In recent times, as a result of the global COVID-19 pandemic, working from home has become the standard working condition for a great multitude of people all around the globe.
Whereas for a long time, many employers were still resistant to the idea of letting their employees work remotely, it’s now fair to say that the future of the workplace includes remote working as a major component in the everyday operations of many businesses, and across many industries.
In addition to being a practical necessity under certain conditions, remote working is also the kind of thing that has long been a dream of many individuals.
When you work from home, you have a lot more freedom to structure your time as you see fit, and to ensure that your everyday working routine suits your own particular needs and interests, and can be properly moulded around your lifestyle, to the greatest and most relevant degree.
At the same time, though, it would certainly be a mistake to say that working from home is always a smooth and seamless process. In many cases, working from home brings with it a variety of different challenges to productivity, to focus, and to motivation.
If you don’t have the right “tools” at your disposal to help you get as much done as you can when working from home, you may find yourself in trouble, and having a significantly less upbeat and motivating time than you otherwise might.
So, if you’ve just begun working from home and are investigating things like self employed 401k, here are a number of tips that might help you to get more done when working from home, to be sure that you are capable of properly maximising and realising your full potential.
Use the early morning hours if possible
People naturally have different sleeping routines and cycles, with some people finding that they operate better when they go to sleep later and sleep in longer, and with other people being more natural “early birds.”
If you have the ability to begin getting up a bit earlier, however – and if you don’t feel exhausted when doing so – utilising the early morning hours can be very powerful and effective with regards to helping you to get more done in your day, and to be more productive as a whole.
There are a few great things about the early morning hours that can help to make them highly productive and fruitful as a whole.
For one thing, you are unlikely to have many demands placed on your time and attention in the early morning hours, when most people are still asleep.
For another thing, you’re likely to experience a significantly greater degree of energy first thing in the morning, than later on in the day.
And, of course, there’s something really satisfying and fulfilling about getting the day started by ticking items off you to do list and making headway on different projects and tasks.
Find moments for undistracted focus and “work sprints” when you can
You’re always going to be at a disadvantage when it comes to getting a lot done in a given day, if you are constantly jumping jumping back and forth between different tasks in small bursts of activity.
Psychologists have, for a long time now, describing what are known as a “flow states,” in other words, states in which individuals are so deeply immersed in the task they are doing, that their sense of time and self fade away, and they fall into a state of deep focus with regards to that task.
Not only do flow states have significant benefits for mood, they also naturally aid productivity. The problem is, you will never be able to get into a flow state, or to stay in one for long enough for it to have much of an impact, if you are frequently distracted.
One thing that many leading entrepreneurs do to structure their time, is to “time block” their days out, meaning that they create schedules for their days, and set aside substantial chunks of time for particular tasks, where they will ideally work without disturbance.
Keep an effective to do list and task management system
You might be highly driven, motivated, and productive as a rule, but if you don’t have an effective to do list and task management system at your disposal, it’s quite unlikely that you will be as productive as you could.
In fact, if you are an entrepreneur, or are working from home in just about any capacity, there’s a good chance that you’ll forget many important details if you don’t have a good system to track things and to stay on task.
Take self-care and balance seriously
For too many entrepreneurs, in particular, there is a real and unhealthy tendency to completely neglect self-care and balance, in favour of trying to “grind” as hard and consistently as possible, around the clock.
Sooner or later, though, missing sleep, skipping meals, and excess stress from an overbearing workload will cause you to burn out, underperform, and feel terrible as well.
By attending to your basic self-care needs, you will not only ensure that you have significantly more mental clarity each day, but you will also be more energetic, will feel better, will be better able to manage stress, and more.
At the very least, you should do whatever you can to get more and better sleep each night, and stick to a consistent sleep schedule. You should also eat nutritious meals at regular intervals, and should have periods of relaxation where you can can you decompress from whatever might be stressing you on a day-to-day basis. Try adding supplements to your day to help combat stress aches and pains and boost your mental function. Magnesium, probiotics, CBD, and Delta 8 Seltzers can be beneficial.
Adopt mindfulness practices to keep you centred more in the present moment
Many of us find ourselves routinely struggling with procrastination, and what psychologists have turned “analysis paralysis” – which is, essentially, the state of mind where we end up overthinking things so much that we find it extremely difficult, it’s not impossible, to actually get out of our own heads and to take action.
While procrastination is always a real risk when it comes to everyday professional life as a whole, it is especially a risk in the case of entrepreneurs and individuals who work alone from home. Why? Well, for one thing, there is simply less external accountability when you are working according to your own timetable, by yourself, at home.
It’s important to recognise that procrastination is very often something that occurs because we get too caught up in our own thoughts and ruminations, and aren’t in the present enough in the moment.
Procrastination can easily arise when your mind is too haphazard, when you are trying to work out all sorts of different variables that you haven’t yet accounted for, when you’re worrying about the past, projecting into the future, and so on.
Adopting mindfulness practices that can help to centre you and bring your awareness more into the present moment, can be extremely empowering and useful.
Some of the most prominent and popular of these mindfulness techniques include things like meditation practices and yoga – although anything that you do during the day that involves you turning your attention outwards, and focusing intently on whatever you are doing can help to promote a greater degree of presence and mindfulness.
In fact, even something as relatively straightforward as taking the time to savour the taste of your meal what you’re eating it, can help to make you more present in the moment.
The more present you are, the better the odds that you will actually be able to get yourself to move forward and do things, instead of feeling a great degree of internal resistance.
Design your home office space with intentionality
The way that you design and structure your home office space could have a very substantial impact on how energised, motivated, and productive you are on a day-to-day basis.
If you try to get a lot done in a home office suppose that is highly cluttered and chaotic, and without the basic requirements for productivity – such as a comfortable ergonomic chair, and a good desk – then you’ll be far less likely to succeed, and you will have far more working against you.
By designing, ornamenting, and setting up your home office space with a greater degree of intentionality, you can very substantially influence how quickly, easily, and effectively you are able to get into “the zone” every day, in addition to doing your best.
Not only should your home office space be comfortable and tidy, but you should actively remove as many different sources of distraction as you can, and you should also take steps to decorate and ornament the place in a way that helps you to feel more motivated.
This may mean adding actual motivational posters to your home office, or it may mean putting various trinkets on display that have a particular meaning for you, and that help you to have the right kind of mindset to get things done.
