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COVID-19 has caused remote work to become a necessity instead of a luxury for many professionals. But which environment allows us to be more productive: the home office or the office office?
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In the office office, your colleagues often pose the greatest threat to keeping you from getting some real, heads-down work done. They drop by your desk, engage you in conversation, and invite you to lunch — or so I hear. The social benefits are nice to have, but they can become a challenge if you're easily distracted.
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However, at the home office, while family members can be a distraction, I find that it's easy for you to become your own worst enemy. Because without coworkers around, you’re free to drop those pesky inhibitions. At the home office, no one's watching. You don't necessarily feel that same peer pressure or communal obligation to get stuff done. (Also, you don't have to wear pants.)
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If you like your current job and don't want to change it, the obvious step is to find a way to pivot the position. One of the tips for doing this is folding the possibility of going remote into your next promotion cycle. Talk to your boss often about your intention to pivot.
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And, if you're not sure your employer will agree to working completely remotely, talk about the option of working remotely one or two days a week. When you use the work from home tips we've provided above, and your boss sees how productive you are, they could allow you more days to work from home.
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If your work can be done remotely, but your current boss or organization doesn't allow you to work from home, you might need to get a new job. When looking for a work-from-home job, you can use the same methods you used in finding your regular office job. This includes channels like job sites, local job ads, and social media platforms.
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If your current job isn't remote work-friendly, you can go remote by starting your own business as a freelancer or a consultant. Depending on the nature of your current job, you may start your own freelance business while still being employed.
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The benefit of starting your freelance business while still employed is that it reduces the financial strain experienced by any new business.
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Starting a home business is one way to enjoy remote work. Unlike other fields, certifications and education are not usually prerequisites. Instead, researching, having a smart business plan, and choosing the right business is more essential to the success of your business.
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Of course, you might be working from home but still have "company." Make sure any roommates, family members, and dogs (well, maybe not dogs) respect your space during work hours. Just because you're working from home doesn't mean you're home.
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If you share space with another work-from-home adult, you may have to lay ground rules about meeting times, shared desks and chairs, and quiet times.
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It can be so easy to get distracted as a telecommuter that you avoid breaks altogether. Don't let the guilt of working in the building you sleep in prevent you from taking five minutes to relax.
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However rather than just opening YouTube and watching some comfort clips, use your breaks to get away from your desk. Go for a walk, enjoy fresh air, or spend time with others who might also be in the house.
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When your office starts working from home, you'll likely miss the casual social interactions with colleagues you're used to throughout the day. When working from home, you don't have the small talk and other activities that make each day at the office unique. So what can you do? Communicate.
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Fight boredom and loneliness by frequent communication with other employees. Reach out to them through video chat via apps like Zoom and Slack, a hosted phone system, or however else your company communicates.
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Remember: You're working from home, not the moon. Interacting with other people during the day is allowed, even if they're not your colleagues. It’s a good idea to see another face during the day when most of your workday is solitary. So, use your breaks to interact with others.
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You might be under the impression that working from home establishes more work-life balance, but be careful with that assumption. Working from home can also feel like being at a casino — you can get so caught up in your activity, in a relaxing environment, that you lose complete track of time.
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In lieu of coworkers, whose packing up and leaving the office reminds you to do the same, set an alarm at the end of the day to indicate your normal workday is coming to an end. You don't have to stop at exactly that time, but knowing the workday is technically over can help you start the process of saving your work and calling it quits for the evening.
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When you're in your own home, it can be tempting to spend time preparing a nice breakfast and lunch for yourself, chopping and cooking included. Don't use precious minutes making your food the day of work — cook it the night before.
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Preparing food ahead of time ensures you can use your meal times to eat and that you aren't performing non-work tasks that spend energy better used at your desk.
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What is the biggest perk to working from home? One of the biggest benefits for some people (me), is complete access to the kitchen. As soon as I take a break, I automatically drift towards the kitchen for some snacks.
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An unhealthy diet can affect productivity and drain energy. When I switched to a healthier diet, it made me function better and get the most from my routine. So eat well when working from home.
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It's also vital that you keep to a proper sleep schedule. Save binge-watching your favorite shows for the weekend. With the right food to keep energy levels high and sound sleep to refresh your body and mind, you can make a success of working from home.
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When working in an office, your morning commute can help you wake up and feel ready to work by the time you get to your desk. At home, however, the transition from your pillow to your computer can be much more jarring.
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Believe it or not, one way to work from home productively is to dive into your to-do list as soon as you wake up. Simply getting a project started first thing in the morning can be the key to making progress on it gradually throughout the day. Otherwise, you'll prolong breakfast and let the morning sluggishness wear away your motivation.
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Just because you're not working at an office doesn't mean you can't, well, have an office. Rather than cooping yourself up in your room or on the couch in the living room — spaces associated with leisure time — dedicate a specific room or surface in your home to working remotely.
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No matter the space or location, have an area of the home to work and stay committed to throughout the day. And, after choosing your dedicated workspace, make the most of it by making it quiet.
