The Best Tips to Work from Home (Productively)
I came across this question in Quora: "I work from home. How do I maintain my focus on my work, follow my work schedule, and not get carried away by distraction?" I receive similar emails often. And it reminded me of all the good intentions I've had while working from home... I truly want to give you the best tips to work from home!
The Best Tips to Work from Home (Productively)
I'm not good with graphic arts, but I can paint a clear picture for you: It's about time. The computer is on, your phone is near (with sound on), your desk is well-cluttered (or your bed), multiple unrelated tabs opened, and a sense of motivation feeds up your soul — you are now ready to begin your productive daily work. 15 minutes later, you are answering a phone call, replying to an email and sending your daughter's picture from yesterday's party to her auntie. Nothing can go wrong in today's working day. But I'm afraid it already did...
1. How to Avoid Distractions
I like the expression "get carried away by distraction". It reminds me of something magical, where we don't have any control over ourselves and can only wait to be consumed by this powerful energy. It surely feels like this sometimes. Opening up one tab, just for a quick Instagram check, just to notice 30 minutes have passed by. Ouch.
But it doesn't need to be like this. In fact, there are multiple strategies to avoid getting carried away by distractions. But the first step, even before replacing your iPhone with a flip phone, is accepting the harsh reality — we are very susceptible to distractions and get easily distracted. If you believe distractions aren't an issue in your productivity and daily schedule, don't bother to continue reading... (instead, send me an email with your tricks).
According to this study, the average employee spends 2 hours per day recovering from distractions, being interrupted 50-60 times per day (only 20% of those interruptions are important). We might need some help.
I use all the 3 strategies below to avoid distractions. And it's not because I've been using them for quite a while that I can be at ease... it's a constant struggle, and I must be vigilant at all times!
1.1 How to Limit Phone Usage while Working from Home
Am I really going to insist on this one? You bet! If I had only one strategy to implement to work more productively, this would be the one. You can't expect to increase your productivity while working at home when...
hundreds of group messages notifications pop up
social media feeds are full of dopamine hits and fresh news
email notifications come as a box of surprises.
Here are my 3 favourite strategies to reduce phone usage while working at home!
1.1.1. Put your phone in silent mode
How can you expect to focus when your phone is constantly buzzing with messages and phone calls? It is not rude to put your phone in silent mode. If people are used to hearing from you after a couple of seconds, it's helpful to explain to them that you are working with focus. If you work with a team that requires a constant flow of communication, promise to reply within 1 hour — 60 minutes is a great amount of time to focus intensively on one task.
I can tell you that my friends know me for not picking up the phone 95% of the times... I am not ignoring them. Simply, my phone is on silent mode most of the day, and I return the call after my focusing work sessions end. It's not disrespecting others. It's respecting yourself, your time, and your work.
1.1.2 Re-consider your apps
I just counted 106 apps on my phone. Ouch... I was not expecting this. And as you might guess, do I use all of these on a weekly or monthly basis? Exactly.
The first step to embracing a less distracting phone is to delete the apps that don't serve any purpose. This reduces the visual clutter and contributes to a reduction in phone usage. I just deleted 45 apps.
The second step is to question the apps you have left. Do you really need Uber Eats? Yup, I do! What about social media apps? I leave this up to you. But I can tell you something: since I deleted all social media apps from my phone — Facebook, Twitter & Instagram, rather than spending 60-90 minutes on social media every day, I spend less than 15.
You don't need to stop using social media. You can still use it on your desktop or re-install the apps (it takes 30 seconds). But having an additional step reduces meaningless scrolling significantly. I urge you to try for a week!
1.1.3 Disable Notifications
I still can't believe how long I kept notifications for all the apps on my phone. Every day, I dealt with hundreds of useless notifications. Every time, they interrupted me from my workflow and got me distracted. We all know that apps are designed to make users addicted. That's the purpose of these companies. But I refuse to prioritize their purpose rather than my own.
At the moment, I've got 7 apps with active notifications — Whatsapp (with turned off notifications for most group-chats), messages & phone calls, Calm (meditation reminders), Google Calendar, Bank account, Uber Eats and a Stock Tracker (specific notifications for my investments). That's it. I don't let these companies rule my life and control my time.
1.2 How to Get Everyone at Home Respecting your Time
If you are working at home and you don't live alone, there's a big chance you will be interrupted sometime during the day. Well... multiple times. Other people are a source of distraction, just like social media — they grab your attention from your work and prevent you from doing what you should be doing. I don't mean to speak badly about my relatives, but they are the reason for my unproductive days.
