Tips for Productively Working From Home

April 29, 2020

Thousands of companies, educational institutions and businesses had never imagined shifting to a virtual workplace before the COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, industry leaders have now come together to help employees pivot away from traditional work schedules and adhere to CDC social distancing guidelines. Over the following weeks and months, we will all likely continue exploring the ins and outs of working from home across industries. To help you stay on track with usual work pace, follow these four tips for productively working from home.

Accept the Learning Curve

 There will be a natural learning curve if you’re not familiar with working remotely. In these situations, short-term decreases in productivity and efficiency are natural and nearly unavoidable. Embrace the fact that roadblocks will likely occur. Issues could include Wi-Fi connectivity, navigating video conferences and beyond. Alongside these potential roadblocks, you’ll also be tasked with balancing other distractions that usually are not present in the traditional workplace. These distractions could include children, pets and roommates. However, don't spend additional time stressing about adjusting to your new normal. Instead, spend the time wisely by fine-tuning work remote strategies so that they work best for you and your team in the long-term.

Create Team Check-in Guides

 Not accustomed to creating and monitoring personal and team check-in guides? Now is the perfect time to build this best practice into your professional routine. Consider sharing your personal and team check-in guides with your supervisor so that all team members are fully in the loop with daily priorities. This will provide additional clarity across projects so that nothing falls through the cracks while working outside the office. Working on a budget, we recommend utilizing either Google Docs or Google Sheets if you're wanting to track workload and efficiency. These options are free and can be easily shared and edited across teams in real-time. On the other hand, you can also try simple project management tools like Breeze, Basecamp or Timely. These platforms are beneficial for adopting a user-friendly, long-term solution to monitoring deliverables.

Keep a Regular Pulse on Team and Client Communication

 It can be easy to slack on internal and external communication while working remotely during busy, unprecedented times of change. It’s crucial that you stay on top of all communication, erring on the side of over-communicating if ever in doubt. Now more than ever, your internal team and external clients should feel reassured that you’re on top of all deliverables while everyone continues to navigate the new virtual workplace.

Keep Your Workspace Clean and Organized, Just Like at the Office

 Research proves that a clean, organized and homely workspace improves worker productivity and even benefits health! Pro tip: Keeping items on your desk to a minimum will help you avoid feeling cluttered by your environment. This is particularly true when working in smaller areas like home offices. Feeling unorganized and distracted by messes will likely increase anxiety, which can automatically lead to a less productive workday. We hope that these tips for productively working from home help to ease your mind and increase your efficiency. In the meantime, learn more about other ways we can help your business during these challenging times and beyond.

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