Working from home | Best practices + Tips
If you’re one of those whose been sent home because health concerns and preventions, I’d like to give you a virtual elbow bump and temporarily welcome you to the literal world of “home work”.
What you need to know: Working from home can both feel like a privilege and a problem.
Some questions you may be asking yourself:
How do you work from the spot you most often find yourself resting in?
If you’re a parent, How do you make time for work when you hear your kids arguing in the other room?
How do you work from home when Netflix is five seconds away?
Work? I just want to play with my dogs.
Brett and I both work from home and are always working to improve our time management game. There are days we are really good at getting work done, and there are days we struggle with distractions or feel like we are moving at a snail’s pace. Sometimes I just really want to see the next episode of Good Girls OR ELSE.
I believe it’s a privilege to work from home. I can work hours that work best with my mental health and energy. I am able to see Brett a lot because he, too, works from home. I can work out of coffee shops, libraries, work spaces, or hotel lobbies (Looking at you, Ace Hotel!).
We’ve made a list of some of our best practices for working from home:
Keep a routine. Set that alarm. Get out of bed and stay out of bed. Make that coffee. Pour that orange juice. Drink that full cup of water. Turn on a record or pick me up music. Let the dogs out. Make some breakfast. Try your best to stay off your devices. They can be the biggest morning distractions. If you struggle to wake up, take a short walk to get your brain going. This is a great idea article for brainstorming how to set up morning routines.
Get yourself ready to go… to your home “office”. My best days are when I do something (big or small) with my hair, throw on some eye makeup, and put on an outfit that makes me feel dressed for success. Even if I start wearing jeans in the morning and switch to leggings for the afternoon, my outfit makes me feel like I’m about to get some work done.
Good luck on the couch. I can rarely work from my bed or the couch. Working at a table or desk makes me feel put together. My couch is for resting. I even get annoyed when I see Brett working on the couch, because I get nervous he will always consider it a work place. It’s important to me to work from my desk. I notice I get more work accomplished from my desk than when I work from the couch. Try it out. See what works for you. Find a place that puts you in your best mental game.
Map Your Day. Create a Stopping Point. Sit down and look at what you need to get done for today. Set up some goals or deadlines for the week as well as for the day ahead of you. Map out your day a bit. Consider when you want to eat lunch, when you should get up and take a walk, how late you’re wanting to work/not work. I take time in the middle of the day to work out, so I make up that work time by working a bit later into the day. Be sure to set a cut off time with an alarm. Have an idea of what you are planning to do to not be working. Will you watch TV? Knit? Craft? Play with your dogs in the yard? Take a walk? Read in Bed? Make sure you have something you are looking forward to doing after work. Both Brett and I become workaholics if we don’t have an alarm set to tell us when to stop working.
Start with the hard things first so you don’t procrastinate all day, waste your time, and avoid doing them. Hard things look different for everyone. Maybe the best way to consider what your challenging tasks are is to ask yourself what work you are avoiding.
Put distractions elsewhere. I use my phone, ipad, and computer A LOT in my business, but if i can, I try to turn off my emails for a few hours and I try not to check my phone while working on projects or writing. Brett recently started using Flora App : Healthy Habits Tracker with his colleagues, and he really loves it. As a group, you can either grow or kill a tree. You grow it by not being on your phone. You kill it by being on your phone. It releases dopamine and provides group accountability. Personally, I think I would have a love/hate relationship with this app. Brett also suggested unplugging your TV during work hours. I would recommend not trying to work and watch. MAYBE working and listening to a podcast or book, but most often, this slows me down and I don’t finish all the work I set out to do for the day. A Beautiful Mess has some other great tips for distractions and ritual here.
Get in 3-4 hours of really good work time. Sometimes less is more. See what happens when you work really hard for two hours at a time. See what happens when you work without distraction for one hour. If you work best from 11AM-12PM, GET YOUR A GAME ON. Be realistic with what you can accomplish in 3-4 hours or even one hour.
Cleanliness Keeps Us on Task. This is a personal preference. Leave Home cleaning, organizing, laundry, or cooking for small breaks, weekends or for after work hours (Just like you would if you were working an 8-5). We do laundry and clean our house on Sundays and sometimes Tuesdays. We receive groceries on Sunday as well, so we can food prep on Sunday. Setting ourselves up for success with a clean home or easy to cook meals on Sundays, means we aren’t distracted by our home the rest of the week.
On slow days, hard days, mental health days, don’t be too hard on yourself. Sometimes I wake up and am not on my game. Even if I’m trying. Some days I make a bad decision and turn on Netflix while watching Breakfast. Some days I flip through my Instagram distracted for hours. Nope Nope Nope. These things bring me down. But this is the reality of working from home. We get distracted by being in a place of rest or don’t want to make the mental switch to “work place”. If you start off with a bad morning, it doesn’t mean the rest of your day has to suck. It might be you have to work later than you typically do or you decide to take care of yourself and not work at all. Include others in your bad days. Tell your boss, spouse, co-worker, or friend. Ask them for encouragement.
For those managing kids and work. We don’t have kids, but we have a great big community of close friends that do. A Conscious Kid has a great list of things to do with kids. What I’ve heard from my rock star parent friends is that they get work done when they can, and sometimes that means after the kids are asleep. Or when their spouse comes home, they swap kid/work duties. Or they take the nap times they can get to work. Or, they have a sitter come over for an hour or two (if they can afford to do this). I believe what I hear most, is to offer yourself grace and to use the moments you DO have to get the essential work done. It seems like this is something that works best when both parents are working together as a team. Everyone’s marital or kid status is different, so you might research ways this could work best for you.
Bellow I’ve included a snap shot of my weekly schedule. Every day I have a specific list of tasks I need to accomplish. This schedule really helps me keep on track, stay healthy, and think forward. I’d encourage you to create one for yourself too!
Are you working from home these days? What do you think will be the hardest thing about working from home? What do you think will be the best thing about working from home?
Just remember, you can do this!
Stacie