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You’ve done it! Congratulations! You’ve finally escaped the clutches of everything you’ve secretly plotted against for way too long. The grumpy boss. That sardine-like commute. The burning smell of the world’s worst instant coffee drifts from the kitchen. Office politics. Work that didn’t matter to you.
But somehow, it’s 6 pm already. Another day has drifted past in a flash. Your feet are still bare because you didn’t feel the need to put socks on today. You’re in familiar surroundings and don’t have to spend an hour getting home, but what have you achieved?
Here are ten things you need to do to work from home like a boss.
1. Give yourself routine
If working from home is new to you, this is going to take a little while to adapt, but the sooner you set parameters for the working day, the better. Know where you’re going to work: this might change from morning to evening depending on how light shifts around your home office – let’s call it an office. Make sure you’re at the desk by a set time and embrace getting up early. This is ok if you’re the one who decides you have to. You can play the snooze game, but it feels fantastic to have nailed a ton of work before 10 am.
Map your day according to how you think you’ll feel if you complete a particular set of challenges and let your measure of success revolve around tasks, not time.
2. Get up, shower, put clothes on
Don’t work from bed. Beds are for sleeping and other kinds of magic; let them be precious and unique in their purpose. Wash the night away before doing anything. Getting straight to work because you can, doesn’t mean you’re on fire because, after a while, you’re going to start itching. A sweaty homeworker is a silently disgruntled homeworker.
Blast your head with water, get fresh, and don’t forget that you’re still a human even if you don’t have to spend your day with others. Now, put some clothes on. Yes, there’s a temptation to wander around in the nude and make phone calls because you can. But don’t. Wear what you like as long as it’s not pajamas, but wear something. Now, you’re ready to get started…
3. Focus: read, don’t type over meals
This is about honing your focus and ability to juggle different actions. If one of your hands is holding a spoon or a fork or a knife or a jar or a mug or a piece of fruit, you can’t type correctly. Please stop trying to do everything at once, and we’re trying to make you into the most efficient working-from-home-beast possible. Open up a couple of blogs, articles, or news pieces and read – this is stretching for your brain before you start doing cartwheels towards your work.
4. Prioritise: Write a To Do list yesterday…
Thinking ‘what do I do now?’ is the first step to potential boredom, and boredom kills dreams. Don’t be a dream killer.
Do lists sound like a cruel master invented them, but they’re the key to self-motivation. This is your list and the summation of the day you’ve decided you’d like to have. Take ten minutes before you sleep every night to make the next day’s list – give yourself something to be excited about. Prioritize no more than three biggish tasks, and don’t be afraid to have a secondary index on a different page with things that need to be done, but not necessarily tomorrow.
Know what you must achieve and give yourself a timeframe to do it well.
5. Set the musical mood
Your working environment is critical. Be in a room with lots of light. Move your working space and direction around until you’re happy. Don’t have your back to the room. Face it.
Working in silence is a distraction, so get Spotify premium (other available services) and find a Focus playlist. Vivaldi is scientifically proven to aid concentration, but most classical music is perfect to start your working day (this isn’t about musical preference, it’s just clever ambiance). If you’re writing, don’t choose tunes with lyrics, you’ll only be tempted to sing along.
My favorite is Ludovico Einaudi – there’s something special about letting your mind switch off from everything other than what you’re focusing on – I’ve written three books to Einaudi, and he never fails.
6. Destroy distraction
This is the difference between a good day and a bad day. Put your phone out of reach when you’re working or, at the very least, put it on Airplane Mode. A WhatsApp notification is a distraction. So is a new match on Tinder. Or a recent tweet or Instagram or Facebook or advert or reminder. Stop it!
Save direct messages for break time and give your focus a chance to be relentless. Struggling not to automatically click onto Facebook to see how many likes that video of a kitesurfing squirrel has now? There are a couple of self-control apps that will physically stop pages like Facebook from opening during the times you choose.
If anything during the day takes your eyes off the prize at any given moment, make sure that you find a way to stop it from happening in the future.
7. Work on, work off
If you’re running for a whole day with no stops to refuel, drink or rest, the person who chooses to run for only 45 minutes each hour will go further than you. Be a tortoise and sleep your way to victory.
There are many ways to do this, but here’s a starter: at the beginning of each work session, set your phone timer to go off in 50 minutes. As soon as it beeps, stop working for ten minutes. Stand up, move around, drink water, and breathe. Try not to look at a screen, but if you must, this is your window to check and reply to WhatsApp. Then after ten minutes, set the timer and get going again. Three or four-hour-long sessions might feel productive, but you’ll do more if you have multiple rests in that period. Be smart, not relentless.
8. Be email clever…
For years I had a thing: my inbox is my To Do list – my work isn’t over unless it’s empty. This meant I got things done at heart, but there was a downside because I never closed it. If you’re an inbox nazi, just breathe. Every email you send out potentially asks for another one back, and if you’re in the swing of things, you could spend all day on email without time for rest. A productive day is not a day spent online. An open email inbox is a destructive taunt and temptation, and the moment I tried a new technique, I started getting more successful.
So now I only check email at certain times. The first window is 10-10:30 am, which gives me two hours on a typical work day to write, create, and not get waylaid. Half an hour is enough to reply to urgent messages and get a feel for other work or opportunities, but don’t get sucked in. If there are pressing issues, another half hour of email in the early afternoon is ok, but I save the bulk of my email clearing until after the working day for most people who email me. This way, they will not be replying immediately, letting me get on with other stuff.
If you have a remote team and use WhatsApp, slack, or a similar app to communicate, try not to let it take over your life. Treat it like email, or only engage with it every hour.
9. Group similar activities
Group your skypes, conference calls, and in-person coffee meetings. Block out a few mornings or afternoons each week for chats and leave the rest free for unbounded, undisturbed work.
10. Get Outside
Don’t forget to exercise. You don’t get it done on your bike commute anymore, and now that you’re in charge of your own destiny, you might feel that if you stop working, you’re harming your chances of success. Here’s a newsflash: getting pale and porky in your home office will make you tired and, in the long run, ill. Get vitamin D, ride a bike, read on a park bench, and smell the fresh air. Spend at least one day a week out and about. Go and see real people and get inspired by the conversation.
If you don’t make it count for all the freedoms of working from home, space might one day have to get shelved. It doesn’t have to be this way. Be good to yourself, work smart, learn as well as do and base it all on creating a habit of getting things done. If you try to cook an elephant every meal, you’ll never eat* so break down the big stuff into smaller chunks and tick off hundreds of little tasks a day. Build momentum, be nothing but a doer and when you finally get to bed at the end of the day, make sure that you’ve made it count.
