As the world continues to adapt to the ongoing pandemic, majority of employees still find themselves working from outside of the office. Similarly to being in the office, though, there are still distractions that can plague productivity at home. One way to combat remote disturbances is by establishing an area in your home as a designated work space to hone in on what’s important and keep out what’s not.
The ability of humans to separate their work and personal lives while working at home is what separates the productive from the unproductive in terms of remote work. While still going into the office, it’s ever so present, so why not finish up some last-minute tasks before heading home for the evening? As opposed to working exclusively from home, more home-based chores have the possibility of coming up and disturbing the remote workflow. The laundry basket is piling up, so why not throw in a load during work? Being unable to balance work and leisure activities is often cited as the most difficult aspect of working from home.
The accompanying infographic, How to Create a Productive Workspace, emphasizes the importance of establishing a work space at home that deliberately attacks some of the productivity inefficiencies you may face from the common distractions. Whether that be clutter that has piled up over the course of the work week around the house, a chair that doesn’t seem to support your body right, or lack of necessary technology to finish work in a productive manner. A possible suggestion being to create a workspace that is reminiscent of the desk you primarily occupy in the office. A large house makes it easier to turn a spare room into an office or to set up or even build an office in a physically isolated part of the home, but there are ways to create a quiet, private home office even in a small home or apartment.
An equally important note, as briefly mentioned earlier, is the mental separation of home and work. This means that despite primarily working from home, you must be able to separate the important home chores from the necessary workflow. Yes, there might be a TV nearby, perhaps there’s some cleaning around the house that can be done, or you could even get a head start on dinner. In order to continue to succeed from working from home, however, you must be able to stray away from the home-based distractions in some manner. Thus, the importance of establishing a productive work environment from home.
Continue reading the infographic, courtesy of Deflecto, for more tips on how to create a productive home workspace.