Seriously, you can't expect other people to respect your working sessions when you are not explicit about it. How many times have you engaged in a conversation while working? Exactly. That signals that you're ok with being interrupted... and that you might even enjoy it (I do... sometimes).
Since I started being more at home (covid time), I've built different mechanisms to avoid being interrupted. Feel free to use some or come up with your own techniques.
3 Ways to Avoid Being Interrupted by Other People:
Notify the 3 living members at home that I won't be available for the next couple of hours. I might even say I've got an important meeting going on. This works pretty much every time. I don't remember being interrupted after letting them know.
When I don't want to be interrupted, I simply close the door. When someone comes in, they knock on the door, and I simply answer: "not now" or "30 minutes, and I'm ready." It doesn't have to be the door — you can simply set up a visual clue that lets people know you don't want to be interrupted. Maybe a note on your door or a pair of headphones.
I respect their time. When you respect other people's time, you create space for them to respect your own.
1.3 Create a Check-List to Deal with Distractions
We are creatures of habit. Still, and even though we deal with the same problems every day, we still make avoidable mistakes. Atul Gawande, the author of The Checklist Manifesto, argues for the importance of creating checklists to systematize systems and remind us of all the simple steps to maintain high levels of performance. The author found that checklists reduced surgery death rates by 47%. But I believe checklists can still be useful if you're not a surgeon and you're just trying to avoid distractions.
Rather than hoping that distractions won't stop your workflow, why not dealing with them before getting to work? For this, I highly recommend you to set up a short check-list that you will read through before starting any period of uninterrupted work.
Put your phone in Silent Mode and place it far from sight
Notify the people around that you wish not to be interrupted
Let those who expect your quick replies know you are not going to answer for x minutes
Respect your own commitment to not giving in to distractions.
1.4 How to set up a Distraction-Free Home Environment
Your home environment should reflect and support what you seek to achieve — periods of focus and productive work. This explains the reason behind your additional levels of focus when studying in a library vs in your dorm room. Your environment inspires your behaviour. So it's important to establish one at home that contributes to your productivity.
1) Choose one specific location to engage in productive work — This can be your office, your room, or simply a specific chair in your living room. In fact, for a long time, I had a specific chair designated for productive work, and I was not allowed to indulge myself in distractions. It's really beneficial to separate your work environment, especially at home, from everything else.
2) Run through the "No Distractions Checklist" — Print it out, if you wish!
3) Get everything you need — This might include coffee, your planner or digital tools. What matters is having everything needed to avoid interrupting your flow of work.
4) Get rid of everything you don't need — This one is even more important than the previous one. You don't need multiple notebooks, your phone, a cluttered desk and a handful of useless objects.
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2. How to Focus when you Work at Home
The first step is complete! You have successfully eliminated distractions from your work environment and are one step ahead of working productively from home. What is lacking is the ability to focus, which is not just dependent on external cues. Interestingly, Nir Eyal, the author of Indistractable, affirms that humans are motivated by freedom from discomfort. This means that we usually rely on external distractions (phone usage) to escape the discomfort of the work in front of us. But how can we focus on what should be done, even if uncomfortable?
2.1 Turn Focus Time into a Gratifying Experience
Focusing is hard. It is way harder than simply going through a task while checking social media, picking up the phone and maintaining a shallow conversation. It was only when I accepted that focusing on a task shouldn't be easy that it actually became easier. Rather than expecting everything to be perfect, I accept the fact that distractions might still pop up and that my brain might not collaborate sometimes. I literally learned to manage my expectations in terms of what it takes to focus, and this alone helped increase my commitment to the process.
1) Keeping a record of deep focus time — I only kept track of the tasks I complete each day. But I noticed some days I got done a couple of tasks, but they took me much longer than necessary. This happened because I wasn't getting into a deeply concentrated state with no distraction. To complement the task listing, I keep track of the hours of deep focus I get through each day, which motivates me to continue on this tough, but more rewarding experience.
2) Challenge yourself to learn this skill — I'm not sure about the existence of scientific evidence. But I've experienced an increase in my ability to focus the more I use it. Focusing is just like any other skill. When I was 8 years old, my primary teacher had a conversation with my mum, saying I might have some "problem" focusing, as I mistakenly replaced subtractions for additions. I kept hearing this conversation for most of my school years: "you could have a better grade if you didn't make this lack of concentration mistake." I was never diagnosed with any concentration problem. And to be honest, I don't think I have any. I just didn't know how to focus. Hence, I didn't even know you could practice it.
If you struggle with this, challenge yourself to become better. Make it a skill you will develop and become good at for the next few months. You will see how much you can improve... just putting some effort!
