“With all the diversions, I fear I’d go insane.” Many people are surprised to learn that the IWT crew works full-time from home.
Many individuals are perplexed about how you can concentrate on work, be productive, and complete tasks in a home with children and other distractions.
The truth is that they are correct. Working from home may be tuff at times regarding time management.
But so are getting out of debt, creating your own company, and practising financial discipline. It’s all part of the experience of having a Rich Life.
How to Work Productively from Home
We’ll discuss scheduling and how to be productive when working from home. Ramit Sethi, our founder, has been working from home for almost 20 years and can offer his strategies and insights.
However, many individuals have started working from home in the previous year, and countless more have had their routines radically upset.
Whether you’ve been working from home for a long time or are new to the endeavour, here are our greatest ideas for keeping productive from home.
1. Make a list of your responsibilities.
You must first know precisely what you need to complete most days before you can begin to manage your time.
You must begin with your fixed expenses, just like you would when creating a budget for the first time. That is, in terms of time management, your non-negotiable duties. Begin by developing a list of things that must be completed each day (along with the time they take to accomplish).
- Shower and get dressed (0:40m)
- Drive kids to school (0:25m)
- Exercise (0h45m)
- Have a Zoom meeting with your boss (1h00m)
- Eat lunch (0h30m)
- and so on.
2. Make a list of non-negotiable chores to add to your schedule.
Add any non-negotiable tasks to your schedule at this stage, beginning with the least flexible. For example, if you have a meeting with your employer, that is non-negotiable.
On the other hand, exercising may be done whenever it is convenient for you.
Taking the kids to school is a must. At work, completing a project is time-flexible.
3. Fill in the blanks on your schedule with the remaining necessary tasks.
Finally, any remaining chores that must be completed should be added to your calendar. These chores may be flexible in terms of when they are completed, but they are not optional – they must be completed.
Depending on your job and personal scenario, you should have a full calendar after adding all tasks.
You may have extra duties to occupy your day if you have a big family. You may have fewer work commitments if you work part-time. The list goes on.
4. Distracting alerts should be removed.
It’s time to make sure you adhere to your plan now that you’ve put it up (bearing in mind that you may need to repeat the first three stages daily, weekly, or monthly basis).
We’ll do this by harnessing the power of technology while reducing distractions from that same technology.
Set your calendar to get alerts.
First, make sure you have a calendaring programme on your phone that allows you to see your calendar on your computer.
Then double-check that your calendar notifications are enabled. You want to know when it’s time to concentrate on a certain job activity, pick up your kid from karate, or contact your boss on Zoom. These alerts assist you in completing tasks.
Everything else should be turned off.
Turn off all other alerts on your phone or computer, including family chat groups, social network notifications, gaming notifications, and maybe even email notifications, to help you concentrate on your task.
5. Dedicate specific areas to specific duties.
Even if you don’t have the luxury of a dedicated home office, you should nevertheless separate your workplaces from your play areas, family spaces, hobby spaces, etc.
If you just have one spot to accomplish everything, utilise additional clues to direct your thinking in the appropriate direction.
Perhaps you only listen to classical music while you’re at work. Perhaps you use a laptop for professional business and a tablet or phone for personal browsing.
6. Make sure everyone is on board with your plan.
One of the most challenging components of sticking to a WFH routine is not being distracted by the people in your life.
This will need an excessive amount of communication on your behalf. Explain to your children, spouse, friends, or roommates when you intend to work, what your visual or environmental signals are (“I need to get some work done if I’m listening to music”), and what you’ll need from them to be successful.
You may also need to seek assistance and support from colleagues, teammates, and your supervisor to guarantee that while you’re “at work,” you’re fully engaged, but when you’re not “at work,” you’re in a “life meeting.”
7. Automate everything you can.
All of this advice sounds nice, but what good is “being more productive” if you’re spending an additional hour or two each week simply to manage your time?
On paper, you may be managing your time better, but at the end of the day, week, or month, you have no more time (or peace of mind) than before.
As a result, it may be worthwhile to hire someone to handle your schedule on your behalf. At the very least, you should schedule the key activities described previously in this article to be repeated on your calendar. It’s great to set it and forget it. Then just do what your calendar instructs each day.
Mischief was successfully handled.
It’s about self-respect to honour what you’ve written on your calendar. If you decide to schedule anything on your calendar, respect yourself enough to stick to it when the time arrives.
If you’re frequently failing to complete things on your calendar, go back to steps 1 and 2 and ask yourself, “Is what I’m putting on my schedule what I genuinely want or need to be doing?”
If you don’t automate and manage your schedule, the world will do it for you, and you’ll never get around to the crucial activities that matter most to you.
8. Be proud of little successes.
Simplicity has its charm, and it may be quite beneficial in sustaining efficient, long-term habits. Try these easy exercises to enjoy the little things in life:
- Making fresh coffee
- Making your bed
- Performing hygienic rituals at times you would normally do during the workweek
- Actually getting dressed, don’t wear pyjamas every day
- Planning and cooking meals
- Finding ways to get exercise inside the house or in sparsely populated outdoor areas
- If you want to become a morning person, now is the time to start.
Consider creating a regimen that is just for you. The trick is to accept what is happening outside and remember that we can only control what we can manage.
9. Look for opportunities to help others.
Finally, our creator Ramit Sethi suggests incorporating service into your WFH practice. “I think that everyone has something we can do to assist someone else, and I’m prepared to gamble that each of us can help someone,” he adds. My mother used to take my siblings and me to senior homes, where we would play the piano for the residents.
What if you contacted a local nursing home or aged care facility and said, “Can I speak to someone there for 15 minutes?” Do you believe someone would be present and receptive to a call? Yes.
There are several ways in which we may assist others. And, right now, many elderly folks are unable to purchase food. So, I believe that every one of us has something we can do right now to assist others. Community involvement would be something I would include in our plans.”
Self-Care vs Working from Home
What proportion of your day do you spend working, and what percentage do you spend on self-care?
Isn’t self-care for me a lazy morning? I don’t want to hurry out of the house in the morning. Working exercise, being able to contact pals anytime I want and appreciating the simple things are all examples of self-care.
When people hear “self-care,” they usually think of massages and other spa treatments. Whether it’s helping others or creating a routine just for yourself, I believe you need to find something that will provide you with energy throughout these moments. Working from home vs self-care as a % is a strange way to look at it, so I’d say make sure you’re doing enough activities that give you energy or sustain you, and you’ll find that good balance between work and life.
Another thing you can do at home to improve work-life balance is to create your workstation. Find a space in your house, apartment, or wherever you reside that you can devote to your job. Our houses may be snug, and Netflix is always around. However, if you devote yourself to a workstation, you will be able to do more and switch your brain off from work mode more easily.
You May Also Like:
Maintain a Productive Lifestyle at Home
It might be difficult to schedule your life around your business, but it can be quite rewarding if you figure it out.
Allow yourself to be patient. Be patient with your spouse, children, or housemates; they’re like you.
Above all, keep in mind that work is not an essential aspect of your life. Because you’re working from home, your interests, hobbies, and personal ties shouldn’t suffer.