Working from Home: How to stay Productive and Mentally Fit

After spending quite a while in our home offices, most of us will have learned that working from home comes with unfamiliar challenges. As someone who has been working from home for a great deal of time, I’ve experimented with a variety of working methods that improve productivity and balance your mental health.

So, if you actually should be working right now but ended up opening this article due to a lack of motivation… Keep reading!

Start with a Productive Working Environment

Normally, your home is a place of relaxing. As soon as you go into working mode, your home transforms into a source of unfulfilled tasks like loads of dirty laundry and yesterday’s dishes. So make sure your home desk is faced away from your home, preferably towards a window. Sufficient natural lighting stimulates productivity and creativity. Don’t forget to place a plant or two and your home office is good to go.

Still, there are more distractions in your home that are unfavorable for your concentration. If you have children at home it’s important to set boundaries. Make sure they will not disturb you at your desk. Then again there are people who miss the background noises from a working environment. With noisli you can compose your own background sounds that will help you achieve that optimal focus you’re looking for.

Recreate your usual Morning Routine

The main difference between working from home and working at an office is the morning routine. You can achieve the same productivity by recreating your usual situation as much as you can. Set a daily alarm to a fixed time, go shower and put on your working outfit. After breakfast, leave your house and walk to work.

Obviously you’re not actually walking to your office. Instead, make a small round around the block and go back home. This might seem odd to do, especially if it’s raining. Nevertheless it’s wise to do this. If you keep on doing this consistently, you’ll realize that this morning walk will help you switch from a relaxed mindset to a productive working mode.

This is how you Manage your Home Office Day

Start your day like any other day at the office. Let’s say you usually begin your day with a small chat with one of your coworkers. In this case you could plan a daily call with a colleague or a friend. Chances are that many people from your inner circle are also working from home and are craving a bit of social contact to start their day.

Working from home means you are your personal Project Manager. A carefully-thought-out planning is essential when working from home. Finish your day by planning the next one. This way you don’t wake up to any surprises. Besides that there is another important advantage. By making time estimates and evaluating them later, you learn during what times you’re more productive.

For me personally it took a long time before I truly began to see the value in this. Since I started looking at myself through the eyes of a Project Manager, one of the things I learned is that my productivity plunges after lunch. Now I use this time for a short walk or work-out. The time I lose doing this I eventually gain back, since I’m a lot more productive after these short breaks.

Learn from your Distractions

How many times a day do you pick up your phone as some sort of pointless reflex? You’re definitely not alone in this. Your brain isn’t designed to focus for hours on one single task. As soon as things get too complicated it starts looking for a distraction. You’re actually just craving a short break. Instead of scrolling through your instagram feed for a minute or ten, you might want to give yourself a proper break at this point. In fact, this is the perfect time to switch to a mindless task, like doing a load of laundry. The perfect chore to reset your mind.

But beware of these ‘small’ tasks. Your house is full of them, so you’re going to have to learn to deal with these distractions. You’ll keep on getting thoughts like: “I haven’t cleaned my oven in such a long time.” But just like a teacher doesn’t run off in the middle of a lecture to go water the plants at home, you shouldn’t do this while working at home. What you should be doing instead is writing these ideas on a Post-it, so they don’t keep sticking in your head.

Mental Health in the Home Office

When working from home for a long period of time, one of your greatest challenges is to stay mentally fit. A struggle I personally had in the past and one that many people are facing now (New York Times). Your productivity in the office can not be compared with the one you have at home. The capacity of what you can achieve on a home office day can vary tremendously. A textbook example of a productive day, can be followed by a complete lack of motivation the next morning. This is not weird at all. Working from home is a whole new ballgame.

Home Office ≠ Office.

As a matter of fact I’d advise you to start seeing it as a new job.

Since you have:

• A new working place
• new co-workers
  (spouse, roommates, etc.)
• a new job description

A job description that is a lot more elaborate. It starts with your usual tasks and responsibilities and on top of that you are now also your own Project Manager, your Personal Motivator, that person you have to ask for feedback real quick, the receptionist and you might even run your own daycare center.

So don’t be hard on yourself if you don’t achieve the same productivity as you would in the office. Instead you should apply the golden rule of selfcare.

Be as empathic to yourself as you would to others.

At first you might not feel the extra stress this situation brings. Even if you don’t seem to be feeling extra stress it doesn’t hurt to take some steps to lower your level of stress. Exercise and meditation help lower your stress level. Things that you normally wouldn’t do at the office. Your home office however, has a lot less barriers. And though it might seem as a waste of time, it allows you to be more focussed the rest of your time. Try to learn to detect the signs that tell you it’s time to recharge.

Compensate the lack of social contact by taking micro breaks in which you take the time to call someone up. A short phone call can help you both get through the day. They’re probably experiencing the same absence of social interaction.

Long story short

Try to recreate your morning routine and working environment as much as possible.

Evaluate productivity at home so you get better in planning your work.

When you feel you’re getting distracted easily it could be a sign to take a break.

Working from home is the perfect situation to start experimenting with recharging moments. Have a quick work-out, meditate, go for a short walk or call one of your friends.

Being less productive at home is normal, don’t be hard on yourself.