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Posted on: November 7, 2022
The COVID 19 pandemic has drastically changed the way we live our lives. More specifically, it has changed the way we work.
Working from home (WFH) has become a crucial element in our day-to-day lives and has actually opened a lot of eyes and minds in their approach to employee welfare and flexibility.
With WFH becoming engrained in society, we wanted to take the time to tell you about some important WFH productivity tips to ensure that you, as an employee, are able to gain the most benefit from this flexible working solution.
When not in the office, it is very easy to have an increased number of distractions around you. This could be from pets, TV/radio noise, neighbours etc. It is important to identify what could be distracting and either remove the distraction from your working environment, or remove yourself from that environment to ensure that you are fully focused on your work.
Working from home offers a great deal of comfort. You can wear your slippers, or even get away with your pyjamas.
However, getting ready for work, getting changed and well groomed keeps your brain in a similar headspace as if you were going into the office. This routine tells your brain that you are still going to work.
The temptation is apparent to work in dressing gowns and tracksuit joggers, but by ensuring that you are well kept and dressed (even if you don’t have video calls), you are setting yourself up for a great day of work.
Similar to what we mentioned above, placing yourself in a working environment can help maximise working from home productivity. Is there a quiet space in your home that you are able to work from? Is there a separate room? If not, are you able to create a productive working environment in the space that you have.
Ensure that your workspace can cater for all of the daily appliances you will need ie having enough space to store a notepad, laptop, monitor, keyboard, storage etc.
The quality of your internet connection could make or break your experience when working from home. Being used to business broadband when in the office, it can be quite a shock to some comparing the difference to their residential connection.
Our networks are faster than the traditional Openreach network and can offer lightning fast speeds capable of hosting all of you virtual meetings, file downloads and much, much more.
Whilst working from home, it is vital that healthy boundaries with family or housemates are set. Just because you’re home all day, does not mean that you are available to behave like you are at home outside of working hours.
You are still doing your job and you need to ensure that your family/housemates are aware that play/chatting should be kept to a minimum.
Now that you are working in your own home, it doesn’t give you free reign to go on social media (unless your job requires it of course!) It is easier to drift on to social media platforms as no one is watching.
If needed, use blocking websites/apps to help restrict your access. You can set certain timeframes in which you are not allowed to access those sites. Outside of the selected hours, you can browse guilt-free!
You can now ensure you won’t get sucked into the habit of checking news feeds at all as they are designed to hook you in from the first post.
As mentioned, WFH shakes up the daily routine. But by ensuring you keep it as similar as possible (by keeping your environment similar, healthy boundaries etc), you provide yourself the best chance of staying productive.
Now that you have some extra time (as you are not travelling to work), are there any other habits or actions you wanted to get done that you never are able to do due to time restrictions? Would you like to read more? Check your emails earlier? What other action can you add to your day that would make it more productive?
Alternatively, is there something that you can now achieve at the end of the day? Without the need for rushing out of the office to beat the traffic, you can reflect your day and plan the next one.
Just because your work location has altered, it doesn’t change the importance of taking breaks. Breaks are allowed in business to recharge, refuel and allow yourself a period to relax. This means, take a lunch break, take a break to rest your eyes from looking at your screen, walk around to keep blood flowing etc.
Walk around your garden or up and down your road to get some fresh air as well. Enjoy the comfort of slightly flexible working and walk to the shop to get some milk or top up on supplies.
One major hindrance of not working in the office is not being able to see your team on a daily basis. But, you are not alone. Your colleagues are also WFH where possible. Consider effective team communication by perhaps having a call twice a week instead of once; message frequently to ensure everyone is doing well and staying on track.
It is always important to ensure that team productivity (as well as your own) remains high during the periods of WFH.
We understand that working from home has its obvious flexibility benefits, but it also brings with it a wave of isolation and lack of human interaction. But there is great enjoyment to be taken out of this time.
It is a revolutionary work period we belong to. So ensure that you stay productive with these working from home tips. For more information, browse the rest of our blog posts or alternatively, if you are worried about the speed of your internet, check the progress we are making in your towns now.
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