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Any worker or student who works from home can find it difficult to be efficient at first: distractions, blurred boundaries between work and personal life, lack of organisation… There are solutions to stay productive and focused during my work periods, including those times when lack of motivation is felt. Here are some tips to help you be productive while studying or working at home.
Defining your workspace at home
When you work from home, it can sometimes be difficult to separate your professional and personal life. The line quickly becomes blurred if you work in the same place as you eat, sleep, relax… This is why it is advisable to create a space dedicated to work, and to work only.
If you or your parents have a house with a garden, a garden office can be an ideal solution. If a garden shed is already present, it can be transformed into a work space with some work. If not, office sheds at resonable prices, and can be assembled in a variety of styles and surfaces. This solution is becoming increasingly popular as it provides a dedicated workspace at a lower cost.
If this is not possible (you live in a studio or you don’t have enough space), try to find a specific, delimited area that you use for work. Using a sriban cabinet can be a great idea if you have limited space, as your desk sort of folds up.
Establish daily routines
Today, routine is sometimes frowned upon as being boring and uninviting. However, establishing daily routines is a very good idea for being productive at home. They allow our brain to prepare for the rest of our day.
If you study or work from home you can also set up routines, habits that will help you to be productive at home. An office shed will help you get to work as you will need to physically go into your office, not just stay in bed and grab your laptop!
Here is an example of a routine to adopt: wake up/ exercise/ shower/ breakfast/ set up in your workspace, your professional day begins!
The more established your routines are, the easier it will be to organise your day.
Don’t give in to distractions
When you work in an office, there are few distractions. There are, of course, some: a colleague offering you a coffee, the phone or your e-mail box ringing off the hook. But you still have a certain framework.
The phone can be a hard distraction to cut out when you’re working from home, and there are other distractions as well: Netflix on the sofa, the library overflowing with books you want to open, snack breaks, cleaning….
And no one is there to check that you are actually working.
One of the advantages of the office shed is that it allows you to reduce these distractions to a minimum. Plus, if you share your home with someone, whether a flatmate or family, you can be sure that you’re working in peace and quiet in your garden shed.
To be able to concentrate and focus on your work, set limits: put your phone on silent for 2 hours, have a snack break at fixed times…
You can also add a bit of fun to your day by setting yourself small challenges that entitle you to rewards: if you complete this task in the next hour and a half, you’ll get a 20-minute break with a cookie.
