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Working and keeping focus is difficult in ANY setting, let alone in your own home. With “working from home” and “remote working” here to stay, here are 9 ways to increase your productivity and focus while working from home. These tips and tricks will help keep you efficient, productive, and sane while working from home.
1. Play Music.
Playing music while you work allows you the get yourself into a “Flow State”. When you slip into a flow-state, you are able to produce on a fluid level. This is that feeling when you realize you have been working on something for 2 hours when you thought it had only been 30 min. You are able to accomplish WAY more in a shorter amount of time when you are in a flow state and often times the quality of what you are producing is of a much higher caliber. Flow state allows you to be totally absorbed and deeply focused on the project or task in front of you. I mean, that sounds damn good to me! Sign me up!
Do some experimenting and find what sort of music works for you. I shift between music with and without words depending on what I am working on. I find it easier to type emails or blog posts when there are no words and I seem to edit photos easier when I am jamming and singing along to some upbeat music I know.
Here are a few Spotify playlists for you to try out:
2. Disconnect.
- Take off your smartwatch
- Turn on “Do Not Disturb”
- Put your devices on silent
- Disable Messages to your computer
- Put your phone out of sight
- Disable any notifications on your computer that would pull your focus (or just set your computer to “Do Not Disturb” as well
Limit your device distractions as much as possible. Just the screen on your phone lighting up in the corner of your eye on your desk and lead to an hour tangent on instagram or answering an email that can probably wait until later.
3. Avoid “Resting Areas”.
Your brain is HEAVILY affected by its environment. When we start to mix up our productive areas with our calming areas, our brain gets confused and it becomes more difficult to focus on what you are doing. On the flip side of that, If you are working in resting areas, then it becomes very difficult to relax later and could majorly affect your sleep patterns.
In smaller spaces, this becomes. bit more difficult, but try to separate your “work space” from your “resting spaces”. It makes huge difference!
4. Hydrate, Hydrate, and then Hydrate.
I can not stress this enough, drink a TON of water. Water will 100% make you more productive. Staying hydrated keeps your mind focused and clear, prevents headaches and keeps your body feeling good. For some added detox and alkalinity, add some fresh lemon.
If you find yourself having trouble stopping to drink water, try adding a good straw! Sounds crazy but just being able to lean your face to the side and sip instead of taking your hands off your keyboard actually makes a huge difference. Try these silicone reusable straws.
The other good thing about drinking lots of water…it gives you an excuse to get out of your chair every so often for a trip to the bathroom 😉
5. Use Blue Filter Glasses.
Blue filter glasses have been a huge game-changer for me. They keep my eyes focused, prevent eye strain and headaches, help promote better sleep, and well…they cute!
There are SO many brands out there you can try. I enjoy the Pixel brand, you find a variety of styles here.
6. Utilize a “Brain Dump”
Okay, so you’re deep in a project and you think of this amazing idea for another project. So you open a new tab on your browser and start researching but now you have completely lost focus on the project you were just working on! Enter…”The Brain Dump”.
I LOVE BRAIN DUMPS. A brain dump is basically just a spot in either your notes app, a notebook, a to do list or whatever, that you can quickly jot down anything that pops into your brain to re-visit later. This allows you to free up your mind from any “memory obligations” and keeps you focused on what you are currently working on.
My best advice for a brain dump is to make it SUPER easy to access. I like to use the “my tasks” option from google because I can easily add any task quickly from my desktop or laptop. Then I just set a reminder in my calendar to visit that list at the end of the day or week so I can organize those tasks and put them where they belong.
Some other great app options for brain dumps are:
7. Try the Pomodoro Method
This is a GREAT way to keep your focus and prevent burnout. The pomodoro method is using a timer to schedule a series of deep focus working sprints with breaks in-between. Typically these working sprints are 25min in durations with 5 minute breaks in between. Every 4 rounds, take a longer break, around 30 min long and recharge. You can set a timer on your phone, use a cube timer like this one , use a Pomodoro timer like this one, or use one of the many apps for the pomodoro method. Here are some of those apps:
8. Choose Primary Tasks
Keep a master to-do list, and then every day choose 3 of those tasks to focus on for the day. Oftentimes, we give ourselves WAY too many items to do and we set ourselves up for failure before we even begin. Focusing on 3 primary tasks makes our goals much more attainable and when we are able to complete our tasks, it makes us happy! And when something makes us happy, we are way more likely to continue the pattern. Narrowing tasks like this is a great way to increase productivity while working from home.
I usually give myself 3 primary tasks and 2 smaller “bonus” tasks for if I happen to get my primary tasks done early.
9. Block Your Time in Advance
Okay, this truly may be the number one thing that keeps me productive. TIME BLOCKING. If I didn’t time block, I would have some crazy idea of what I can squeeze into my day, and then get to the end of the day feeling unaccomplished and pushing tasks to the following days and then repeating this cycle.
Now what I do, is the night before or the morning of my day, I block out time on my Google calendar for each task that I have. I block out EVERYTHING; Breakfast, lunch, dinner, showers, errands, emails, admin work, meetings, project work… the list goes on.
Being super specific like this allows me to see what is actually feasible to achieve that day. Whatever can’t be puzzled in that day gets moved to another day but I am setting myself up for a day that is totally doable for myself and that’s what matters.
I hope these tips on ways to increase productivity while working from home have helped you! I’m pretty obsessed with productivity and effectiveness, so I will be sure to post more tips and tricks like these in the future, stay tuned!
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