10 Effective Productivity Tips for Working from Home

Imagine avoiding the daily commute to work. Then, imagine having to work with your own schedule without dealing with a demanding boss. Then, imagine working in your jammies.

Wouldn’t that be great?

Working from home either as an employee is great on so many levels. Particularly, research finds that telecommuters often earn more money than an in-office employee. It also finds that telecommuters are usually more productive and happier than other workers.

Telecommuting is growing in the country with almost 3% of the total workforce working from home.

However, working from home has its challenges. How do you deal with the crying baby? What about the uninvited guests? What about the neighbor who is always playing loud music?

Here are a few guaranteed tips on how to make working from home work.

Set up a Professional Home Office

You might be tempted to work from your bedroom or living room. If you have limited space, this is acceptable.

However, most successful telecommuters state that the money they spend on creating an office-like environment does not go to waste.

If you have a spare room, you can convert it into an office. You can also change your spare garage into a real office.

Setting up an office is a bit expensive, but it will be worth it. You don’t need to hire an interior designer to do your home office.

Also, you don’t need to buy everything at once. This is a process.
Note. Houzz is an excellent place to find inspiration for your home office.

Office Rules

It is impossible to succeed as a telecommuter if you don’t have office rules. Since you want to be as productive as possible, you need to create practices to help you achieve this.

Some of the rules you should set have to do with the time you ‘report’ to work, the time you take your break, and the people who have access to your office.

If your family members stay at home, you should make it clear to them that your office is out of bounds during your working hours.
Your friends should also understand your working hours. Of course, you don’t want an uninvited guest who invites you to watch a movie during office hours.

Change the Environment

While working from home is interesting, it can also be boring. Spending your days alone in the office for many days is often unbearable to many people.

A good way to solve this is to change the working environment. You can do this by going to work in your nearest café.

Alternatively, you can do this in your nearest WeWork working spaces. These spaces give you a conducive working environment and the ability to meet new people.

Use the Cloud

Cloud computing is an exciting field and one that is very important to telecommuters. It enables you to store files, work across devices, and share work with your colleagues or customers.

In telecommuting, this is important because you want to get and respond to notifications immediately, especially when you are not in the office.

As a telecommuter myself, the cloud has saved me a lot of money and improved my levels of productivity.

There are many providers of cloud tools, but I recommend you to use either Google Drive, Box, Dropbox, or Microsoft’s OneDrive.

Meet with Colleagues and Customers

If you are an employed telecommuter, you should always strive to meet with your office colleagues regularly.

The video-based meetings that you regularly do are not enough.
A good way is to set up the specific periods when you will visit your office to interact with the colleague and possibly introduce new ideas.

If you are a freelancer, you should also try to hold regular meetings with your clients when possible. Doing this will help you strengthen your relationships with your clients and possibly give you more work

Be Honest

Trust is possibly the most critical aspects for telecommuters. Employers trust that their telecommuting staff will do a good job and be honest with them.

For example, if you are a freelance journalist or content writer, you need to ensure that everything you do is original. When you plagiarize, you lose the trust of your employer or your client, which could get you fired.

Time is another issue. In our country, most employers and clients pay their telecommuters on an hourly basis. Lying about the hours you work could have significant implications. To solve this issue, you should use your client-recommended time tracking tools or one of these compiled by Forbes.

Go an Extra Mile

As a telecommuter, you need to have the interests of your clients or employees at heart. Remember, you will only succeed when your employer succeeds and to achieve this, you need to go an extra mile.

For example, when you are tasked to work for 8 hours every day, you can work for more until the goal is accomplished.

Alternatively, when you are asked to work from Monday to Friday, you can work on Saturday until you finish the work.

Enjoy Yourself

Many telecommuters strain themselves. They work long hours and often become isolated from their families and friends.

Remember, the essence of being a telecommuter is to be flexible and more productive. To achieve this, you need to enjoy your work and also increase your interactions.

A good way to do this is to organize regular coffee, beer or movie sessions with your family and friends. Another way is to arrange long holiday sessions since as a telecommuter you are not limited to working at home.

Another way to achieve this is to set regular break times during your working hours. Create time to take coffee, lunch and other meals.

Attend Conferences and Events

As I mentioned, working from home can be boring. Apart from the friendly meetings I mentioned, you should also boost your network by attending events and conferences in your area.

If you are employed, you can use these events as a marketing opportunity for your company. If you are a freelancer, you can use these functions as marketing opportunities.

Remember, during such events, it is easy to meet and have a conversation with senior executives who would never reply to your email.

Keep Your Home Office Clean and Tidy

An often-overlooked factor in improving productivity in a home office is its tidiness.

You need an office that is tidy and one that is organized well. Doing this will help you save time on finding useful items like rulers, pens, and notebooks.

Takeaway

Working from home is fascinating. I have witnessed this first-hand, having worked from home for years. To succeed, you need to be disciplined and be ready to spend money to create a conducive working environment.