3 Top Work From Home Tips

There are now two ways this can go. One option is that you work like so many other people who are confined to home offices. That means you’ll spend a huge chunk of your day procrastinating before you actually get anything done, which will result in work spilling over into your evening.

The other option is that you grasp this opportunity with both hands: that you apply a little strategy and discipline. Most importantly: you gain the correct mindset that will help you to tackle this unique challenge in the best way possible.

It means that you can now finish your day’s work in less time. Because let’s
face it: most of us wasted hours in the office on meetings and chatting
around the water cooler!

The best part is that you can start applying a little “lifestyle design.” That
means working in the way you want to work: working the hours that you
like, and even from different locations.

The first one that we’re going to address is something called “Eating the Whole Frog.” This comes from a quote by Mark Twain that says: “If your job is to eat a frog, then you should do that first thing in the morning. If your job is to eat two frogs, then you should eat the biggest and ugliest one first.” Basically what he’s saying here, is that you should do the biggest and the ugliest task first.

This technique works best for me because I think better in the morning. My mind is fresh and I am sharper mentally in the morning. Therefore, it works best for me to get my hardest and most challenging task done first thing in the morning.

Also, you can’t beat that feeling of relief that you have when you can cross that dreadful task off your “to-do” list early in the day. It allows you to finish out the rest of your day’s task stress-free.

If you should find yourself needing to complete a task that will only take one minute, then you should tick that off as soon as you possibly can. It’s very common for people who work from home to find themselves becoming overwhelmed and exhausted. While there are several reasons for this, one of the biggest is simply trying to manage their time when they have a huge amount to do. How do you possibly keep on top of all the tasks that are piling up, when there is no one to help structure your day?
Tim Ferriss calls the kinds of small tasks that play on your mind “open loops.”

I tend to procrastinate simple emails that I know I have to respond to with difficult customers. It only takes a minute to respond to the email. However, it becomes a mountain in my mind that I put off but looms over my day.

But here’s the thing: those issues aren’t going to go away. And the longer they hang over you, the more they are going to cause you stress and anxiety.

The exception to the one minute rule is when you are deep in work. If you are working in a very focused manner toward completing a specific task or goal, then you should not allow small things like emails to steal your attention away.
When you are distracted by another task, it can actually take you around 23 minutes and 15 seconds to refocus back on the original job.

My advice is that you turn off all notifications, shut your doors, and put on noise-canceling headphones. You aren’t breaking the one minute rule, because you’re not going to be aware of the new task until after you have finished the current big job.

Okay, but what about those jobs that are going to take 2–3 minutes? What about the 20-minute jobs? Well, jobs that are large enough to be considered actual tasks will simply be queued up behind your one big task in descending order. You’ll complete your biggest and ugliest “frog” first, and the second biggest and ugliest frog second.

For those nagging to-dos, the best option is to put them on a to-do list. Once you do this, you clear them out of your headspace, allowing you to focus more on the big task at hand. The best part is that you can now designate some time within your day in order to attack those issues.

For instance, you can spend 20 minutes at the end of each working day making sure to work through small to-dos. This means they’ll never pile up and become overwhelming, and you’ll never forget something that ends up causing you a lot of stress!

Coming to our rescue is a tip from the book “How to Save an Hour A Day” by Michael Heppell. He says that you should set yourself smaller goals within a project, and then reward yourself for
completing those.

So for instance, if you normally start your day by going to make yourself a coffee, then browsing through emails, and having a cheeky look at Facebook… that needs to change.

So instead: sit down, eat the frog, and set out to write that massive project, or to complete the big data entry task… but then set yourself a target for the first chunk of work (perhaps N number of data rows).
And then when you complete another chunk of work that you set as a goal, you can go and answer those emails.
NOW by 9.30, you have already completed a huge chunk of your work and you’ll feel far better about yourself as a result. What’s more, is that you’ll often push yourself even further: you finish those 20 rows of data and then you think… why not do ten more?

Finally, the most important thing you need to recreate if you want to be
productive while working from home is accountability. At home, you might find yourself browsing Facebook for too long, or wandering off to raid the fridge. Why does this happen at home and not in the office?
Simple: at the office, there are people watching you to make sure you don’t do those things! Likewise, your manager might swing by to see how much work you’ve done!

You’re accountable.
At home, you don’t need to show your work until it’s due. Therefore, you can easily put off doing it until right before you’re supposed to hand it in. Of course, that means a mad dash at the end of the day, which ultimately results in your work coming completely unraveled! One way to reintroduce that accountability is to have pacts with your co-workers or loved ones. Many people will ask their partners to check in on how much work they’ve done, and to then encourage them to complete their work. You can also make a deal with co-workers to hold each other accountable for how much work you each accomplish a day.

Working from home can be both a blessing and a curse. Ultimately, the issues that can arise from working from home are mainly due to a lack of experience and familiarity with the process. This is a skill and like any other skill, it takes time and practice. If you currently find yourself struggling to focus or get work done, then don’t worry. This can and will improve, as long as you apply consistent effort and make smart changes. Hopefully, I have given you some ideas about how to adapt a work-from-home-mindset in order to optimize your productivity. Once you understand how to do that, you can then begin to benefit from the HUGE amount of flexibility, comfort, and productivity that this will afford you.

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