6 Ways to Remain Positive and Productive while Working from Home
Personally, I struggle with getting work done when I’m at home all day. I usually have the best intentions of waking up early and jump-starting my day. But what happens is a completely different story.
I like to lounge in bed for a couple hours scrolling on Instagram and watching YouTube videos. Once I do decide to get out of bed, it takes me forever to myself together. And by the time I sit down to get work done, it’s already lunch time and half of my workday is lost.
After lunch, I get so much more distracted and I would rather watch Netflix than continue working.
Sound familiar?
Working from home is not always ideal. Yes, working from home comes with some major advantages like working whenever you want, wearing comfy clothes, and zero commuting. However, being at home can introduce new challenges like an overabundance of distractions and struggling to find the motivation to actually sit down to do work.
The coronavirus outbreak has forced us academics and grad students to commence work in the safety of our own homes. We have been tasked to move all instruction online and create virtual classrooms as well as conduct our research and get writing done at home. But how can we do this productively for weeks on end?
In this blog post, I will share 6 tips for being productive and not getting distracted while working from home.
Choose a Designated Work Area
Find one space in your home to become your designated work area. This is the place that you will go to when you want to do work. It will serve as your “home office”. The key here is to only do work in this space. You don’t want to choose an area in your home where you do other things, like sleep or relax.
For example, when you sit on your bed to work, your brain is trained to prepare your body for sleeping. When you sit on the couch, in front of your tv to work, your brain will continually remind you of the shows you need to watch.
Great candidates for a designated work area would be a desk in the corner of a room or at your kitchen table (in the spot you don’t normally sit for dinner).
If you have roommates or family members at home while you are working, it’s a good idea to let them know about your designated work area so they know that when you are there, you need minimal distractions because you are getting work done.
Implement a Transition Activity
My next tip is to build a transition activity into your day. When you wake up, you likely have a morning routine that you follow. Maybe it includes stretching, making breakfast, taking a shower, or drinking coffee.
But when you work from home, it can be so easy to let your morning routine bleed into the rest of the day. I like to have something that signifies that my morning routine has ended and that it’s time for my work to begin.
Transition activities could include going outside to check the mail, watering your plants, or washing the dishes. You want to do something that will disrupt your morning routine and signify that it’s time to get work done now.
Don’t Check Your Email All Day
It is so easy to spend way too much time checking your email, especially if you’re checking it every time a new email comes in. This is unnecessary. Constantly interrupting your work and workflow to check email will greatly reduce your productivity levels.
I recommend scheduling times in your day to check your email. I check my email three times a day. Once in the morning, once during lunch, and once at the end of my day. This works for me. You should figure out how often you need to check your emails and schedule times to do so throughout the day instead of disrupting your work every time an email comes through.
Write a To-Do List with Timestamps
Creating realistic to-do lists is something I talk a lot about in The Academic Society. I’ve noticed that grad students are often creating to-do lists that are impossible to complete.
I’ve heard so many times in the productivity community, that the more items that you put on your to-do list, the less likely that you are to get any of the tasks done on that list! Super long to-do lists are overwhelming and stressful.
I recommend having a priority list of only 3-5 items. And when you create that priority list, include timestamps. I like to do this in two different ways. If I know that a task can be easily completed, I like to give myself a time limit to get it done. For example, if one of my tasks is to write solutions for my students, I will give myself 30 or 45 minutes to get it done. I’ll actually write that down next to my task on my to-do list.
If I have a task that I know will take a long time and will probably not get completed in one day, I’ll give myself a time to stop working on it. For example, if I’m writing application materials, I’ll write on my to-do list that I will stop working on it by 11am.
Including timestamps on my to-do lists have been such a game changer for me. I never end my day thinking that I spent too much time on one thing and without being able to work on other important tasks. Also, giving yourself time limits can increase your motivation to get your work done because it gamifies your work time.
Related Post: The Time Management System you Never Learned in Grad School
Use the Pomodoro Technique
It is unlikely that you can sustain working for 4-5 hours straight...at home...everyday. When you are working for hours on end, you tend to become less and less productive as the day goes on. And working for so many hours straight, every day, can lead to burnout. I highly recommend using the pomodoro technique.
The pomodoro technique is a time management tool that helps you break up your work sessions into shorter intervals with small rest times between. We implement the pomodoro technique in my productivity and accountability program for grad students called Your Most Productive Week Ever.
Traditionally, the pomodoro technique advises you to work for 25 minutes with 5 minute breaks. In grad school, I think it’s more helpful to work in 30 or 45 minute intervals with 10-15 minute breaks.
My favorite benefit of the pomodoro technique is that the work times are only long enough for you to focus on one task at a time. Therefore you aren’t splitting your energy trying to multitask. You can singularly focus on one thing at a time and start crossing your tasks off of your to-do list.
Related Program: Your Most Productive Week Ever
Virtual Coworking Sessions
I speak a lot about accountability with the grad students in The Academic Society. Sometimes, you need something or someone outside of yourself to motivate you and keep you focused so that you can get your work done, especially when working from home.
When I was a grad student, I had an accountability partner that I would sit next to every week to do work together. We didn’t usually work on the same things, but just having someone next to you who is also working can motivate and encourage you to get more done and boost your productivity.
I offer a program for grad students called Your Most Productive Week Ever. It’s an accountability and productivity program for grad students that also teaches you time management.
The best part of that program is our virtual coworking space that is available 24/7. The students in that group post when they want to get work done and invite others to join them in our coworking space. I also join in and whenever I’m coworking with the students in that program, I’m always the most productive I’ve ever been.
So if you want to have your most productive week ever, while working from home, you should check out the program. Once you join, you’ll have access to all of the trainings in the program, the accountability group, and the coworking space forever.
I hope that this post has helped you set yourself up for success while working from home this semester. I have a free Facebook group for grad school support and you are more than welcome to join!
Have an amazing and productive week!
— Toyin
P.S. Do you have any other tips for remaining productive and positive while working from home? Let me know in the comments