When private sector workers were sent home to work during the Olympics, we wondered, did these office puppies cope well? Working from home is a reality for most freelancers, and they know the trials and tribulations involved. It’s not for everyone. These are the tips we wish we were able to give our home-working public sector employees last summer:Fence Off Your Work Space
You need an area in your home which is exclusively dedicated to work. As soon as you sit down in your desk chair, you should force yourself to get into the work mentality. You’re ready? Good. Make yourself a pot of tea, grab your laptop, and get back into bed! As soon as efficiency slips, go work at your desk for a while.
Efficiency
You don’t have to waste an hour of your time travelling every day – you’ve nowhere to go. Seeing as you won’t have to meet anyone, ignore time-consuming activities like shaving, putting on your make-up, or changing out of your pyjamas.
Multitask
As long as you don’t let your personal life dominate your work, it’s fine to juggle. Reward yourself with leisurely breaks and internet contact. While on the phone to clients, give the bathroom a clean. Order in all those packages that you’d miss if you were at work! Bake a cake while you brainstorm ideas.
Eat Lunch At Your Desk
Afternoons are the most difficult part of the day. You’re most likely to filter through Facebook and flick through television channels now. Get yourself in the right frame of mind by eating your lunch at your desk. It’ll remind you that you’ve done a good amount of work.
Social Network With Caution
Worse than procrastinating through the day: doing a stupid thing like letting your employer know that you’re procrastinating. Don’t start tweeting about how awesome your Star Wars marathon was at 10:30 am.
Snack With Care
What’s more motivating than cookies? You may be bribing yourself with baked goods to meet your deadlines. Whatever works for you. But snacking becomes addictive, so if you must order in biccies, get some which you don’t like very much or you won’t be able to fit into your office suit by the time you have to return to the office.
Leave The House
Sure, you could spend weeks without even passing through the front door, when you’re working at home. Try to get outside at least once during the day. Go for a jog or actually put your gym membership to good use. You’re going to need to work off that pack of Oreos somehow.
Look After You
Standards start to slip when you work from home, if you don’t carefully monitor them. Make sure to schedule in time for washing and brushing your teeth. Keep temperatures in your home conducive to work, whether that’s turning up the thermostat or wrapping yourself in your duvet. Don’t let the cleanliness of the house get out of control. Your environment needs to be hospitable…and your PJs need to go into the washing machine every now and then.
Post by Ryan on behalf Brookson.
One of the downside working at home is the tendency to gain weight, hence, your article is very useful!
ReplyDeleteWhen you said, Multi-task, I was like Nooooooo! But after reading the description that is cool. I believe we should finish all of our work before we move on to other tasks.
ReplyDeleteI work at home, so I know dishes and clothes need washing, vacuuming and other duties need doing. But either those can be outsourced to children, neices and nephews, or if that isn't possible, just streamlining your work.
I find that we do 15 minutes worth of work every 2 hours when we're online. Not just myself but in general. If we set a clock to work straight for 15 minute increments. It helps us to get more work done. Using that same 15 minute increment for household chores works as well.
One of the hardest things I found about working from home was to not get caught up doing all those "home" things that needed to be done eg. laundry, cleaning etc. As I walked to the kitchen to get myself a cup of coffee, I would feel guilty seeing dishes or laundry that needed to be done. These domestics ate into "work time" and required some discipline to let go.
ReplyDeletesometimes it is hard to manage your time when you are working at home. it is because important things come up suddenly that need your immediate attention.
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I've been a work-at-home mom for almost 2 years now and these are definitely helpful especially now that my responsibility in the company requires a lot of focus
ReplyDeleteoh boy! it's hard to focus especially when our kids are bugging us all the time and when we hear them fighting over something. The only time i work peacefully is when my son is in school and my daughter takes nap.
ReplyDeleteAs with anything, discipline is the key factor in making this work. Working from home seems to be a big privilege, which should not be taken for granted. It does help to still make a schedule of tasks and stick to that.
ReplyDeletewhat I love working at home is multitasking.. I can do house chores while doing the usual hoping...
ReplyDeleteTo be efficient at home, it would be nice to set aside an area that is far from distractions so you can do more.
ReplyDeleteI think I have to follow all your tips for me to stay focus and finish online tasking.
ReplyDeleteSince I became a blogger, i learned how to make use of my time. I multitask and according to my sisters, I am quite good in it. Let's say cooking, while blogging and while doing a laundry. And then having a meal after, while on the computer. It is very rewarding to finish multiple tasks at a time.
ReplyDeleteSOmetimes it is really difficult to stay focus when you have kids around! But i guess it still manageable! btw ty for the tips! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for these tips. I just started a full-time work at home and I need all the discipline and time management I can think of to juggle things I needed to do.
ReplyDeletelike us blogger,working at home is the tendency to gain weight.So it's undoubtedly a helpful post..but yeah I always love multitasking while working at home :)
ReplyDeletegreat tips..I will become a WAHM really soon!
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