The impact of the COVID-19 outbreak is growing bigger with each passing day. While most people across the world have been forced to stay inside, the businesses are wondering what the future holds for them.
However, to keep things up and running, businesses are allowing their teams to work remotely. As a result, managers and professionals are in constant search of work from home tips that can help them get started with remote working.
Why Your Business Need to Adopt Work From Home Model
Work from home is currently the most feasible option for your business to survive in this critical situation. Additionally, the experience of managing remote teams will come extremely handy to tackle similar situations in the future.
The transition to remote work will be a whole new experience for most organizations and their employees. Thus, you need to put effort on your end to ensure the success of your transition to remote work irrespective of your role in the organization.
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As a new remote worker, you might need some expert work from home tips to get settled in your new workplace.
As an admirer of remote working and having experience working with numerous professional remote workers, I know some simple yet highly effective work from home tips that I will share with you through this article.
Before proceeding with the tips, I just want to highlight that remote working is emerging as the future of work, and we need to embrace it with open arms.
“Technology now allows people to connect anytime, anywhere, to anyone in the world, from almost any device. This is dramatically changing the way people work, facilitating 24/7 collaboration with colleagues who are dispersed across time zones, countries, and continents. ” — Micheal Dell
Have a Look at These Work From Home Tips Trusted by Professional Remote Workers
1. Set a routine and maintain discipline
The first thing that you need to work on is to develop a routine, which should be identical to the one when you go to the office. Wake up daily at the same time, take a shower, get dressed, and eat breakfast before sitting in front of your workstation.
Also, you need to master self-discipline and time management to become a productive remote worker. While working from home, you need to mentally prepare yourself and avoid getting involved in leisure activities like watching television, relaxing on the couch, etc. during work hours.
2. Schedule your daily tasks
Another important thing that you need to perform is to schedule all the tasks you have lined up for the day. You can create to-do lists and prioritize tasks to make sure that you didn’t miss working on the most important ones.
You should set a time limit for each task to ensure that you meet deadlines easily. Moreover, always mark off the completed tasks from your to-do list to clearly distinguish between the completed and pending tasks.
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3. Choose and set up workspace smartly
Just like a traditional office, you need a dedicated space to work even when you are working from home. It’s never a good idea to work from different corners of your house. Instead, you need to choose a specific space in your house where you can set up your workstation.
While choosing the workspace, make sure that there is minimal interaction of your family members with that space. Also, ensure that the light in the area is ample, and multiple sockets are available to power all your gadgets. A dedicated workspace helps you to focus and be more productive at work.
4. Get proper hardware and equipment
Among the most important things that you will need to accomplish your work successfully at home is proper hardware and equipment. It is your responsibility to make sure that the hardware you are using is well-capable of handling tasks that you need to perform and do not have any defects.
Don’t hesitate to make a good investment in technological devices such as desktops, laptops, printers, phones, microphones, webcams, etc. that are essential to perform your job role efficiently. Without good hardware and equipment, you may find it both difficult and frustrating to carry out your everyday tasks.
5. Keep distractions away
Distraction is much more prevalent when you are working from home. With no active eyes watching you, it’s easy to slip away from work and get distracted by even the smallest of disturbances such as notifications from Facebook popping on your smartphone.
For working from home productively, you need to keep yourself away from distractions. Sometimes it becomes too hard to resist watching the news that your family is viewing on the TV or a new episode of your favorite web series that has just launched. Well, in such cases, you can use noise-cancellation earphones or turn off notifications from video streaming services to concentrate better on your work.
6. Take short breaks
Apart from the usual lunch break, schedule short breaks throughout the day. Sitting for longer periods tends to kill your productivity. Sitting continuously in a single position may lead to serious health problems in the long run.
Also, several researchers have concluded that short breaks help you to unlock new creativity levels. While on a short break, you can take a walk, meditate, exercise, or take a power nap.
7. Use technology to your advantage
Utilizing the latest technologies available for remote work is among the pro tips for Working From Home that you need to follow. From simple to-do list apps to full-fledged project management software, it’s a smart move to make use of tools that will help you to enhance your productivity as a remote worker.
For remote teams, it is advisable to use project management software like ProofHub, Asana, and Wrike. Project management software combines all the necessary tools that you need to plan, organize, collaborate, and deliver projects.
However, ProofHub stands out from the rest with its ability to work for teams of any size, any industry. Also, unlike most other project management software, ProofHub has simple pricing for all team sizes.
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8. Draw a clear line between work and personal life
All your efforts to stay focused on work go in vain when one or more of your family members invade your workspace to discuss a trivial matter or ask you to lend a hand in a household chore.
To avoid this situation, you need to tell your family members/roommates to not disturb you in the working hours unless there’s something really important that needs your attention. It’s okay to mix your work and personal life a little. However, overdoing it will result in low productivity.
9. Stay connected with your team
One of the most important things that we usually skip soon after starting work from home is to communicate with our team. It doesn’t matter whether you are acting as a manager or a developer or a content writer, you need to stay in constant touch with other members of the team.
Also, team communication is important to make collaboration among team members successful. You can use messaging apps to communicate, however, you should use a dedicated collaboration tool for your remote team. A collaboration tool allows your team to proof files and documents along with sharing feedback in real-time.
10. Have some fun activities with colleagues
Working from home limits your socializing skills and you may feel disconnected, especially if you have recently switched to remote working. To overcome this, you need to interact with your colleagues and have some fun.
You can create separate chat groups using your messaging app where you and your team can discuss things and share thoughts that are not related to work.
Suggestion: Organize a fun audio/video conference session with your colleagues over tea at least once in a day.
11. Exercise regularly
You will completely agree with the fact that working from home restricts your overall physical activity. Low physical activity not only kills your productivity but also makes you vulnerable to diseases.
Thus, while working from home, you must exercise regularly. By doing exercises, you can keep yourself fit and feel more energetic. Moreover, you should also do stretching exercises at different times throughout the day for maintaining a great body posture.
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Conclusion
Coronavirus outbreak has left most of us with no choice but to work from home. As a regular office worker, you may be wondering how to work from home with no prior experience of working remotely. Let us make this clear that you can work productively from home. The most basic thing that you need to do is to follow the work from home tips mentioned in this article.
Also, if you are a manager or a team leader, then you should share these tips with your team so that they can also get help with their quest to switch successfully to work from home.