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The mental association you make between work and an office can make you more productive, and there's no reason that feeling should be lost when working remotely. I know that you love working in your pajamas (I do, too), but the mere act of changing clothes to something more serious will give you a signal to get work done throughout the day.
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When you dress up, you give your brain a reason for dressing up, and it can keep you pumped throughout your work hours. So when working from home, do all the things you'd do to prepare for an office role: Set your alarm, make (or get) coffee, and wear nice clothes.
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When working from home, you're your own personal manager and can choose your working hours. However, without things like an in-person meeting schedule to break up your day, you can easily lose focus or burn out. To stay on schedule, segment what you'll do and when for the day.
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If you have an online calendar, create personal events and reminders that tell you when to shift gears and start on new tasks. Google Calendar makes this easy. Structuring your day as you would in the office also saves you from work creep. With this structure in place, working from home will not cause your work to invade your personal life.
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Is your home office just not getting it done for you? Take your work-from-home life a step further and get out of the house. Coffee shops, libraries, public lounges, and similar Wi-Fi-enabled spaces can help you simulate the energy of an office so you can stay productive even when you don't sit in an official workplace.
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Social media is designed to make it easy for us to open and browse quickly. As remote workers, though, this convenience can be the detriment of our productivity. To counteract your social networks' ease of use during work hours, remove them from your browser shortcuts and log out of every account on your phone or computer.
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Nobody sprints through their work from morning to evening — your motivation will naturally ebb and flow throughout the day. However, when you're working from home, it's all the more important to know when those ebbs and flows will take place and plan your schedule around it.
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To capitalize on your most productive periods, save your more challenging tasks for when you know you'll be in the right headspace for them. Use slower points of the day to knock out the easier logistical tasks on your plate.
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Projects always take longer than you initially think they will. For that reason, you'll frequently get done less than you set out to do. So, just as you're encouraged to overestimate how much work hours you'll spend doing one thing, you should also overestimate how many things you'll do during the day.
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Even if you come up short of your goal, you'll still come out of that day with a solid list of tasks filed under 'complete.'
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Sometimes, I'm so tired in the morning, that I don't even want to hear my voice — let alone talk to others with it. You shouldn't have to give yourself too much time to become productive in the morning, but you can give yourself some extra time before working directly with others.
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If you're struggling to develop a reasonable work schedule for yourself as a telecommuter, start with the solitary tasks in the morning. Save your phone calls, meetings, Google hangouts meetings, video call, and other collaborative work for when you've officially "woken up."
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There's an expression out there that says, "if you want something done, ask a busy person." The bizarre but true rule of productivity is that the busier you are, the more you'll do. It's like Newton's law of inertia: If you're in motion, you'll stay in motion. If you're at rest, you'll stay at rest.
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And busy people are in fast-enough motion that they have the momentum to complete anything that comes across their desk. Unfortunately, it's hard to find things to help you reach that level of busyness when you're at home — your motivation can just swing so easily.
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Working from home might make you feel cut off from the larger operation happening in your company. Instant messaging and videoconferencing tools like Slack and Zoom can make it easy to check in with other remote employees and remind you how your work contributes to the big picture.
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It’s also vital to invest in the right technology. For instance, a bad-performance router can take the steam right off your enthusiasm to work, so it's better to invest in a high-performance router.
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Spending time figuring out what you'll do today can take away from actually doing those things. And, you'll have planned your task list so recently that you can be tempted to change your schedule on the fly. It's important to let your agenda change if you need it to, but it's equally important to commit to a schedule that outlines every assignment before you begin.
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Try solidifying your schedule the day before, making it feel more official when you wake up the next day to get started on it.
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During the week, music is the soundtrack to your career (cheesy, but admit it, it's true). And at work, the best playlists are diverse playlists — you can listen to music that matches the energy of the project you're working on to boost your productivity.
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Video game soundtracks are excellent at doing this. In the video game, the lyric-free music is designed to help you focus; it only makes sense that it would help you focus on your work.
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You might have heard that listening to just two or three songs in the shower can help you save water. And it's true; hearing a few of your favorite songs start and end, one after another, can remind you how long you've been in the bathroom and shorten your wash time.
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Why bring this up? Because the same general principle can help you stay on task when working from home. But instead of three songs off your music playlist, run your laundry instead. Doing your laundry is a built-in timer for your home. So, use the time to start and finish something from your to-do list before changing the load.
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Committing to one assignment during the wash cycle and another during the dry process can train you to work smarter on tasks that you might technically have all day to tinker with. And when you know there's a timer, it makes it hard for distractions to derail your work.
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One of the most important things you can do when you're working from home is to establish a healthy work-life balance. With it, you can prevent undue stress, burnout and low productivity. With a work-life balance, you're able to attend to both your work and personal responsibilities and be successful at both.
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You should also be happier at work, positive in interactions with your co-workers and have greater loyalty for the organization you work for.