In 2020 more of us are now working from home. This can be a shock if you are used to working in an office where your day is mapped out by others. So if you are temporarily working from home or have ditched your job to work for yourself you need to get organized. Here are the ways to be more productive working from home.
The Ways To Be More Productive Working From Home Involve Planning Ahead
Schedule your day
Have a schedule and stick to it. Sure you don’t now have a boss monitoring your timekeeping. But you still want to set a time to start work. Giving structure to your day will increase your productivity.
If you decide to start work at 9am then do that. Don’t be making a coffee at that time. You need to be sitting down at your desk, ready to go.
Moms need to adapt these ways to be more productive
Planning is even more important if you have other responsibilities. Work at home moms will find working at home more challenging then single people. Hopefully your child has a routine of their own. Plan your day around the times when your baby usually sleeps or schedule your work time after the school run.
Whatever times work for your circumstance you still need to use the other ways to be more productive.
Set your priority objective
Decide the evening before what your most important task is for the following day. Begin work on that project without getting distracted. This means not opening your emails first thing. And don’t be popping on social media.
Work on your main task for 40 uninterrupted minutes. Once that time is up you can check emails for anything urgent. Also get up and stretch. Sitting at a computer for hours is not good for you physically or creatively.
What’s stopping you, procrastination or fear?
If you find yourself tempted to put off doing the things you have identified as important you need to ask yourself why. Are you actually deferring them because you don’t like doing them or are scared of failing?
If you have set up in business for the first time you may need to do things that worry you. Perhaps you need to make prospecting or sales calls and you find something else that “really needs doing”. You need to grasp the bull by the horns and face the job that you should be doing. Begin by making one call. If it doesn’t go as well as you want then learn from the experience and try again. When you have made 5 calls reward yourself with a treat.
Celebrate your successes
When you have a success, you need to celebrate, tell yourself how awesome you are. This will build your confidence for the next time. Positive affirmations are a great way to build confidence.
If things don’t go well then do not get too hard on yourself. Failure is just identifying something that didn’t work. Analyze what went wrong and decide what you can try differently next time. Try to be objective and not self critical.
Small incremental improvements will lead to greater success in your business and productivity working at home.
Set realistic goals to be more productive
If you find you are having too many setbacks and are not progressing then perhaps you have been too ambitious with your goals. It’s important to set goals that are attainable so that you get positive reinforcement from seeing success.
Work backwards from your main goal to identify the interim success points. Set mini goals that will lead to the big picture success you have in mind.
Bear in mind that the success stories you hear about have all had setbacks along the way. Don’t quit and you will find ways around the problems.
Quitters never win, and winners never quit.Click To TweetThose who succeed are those who stick with it. They may have to temporarily put their dream aside while they work at other priorities. But they come back stronger. They never quit and neither should you.
So the 5 ways to be more productive when working from home are:
- Schedule your day
- Identify in advance your number one task for each day
- Face your fears
- Celebrate your successes
- Set realistic goals
This is the tip of the iceberg for becoming more productive. For more detailed ideas on how to get more done in less time, you may like this:
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