Working from home is honestly great. Especially if you live in metropolitan cities where the traffic is bad, the pollution is high and the weather is either too cold or too hot or too humid like where I live in Mumbai (yeah, it isn’t pleasant during the rainy season).
Apart from the saved travel time, you also don’t have to spend time getting ready yourself, planning your meals for the day, planning how to travel, wasting your social energy on gossiping and chit-chatting at work (only when you don’t want to).
How I managed to maximize my productivity working from home
Frankly, I was working from home for a little over a year and a half and I got so much more done during the day.
Not only did my billable hours increase at work while I worked with one of the ‘Big’ law firms in India but I somehow also found myself having the time to exercise, plan my diet, and at the same time, study for a competitive exam that I went on to clear and land my dream job!
It was a now-or-never situation for me when it came to clearing that exam, so I went all out – obsessed over my dream (will definitely be talking about that in another post and linking it very soon) and planned my days to boost my productivity while working from home.
Problems with working from home
It wasn’t all as easy as it sounds. We only have 24 hours in a day.
Add to that the too many tempting distractions – your comfortable bed with the comforter in the room with the perfect temperature, the half-read chapter in the thriller you’re reading, the cliffhanger episode of that show you were watching…
It doesn’t help that your boss isn’t watching over you with his prying eyes and the pressure looks. 🙂
So what you need to do is create a system using the ways given below to help you avoid distractions during work time and fully enjoy them without the productivity guilt of procrastinating and not being able to do enough.
Ways to get the most out of work-from-home
1. Create a routine
Make a routine to start work and end it at the same time each day. Now you can’t plan everything every day but the tasks that you can plan the tasks that you have to do daily.
It will make your day predictable and help you establish control over your day so you can prepare and plan for the work day ahead. If you already know how a part of your day will look, then you don’t have to fret over the other parts of the day that you really cannot plan. Getting the routine stuff out of the way will help you focus on what’s important.
Overall, routines will reduce the stress of your day and this will translate into increased efficiency and better work quality. Don’t believe me, you must believe science.
2. Start your day right
There is no one right way to start the day. For some it might be a to-do list, for others, it might be a little prayer with the idea of what they want to achieve during the day.
The common theme behind all the right ways is that you should set the intention for what lies ahead – consciously figure out what you want to get done to make it a productive day and remind yourself why you’re doing this. You can do it with a simple thought in your head but I prefer to write it down because it makes it more concrete.
And I suggest you try and do the same!
3. Start your day with a to-do list
If not for anything else, you must make a to-do list for the sheer joy of ticking things off that list when you’re done.
When you sit down to make the to-do list, you will figure out what it is that you need to get done, in what order of priority, and in how much time.
Start by putting on it the day’s three most important tasks that you need to get done. Make it as detailed as it can get by putting in the timelines and organizing it as you go.
For me, I like to spell out what the broad categories of pending matters are, what are the pending tasks to be done under each matter including the issues open for discussion, documents to be sent or called for, as well as the deadlines for the milestones and the overall project.
The tasks you need to get done at regular intervals can be marked out in advance in your calendar and the to-do list so you know what lies ahead.
Instead of just going about your day randomly, you’ll know what you’re doing and how much you’re doing.
4. Cut out the distractions during work time
The simple rule that works is to keep your distractions out of sight. Out of sight, out of mind! (Lol)
Keep your phone away and schedule work time on your PC. You can do this by simply switching off all notifications for a few hours in the day to get the most out of your time.
I usually prefer to do it right at the beginning of the day for about two hours to get the hardest and most time-consuming tasks out of the way. This way I am more relaxed about the rest of the day and not freaking out about getting the most critical tasks. Read more about avoiding distractions and learning how to focus better.
5. Schedule all your meetings during a designated time
Keep a designated time to make sure your workflow is not interrupted again and again because of calls and meetings.
Plus, your clients will also know when to expect calls and meetings from you during the day and can be prepared for the calls accordingly.
Pro tip 1 – You may not be able to get to work on that matter till later in the day or the next day and you don’t want to forget what was to be done in the first place. Something I’ve learned from working on multiple matters and multiple clients at one time is to make sure you take time between calls to record the discussion points and action items from that call.
Pro tip 2 – Also, take a few minutes to prepare for the next one, the internet is connected and keep all your documents in order and within reach. It’s not nice to have a client waiting on call while you struggle to find the document.
6. Take scheduled breaks
Don’t exhaust yourself to the point of burnout. Schedule off time during the day, during the week, and month and year.
Multiple studies show that breaks are as good as reset buttons for the brain. In one of the studies conducted, 75% of the members who took breaks were far more productive than the ones who didn’t. You could also try to use the Pomodoro technique to make the most of focus and break time.
This is especially important if you’re doing something that requires focused attention to detail and applying your mind to the matter. A tired brain is not going to yield you any results let alone help you function at maximum productivity.
Save yourself the effort of redoing the work you’re doing and go for a short walk or solve a puzzle to take a break. Maybe plan a vacation for a longer break if you can. You deserve it!
7. Sleep well and be well-rested
I cannot stress this enough. I have personally and deeply felt what lack of sleep can do to the work product and the ability to focus on a task.
Make sure you get not only the recommended amount of sleep and quality of sleep. Establish a sleep routine by having a nighttime routine. Include small tasks like brushing meditating or doing your skincare to let your brain know that you are in control.
Especially on days when the work was too much and I had to work or study late at night to cover up the syllabus, the next day would generally be much slower and unsurprisingly, not as productive. For the time that I was working from home and wanted the maximum out of my day, I started scheduling sleep time. So half an hour before the final cut time for sleep, my phone would ring up an alarm to remind me to get into bed.
A good night’s sleep will improve your mood, helping you connect better with your colleagues and clients, helping you think clearly and on your feet, reducing the likelihood of errors and mistakes, and helping you react timely to situations so you can have a smooth productive work day.
8. Be prepared for crazy days
Well, you will have stressful days because you cannot plan everything to its last detail. There will be unexpected challenges and super urgent deliverables (maybe with fake deadlines) that you will have to deliver on and as a result, productivity might suffer. You can’t control every aspect of your work-from-home environment.
So don’t beat yourself up over it, it’s just going to make you feel worse. Instead, remind yourself that some days will be highly productive while others not so much.
Be prepared to wake up the next day to be mindful and conscious of how you want the maximum productivity from that day while working from home.
