5 Productivity Tips for Employees Working Remotely From Home

Employees Working Remotely

As the cloud has become commonplace in business and globalization ramping up, businesses with employees working remotely, usually from home, have become more commonplace. In fact, some studies have shown that working from home makes certain employees more productive. However, not everybody is used to being their own at-home boss. The remote environment, while beneficial in many ways, takes some time to get used to. It can take longer to leverage efficiency and productivity. Here are five productivity tips for employees working remotely or from home.

1. Define Your Space

No matter what you’re doing, defining your workspace is essential to productivity. For employees working remotely, you want to mentally associate one space in your house with work. This can be your home office desk, a certain table, or even a whole room. Avoid working from your bed or bedroom. It’s been shown that associating your bed or bedroom with work makes it harder to associate it with sleep.

The other part of defining your space is drawing territory. Your home office should be no-distractions, no-friends, no-family zone. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t emerge for air–on the contrary, take breaks often–but it does mean that the same types of distractions that would be shunned in the workplace should also be avoided in the home office if you can help it.

2. Create Your Rituals

Creating rituals can help you subconsciously shift into work-productivity mode. Getting up, brushing your teeth, showering, and getting dressed can all set the tone for your day by subconsciously preparing you to get into work-mode. When I personally used to drive to work, I used that drive to prep my head–now I’ve ritualized driving to pick up coffee as my day begins, and getting to work as soon as I get back home.

While you want to make sure that you’re staying productive, you always want to make sure that you’re taking the same kind of breaks that you would at work. Also, just as important as starting your day is ending it. Don’t work for longer than you’re scheduled to. Make sure you leave your workspace when the workday is over. It will help you de-stress and subconsciously exit the same workday you mentally entered.

3. Organize, Prioritize, and Finalize Tasks

Beyond spatially organizing yourself, make sure that you’re organizing your tasks as well. Interestingly, the same tips for productivity at work should be adopted at home. But the difference is that YOU will have to be the person to hold yourself accountable instead of your office manager. University of Alabama-Birmingham’s tips for being productive at work hold up well for being productive at home as well. It all comes down to approaching tasks correctly.

According to them, organizing and prioritizing your tasks will assure that you get the most important deliverables done without shirking your duties. Get them done early in the workday. Avoid multitasking. Make sure you create systems to streamline and accomplish rote and easy tasks. The worst thing about working from home is feeling like you haven’t accomplished the tasks you needed to.  Make sure that’s not you.

4. Know and Use Your Tools

The cloud has made it extremely easy for offices to implement unified communications solutions such as Slack or Skype, and other file sharing solutions such as Dropbox. Klaus Sonnenleiter, president and CEO of Franklin Lakes, told Inc.com that he believes important documents need to be uploaded into the cloud, that way “you can log in from anywhere and never need to worry about having your files with you.”

Of course, there are plenty of other tools that you can use that your workplace may not provide. Business author Cole Mayer mentions a couple in his article on Fiscal Tiger that the average remote worker could take advantage of, including Trello, Asana, Google Docs and Calendar, and even Excel for its ability to get almost anything done if you know how to use it right. For a more complete list, you can check out CIO.com’s recommendations for tools you “must-have” if you work from home.

5. Stay Active

Last but not least, make sure that you’re staying active. Just like your standard office job, stretch frequently, go on walks, and if you come to a point where you’re feeling stumped or unproductive, maybe go on a run. Entrepreneur.com advises that you choose a good, ergonomic chair–or even ditch the chair altogether and invest in a standing desk.

Other pieces of advice would be to make sure you’re not getting up every hour to snack in the kitchen, but rather are getting up every hour to walk around, stretch, or do pushups. Staying hydrated will help suppress appetite if you are finding yourself tempted by the fridge, and it will also boost your energy.

While this list is certainly not extensive, following these tips will help you settle into your most productive self while working remotely from home. If you have any tips that you think I missed, please make sure to leave them in the comments below.