Ways to Improve your Productivity when Working from Home

As we bravely face this most unusual slowdown of our professional lives and work through the new no-contact digital world of Zoom meets and one-to-one’s, working remotely has become the norm. And while it may have taken some adjustments in the beginning, with a few weeks of practice, you’ve likely found a set-up that keeps you focused. 

Many professionals prefer commuting to an office where they can have face time with colleagues and management, but others may actually thrive in a working-from-home environment.

 

If you’re part of the latter group, you may consider asking for a more flexible arrangement after the pandemic has passed. To win their approval, you’ll need to improve and prove your productivity when you’re not in the office. Though, you’re already doing that, there are ways to illustrate your success and effectiveness. 

Oftentimes, when you try to implement some of the mentioned elements, you may run into challenges. To resolve this very issue, I wrote my book "The Breakthrough Accelerator - Resolve your Biggest Challenge in 4 weeks"- Receive a Free download of this book by Clicking this Link

 

Let’s take a look at a few ways to improve productivity - 

 

Be Honest about your time. Part of the struggle of plugging away remotely is accountability. In some cases, no one could be there to ensure you sign on at a particular time, complete your deliverables, and stay present. While some people go to the extreme and work around the clock, it’s better to be transparent and reliable.

 

And sometimes, this means sharing that you have a conflict—even if it’s wrangling your children to eat, take a bath and get to sleep. If you don’t have the answer or the bandwidth right away, that’s OK.

Be sure to respond and communicate your timeline clearly. If you are unavailable at certain points in the day, mark it in your calendar and change your status on Slack, Google calendar, and so on, so others know where you are and when to reach you. When you are candid about your life, you build trust with higher-ups, and they understand they can count on you, to be honest. 

2. Stop Multitasking. While multitasking is always a threat to your work, it’s even more so during a quarantine. After all, so many areas of your home beg for your attention: your couch, your kitchen, your backyard or patio, your children, your partner… and the list goes on.

The best way to master this is to time block your schedule, including breaks for food and segments where you dedicate your attention to personal tasks, too. Knowing that it takes fifteen minutes for your mind to refocus when you switch tasks, try your best to avoid multitasking as it limits your ability to be the most efficient with each task. 

3. Use to-do lists to your advantage. Rather than battling sleep for an hour, do you sometimes get up and write a list, so it’s out of your head? It helps, right? To remain present during working hours, make this old-fashioned technique part of your modern-day routine.

The to-do lists also help you to prioritize what’s urgent and what can wait a few days. It also creates a safety measure, so you don’t let anything slip through the cracks while your healthy professional life is disrupted. Lists give you a clear outline of what needs to be done. Without them, tasks will just keep piling on, and not necessarily handled most effectively and efficiently, and then your tasks will just become a source of anxiety, rather than a source of structure.

4. Make collaboration tools your ally. Remote working has its own frustrations and pitfalls – but, getting creative to produce workflows with productivity tools like Slack or Asana would encourage and foster productivity. Work management platforms help to illustrate productivity by assigning actionable, specific tasks with clear deadlines and deliverables. Utilizing such systems, everyone knows what to expect, what is expected of them, and when it is due.

Platforms like these also provide teams with robust capabilities, easy to build templates and communication with colleagues. Being able to check in on where a team member is on a project without having to bother or pressure them is hugely helpful in measuring productivity.

With these fresh ideas, you are more prepared and ready to face the challenges that working from home brings with it. Go forth & conquer!