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In an expected turn of events this 2020, most of the world now sits at home waiting for the potent COVID-19 to be contained.
A lot of companies were forced to halt production, while some transitioned most of their work into home-based tasks. The latter sounds nice at first, but work from home setups are more difficult to manage than it seems.
Most of these suddenly home-based employees were exclusively trained to work in an office environment with organized work stations and looming deadlines.
The deadlines remain, but the surroundings are starkly different.
Distractions abound at home, including the sweet temptation to just sit back and relax while you wait for the pandemic to blow over.
Distracted and disoriented as you are, you can still create productive work from home setup.
A lot of people were already home-based employees before the pandemic started, so it is possible to get work done even in the most unlikely places.
Here are 5 ways to have a more productive work from home set up for the newly baptized home-based worker.
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Take Good Care of Your Body
This is a staple even if you’re working in the office. You won’t get any work done if you’re feeling fatigued. Taking care of yourself means eating healthy and exercising.
Optimize your diet and shift to healthier options. Better food will help you focus on your job and retain energy. You can even try to learn how to cook healthier recipes while in quarantine.
Write workouts into your schedule. Exercising as a work from the home employee will energize you in your tasks.
Physical activity actually improves brain activity too. Exercise is proven to promote cognitive health.
Cognitive health has to do with parts of your brain that take on problem solving and memory. Both of which you need when partaking in any type of work.
Include Destressing into Your Routine
Working from home can be a very stressful task. You are not used to facing your computer 8 hours a day with your family or roommates causing a ruckus so close by.
You feel frustrated at all the distractions and can’t seem to finish a task.
A whole different work environment can shift your motivation drastically, which can earn you bouts of stressfulness.
You can solve this by scheduling de-stressing strategies. You are always distracted because stress steals away your focus.
Find ways to practice mindfulness and tame your thoughts. You can try peaceful activities like meditating, practicing art, or reading.
Do this before your shift and in between breaks. Find a quiet place to practice these. You’ll find that your mind will be in a better place to accomplish tasks if it’s stress-free.
Plan a Routine and Stick to it!
Working begs you to have a solid routine. Being at home doesn’t change that. You can’t expect yourself to be productive by breezing through most of the day and being organized only on your shift.
That’s an easy way to get distracted by things you suddenly want or have to do while working.
Plan a routine before and after your work shift. Set times for your destressing sessions and household chores. Schedule even your bedtime and bathing time.
In that way, you’ll accomplish more instead of lounging around when you don’t have any formal tasks.
You’ll also feel a lot more accomplished because you’ll be forced to attend to tasks all throughout the day because of your routine.
Set Up Your Own Work Station
At the office, you have your desk and computer that give you a sense of the organization because you know that space is for you and your tasks for the day.
At home, almost everything is everyone’s property. Not to mention you’re always a few steps away from your bed and fridge.
Basically, you’re in a cave full of distraction traps that are seemingly designed to lose your focus.
Set up a designated work station far from these distractions. Ask your family for a set space in your home that you can use as your ‘office.’
As much as possible, don’t do it in your room because then you’ll be tempted to fall into distraction because you’re in a familiarly comfortable place.
Kindly request that no one disturbs your work station. Bring in enough snacks so you won’t need to step outside often.
If possible, do your de-stressing activities in another space so you can condition yourself to think of your work station as a work-only environment. This can help sharpen your focus as you accomplish tasks.
Gift Yourself with Rest
As with any working adult regardless of the work environment, you are in great need of rest. Even though working from home isn’t as physically exhausting as commuting to the office, you still need to give yourself time to settle down and relax.
This means scheduling power naps and having eight hours of sleep every day. A 20-30 minute nap is a very effective way to recharge your brain at work.
If you can squeeze this in your breaks, then do so. You’ll find that you’ll have sharper focus when you face your tasks when you give your mind a breather.
A good night’s sleep is also very important if you want to have productive work from home setup.
You might think that working from home gives you a bigger leeway to binge-watch your favorite show or spend hours on your newly bought video game.
That’s true, and it’s okay if you want to spend your time that way. But don’t lose sleep because of it.
Schedule your leisure time differently from your bedtime. If you can, choose a high-quality mattress so you can improve your sleep. It’s a surprising factor that affects the quality of rest you get.
Don’t compromise when it comes to good rest because it’s a very crucial part of anyone’s productivity and health.
After all, staying healthy is one of the best ways you can be productive at work. It’s also a good way to protect yourself from COVID-19.
No one expected 2020 to hit the world with such a crippling predicament such as the coronavirus pandemic.
But what’s important is that you make the most out of the situation, which of course includes exerting the best effort in your daily activities such as work.
You may have a hard time adjusting to working from home, but you’ll soon come to realize that quarantine time has opened a lot of opportunities for growth for you.
It’s your job to take advantage of your current set situation while maintaining productive work from home set up.
