spend our time throughout the day. With the absence of a commute, we are granted the gift of extra time.
This can be a beautiful thing when we know how to manage it properly. However, the opposite is also true. If we do not know how to manage our time, we can find ourselves getting next to nothing done and stressing out with constant interruptions in the home environment.
Once I researched and established some productivity and time management routine tips, I found myself in much more of a flow. Below are three tips to keep you on track, happy, and calm for working from home.
CREATE A SCHEDULE
Whatever your reason for working from home, it’s important to have some self-discipline in order to carry out a schedule. The idea of keeping a steady, productive work period for 8 to 9 hours a day is outdated and arbitrary.
While you have the fluidity of creating your own hours and adjusting them as needed, sticking to a general start and stop time each day will help keep you on a schedule.
Now that you don’t have to commute, set aside a little time in the morning to care for yourself like “going for a walk, working out, making a hot breakfast, meditating, or reading a book,” advises The Blissful Mind.
MINIMIZE DISTRACTIONS
One of the biggest hurdles to adjust to when working from home is handling distractions. While, yes, I love that I can do a load of laundry, run my robot vacuum and pet my cat between work emails, it’s also very easy to have my attention pulled and focus lost.
Especially because I live with my partner, who also works from home due to COVID. We established that during our working hours throughout the week to keep interactions with one another minimal so we can focus.
Another thing that helped me was investing in noise-canceling headphones. I throw them on with some chill music on Spotify and drown out literally all else around me.
One step further? When I really want to get work done, in addition to the headphones I’ll close the door to the room my desk is in and mute notifications on my phone and personal email for one hour.
TAKE BREAKS THAT WILL INVIGORATE YOU
To keep your focus intact, you need to balance your day with breaks as you would in an office. Allowing yourself time to disconnect will help you focus when you come back.
PCMag advises, giving yourself “adequate time during the day to walk away from the computer screen and phone” is equally important when creating your schedule.
With finding rest in this hectic lockdown period, it is vital to continue in ways to make yourself feel beautiful and relaxed.
I know that I can let my time and body go during these times making me feel less and less happy with myself, that is why I try to go back to things I know help restore me.
Instead of traveling to a spa, COCON brings the spa to me, right to my living room. They provide luxurious manicures, pedicures, lashes, etc are all at my fingertips to make me feel beautiful.
They also provide various massages, and facials to rejuvenate my body.