3) The Obstacle is the Way — A great mindset to develop is to turn obstacles into ways of empowering ourselves. Ryan Holiday suggests the following 3 steps:
See things as they are: you are currently struggling with maintaining focus for more than 15 minutes.
Take the right action: how can you practice your ability to focus daily?
Persevere and accept the world as it is: don't give up on the first try!
2.2 Practical Steps for Focusing on your Work (while at Home)
Enough of motivational talk. You want to know exactly what to do to increase your levels of focus. Here are the best strategies to focus on your work!
1) Set up a 25-minute focusing session — Rather than trying to focus for hours and failing miserably, why not committing to a doable period? When I'm struggling to focus, I adopt the 25-minute rule, also known as the Pomodoro Technique, in which my only task is to focus on the work I'm doing. I don't care if I make progress or not. The only task is committing to this time period.
2) Set up aggressive deadlines — Cal Newport, the author of Deep Work, suggests this approach with the intent of increasing your levels of focus. Setting up an aggressive deadline to finish a task won't leave any time for distractions. For me, this usually translates into writing a short blog post or an online course section in 60 minutes. I get super focused because the goal is challenging, and I'm motivated by the progress I'm able to make.
3) Choose a single point of focus — Multitasking is not an ally when you want to get meaningful work done. In fact, what might look like multitasking is, instead, context-switching, the back and forth between tasks. Instead, rely on a single task for each focusing session — figure out the most important task and give it undivided attention. Not everything is urgent, and not everything has the same degree of importance. If you want to increase your levels of focus, you better do it with something that has a high-impact on your life.
“Nothing is less productive than to make more efficient what should not be done at all.”
4) Define your Identity — Within your ethical identity, you have chosen not to steal money. It's not really something you "can't do", but something you "don't do." James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits, proposes something handy: start with your desired identity and slowly adopt habits that fit into it. Define yourself as indistractable — you simply don't scroll or engage in a conversation with your spouse while concentrating on an important task.
3. How to Be More Productive Working at Home
Increasing your productivity while working at home will come easier as you develop your levels of focus and eliminate distractions. But there are still other strategies that can help you achieve your goals without neglecting other areas of your life.
3.1 Divide your Days into Time-Blocks
There is no single strategy that increases my productivity levels as much as dividing my day into time blocks. Once you know which tasks you have to get done, you begin each day by blocking a specific number of hours to work on those. It's no different than scheduling a meeting, but this time, you are scheduling several meetings with yourself, with the intent of making progress on your work. Here's how you can do it:
Define one single goal to achieve
Estimate how much time it will take to complete it
Block a certain period of your day to get it done (time-block)
Eliminate distractions & Focus!
Protect your time-blocks as much as you can.
“If you’re leaving your time to randomness, you’re stealing from your greatness.”
3.2 Strive for Effectiveness and Efficiency
Being effective and efficient should become your priority when working at home (or at the office). When effectiveness is present, you get the right things done. Those are the most important priorities that will move a project forward. As for efficiency, it implies you get things done fast. When you combine both propositions, you get the right things done fast.
When you use time-blocking, you commit to being efficient. The Parkinson's Law illustrates this idea succinctly: "Work expands to fill the time available for its completion". If you give yourself 4 hours to work, your work will fill those 4 hours. So, the question is not about "how much time can I allocate to this task", but instead "How much Time can this Task allocate my Time?". When you work on prioritising tasks and focusing on the most important ones, you commit to effectiveness.
3.3 Use Productivity Apps to Work Efficiently
We've been trying to eliminate phone usage to reduce available distractions and consequently increase the levels of focus. Still, technology, when used correctly, can be of great help. Here are my top 6 apps for productivity:
Todoist — How to Manage your todolist
Google Calendar — How to Manage your schedule
Toggl — How to Manage your time
Rescue Time — How to Manage your device use
Amazon Drive — How to Manage your digital files
Notion — How to Manage all your life :)
3.4 How to Recharge your Energy after periods of Deep Work
Just as important as working hard is knowing how to rest properly. How many times have you complained about lack of time when it was energy that kept you away from achieving your goals?
The author of "The Power of Full Engagement" identified four kinds of energy: the physical, the emotional, the mental, and the spiritual energy. They all play an important role in our daily life and require being managed. If you are seeking long-term productivity, you must implement positive rituals that contribute to foster the four. Here are a few ideas to recharge your batteries:
— Physical Energy: intense work-outs; short walks.
— Emotional Energy: journaling; meditation; learning; hobbies.
— Mental Energy: meditation; a day off.
— Spiritual Energy: words of affirmation; praying; journaling; holistic practices.