Working from Home: 5 Tips for Productivity and Wellbeing

Last Updated on August 2, 2022 by Career Reload Team

Working from home comes with a set of conveniences, including no commute and in some cases a flexible schedule. However, it also brings some challenges like establishing a work-life balance, staying focused, and taking care of one’s health. In this article, you can find five tips to help you be more productive and maintain good physical and mental health while working remotely.

Create an adequate work schedule

First and foremost, when working from home, it’s essential that you have a fixed schedule. Work-from-home positions tend to be flexible allowing you to set your own work hours. This can be a double-edged sword, because you may end up procrastinating and wasting time. By creating a schedule that you can stick to, you’ll have enough time to do activities that you enjoy, and spend time with your family and friends. Socializing and doing leisure time activities is the key to relieving stress and keeping your mental health in check. If you start and end work at the same time every day, you will create a habit, and it will be easier for you to stay focused.

Take regular short breaks

While having a fixed work schedule is certainly important, so is taking regular breaks. The perk of working from home is that, usually, you can take a break when you need to. That’s not to say that you should have a rest every 10 minutes and procrastinate. Apart from the lunch break, your schedule should include strategically placed mini-breaks, as they are crucial for staying productive. Research has shown that these microbreaks help employees de-stress or avoid stress altogether, as well as remain productive from the beginning till the end of the workday. It’s up to you to find your ideal work-break ratio, but the general advice is to take a 5 to 15 minute-long break every hour, and have at least one longer break. Although it might sound as though you’d have less time for working, in reality, these breaks will enable you to work faster and get more work done.

Get regular massages

Sitting in front of a computer for hours on end can be detrimental to your back and neck. Getting regular massages can help reduce the pain, but also allows you to relax and de-stress. Sitting all day has been shown to cause high blood pressure, which massages can lower. It’s recommended that you get a massage once a month. However, it isn’t necessary that you go to a massage center if you find it inconvenient, as you could get a relaxing handheld massager. These handy devices come with different head attachments and speeds, which allows you to effortlessly relieve pain in your back, neck, hands, and other areas. Since working from home requires looking at a computer screen for prolonged periods of time, this often leads to eye strain. You can solve that problem by purchasing an eye massager.

Have a designated space for working

Many remote workers get tempted to start their workday by bringing a laptop to their bed and working from there in their PJs. This is a bad idea, as it can cause sleep problems, because you’ll be likely to think about work when you go to sleep. Having a place that you dedicate strictly to conducting your work is a great way to maintain a work-life balance. For example, you could create a home office in your shed. Having a designated home office can help you stay in “work mode” during the hours you choose to dedicate to working.

Get rid of all the distractions

Your home office should contain only the items that you need to conduct your work. If you don’t require your phone for the job you’re doing, it’s best that you leave it outside your office. Phones can be very distracting, as you may be tempted to check your Instagram, or watch YouTube videos. In case you need your phone, you could get your “focus mode” on with the help of apps. Nowadays, smartphones have the focus mode, which turns off all notifications and allows you to choose which apps you wish to steer clear of using for the time being. In case this doesn’t work for you, because you can turn off the focus mode whenever you wish to, there are some game-like apps that could help motivate you. For example, there is the app Forest, which is available for both iOS and Android. You can set a timer for how long you want to stay away from your phone. During that time, a virtual tree is growing, and if you leave the app, the tree withers. If you succeed, you get a tree to plant in your virtual forest.

Wrapping up

Evidently, working remotely can be very convenient, but it also comes with a series of disadvantages. You can make things easier by following some of these tips. In a nutshell, you can create a schedule with regular breaks, get massages, create a dedicated office, and clear out all the distractions.

Lilly Miller

Lilly Miller is a freelance writer, who focuses on the latest business trends, commercial design, and environmental issues. You can find her hanging out on Twitter.