How to Boost Productivity When You Work from Home

Also known as… Tales of the Sleep-Walking, Work from Home, Business Owner

Sooo, to start I will make a confession about one of my work from home habits… I never, ever have worked in my pajamas! Never, not one day.

Now, is this a bad thing? Not necessarily. Is it judgmental of others who do – ‘cause I know you are out there, you Pajama working fools! No. It simply means we have different work habits. The key is making sure you employ habits that help you be productive and get the work done.

As for me and my No-Jammy rule – I simply am one of those people no one wants to talk to unless I have had a shower, breakfast, and coffee. It’s actually dangerous!

I am a deep sleeper and when I wake up I need these steps to actually be fully awake. In my work day – or any day really – it is impossible for me to get from point A (My Bed) to point B (Life) without having a shower, breakfast, getting dressed, AND doing my hair AND then the coffee.

How bad is it?

This past weekend my 17-year-old son comes upstairs around 10 am and I mentioned to him that I will drive him to work around 11. He looks at me wide-eyed and says, “Are you serious?”

“Yes”, I replied, “You need to get to work on time.” (We are sticklers for the kids getting to their jobs 10 -15 minutes early).

He shakes his head, “I was up at 4 am throwing up, I feel like crap and talked to you in your room in the middle of the night, and you told me to call in sick to work. So I did. ”

Eyes wide open, I was trying to remember this conversation, but nothing is coming to mind. “At 4 in the morning? I wasn’t awake.”

“Yes you were,” he insisted, “We talked about it, you told me to remember to brush my teeth and rinse my mouth and said to call in sick in the morning. Don’t you remember that?”

Nope, nada, nothing. As I said I am a deep sleeper (Marco is continually insisting he is up with the dogs in the middle of the night, but I hear nothing – truly, I don’t hear it!). I finally agreed, we could have spoken, but I wasn’t awake, not really.

To be truthful, I didn’t believe him until I checked my Fitbit sleep record and saw that at about 4am, it had recorded me as being awake not asleep! That’s when I finally agreed we may have spoken during the night!

Anyhow, my point of the story is that for me to be productive at work, I NEED to wake up, shower, eat, do the hair thing, get dressed and then grab a coffee on my way to the office down the hall. Without this step, I could never make the work from a home office routine work.

There are always different routines and habits people need, but in looking up some pointers on being productive while working from home, here is a list of the top ideas I found, many of which work for me.

1. Start your Day YOUR WAY. Discover what start of the day routine works best for you. You need to take working from home seriously, so make certain to be disciplined on how you start the day. This helps you shift from just being ‘at home’ to ‘working at home’.
2. Set a schedule and calendar for listing out your daily activities, your to-do list, and be sure to tackle the items on the list. Planning to do the harder to do work at your most productive time of the day (you need to get to know when this is) helps you accomplish more.
3. Take an hourly break. This is key to staying productive and active. Studies have shown that a break that allows your mind to relax and not think too much is very important. My hourly breaks are 10 minutes and I like to do things like make a coffee, grab some meat to defrost for dinner, prep a part of your dinner, sit outside for 10 minutes and throw the ball for the dogs, get the mail at the mailbox down the street, do some on the spot desk-exercises, or throw a load of laundry in (mental note: use another break to move it to the dryer or the clothesline so you can be 1 step closer to “doing laundry”. My husband, Marco says “doing laundry” is not just throwing it in and leaving it in the washer til he comes home. 🙂
4. Talk to people. This can be hard working from home. I have some friends I might chat with on Skype, or Facebook during my breaks. I really don’t feel like I work alone because of these connections.
5. Have boundaries. This is important for family and friends who will assume you really don’t work like you would if you were in an office. Many people have a hard time with this and setting your boundaries to keep your work time for work may be needed. I screen my calls and if family or friends call during my work day, I will let voice mail get it. They all have my cell to text if there is an emergency, but for chit chat calls, that is reserved for after work. My kids finally get this after 8 years, and they get the benefit of me working from home. I have often threatened to ‘find a job’ and they are scared because they know that means the extras they get from me working from home, would disappear.
6. Get out and Network. Yes, outside the home office. This can be networking events or even a lunch date. I read one article on this topic that suggested you have a lunch date weekly with someone. This is a neat idea I have been contemplating. I am not interested in coffee dates where people are trying to sell you something, but a simple coffee date or lunch date to meet and chat is a great idea. This is something I never considered, and think it is time to start. (So, for anyone out there in Dartmouth – Halifax, if you want to go out this month, email me and we can set up a lunch date!)
7. Set a finish time to your day. This can be hard especially if, like me, you block out family/kid time in the day, but even if you do this, set your times to work and make sure the family knows it. This makes it less stressful for everyone and you will see fewer pulling of the strings to get you out of the office when it really is ‘work time’.

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