What are the tips for working from home during coronavirus lockdown?
Working from home during the coronavirus lockdown might be an unusual thing for many people. It’s a new normal, and some people do not have much experience or advantages on their side to working from home, at least at first.
I’ve been working from home since long before the lockdown, and I have been trying to help anybody interested do better with their online income goals, plus, more importantly, work-life balance.
Here are seven tips on working from home during the pandemic, and probably afterward since if you do this right, you will lose any motivation to stick with a typical 9 to 5.
And yes, although I don’t like the term much, these should also help increase productivity, along with just making WFH more fun.
#1 Still dress for work:
Unless it’s a uniform for a place since you obviously don’t need to be wearing that if you’re not working there. But if you wore business casual at your workplace, wear the same stuff when it’s time to work the grindstone at home.
You’ve gotta be able to put down the Netflix and cheese fries and get to work. More importantly, you need to be spending a lot of your time every day, as much as you can, learning and getting experience in stuff you haven’t ever done before. That means cold messaging people who might be good network friends, even if it scares you. Or showing up for a live stream even though you’re afraid of the camera. Stuff like that. Working from home can be fun, in fact, it can be your dream come true. But it’s not quitting work, or living a vacation. Dress up like you always have for work, and absorb that energy and emotional momentum that you have connected to those clothes. By being used to wearing them, you will subtly feel better prepared for this new online gig of yours. It’s certainly more inspiring than working in a snuggie or sweatpants.
I’ll stop here before I make even a bigger hypocrite of myself. 😉
#2 Decide a specific place to set up for work:
Set an office area. It can be your bedroom, but it’s not ideal in the long term. There’s something about being constantly one large belly-flop away from your bed that really sucks out your mojo.
Set a distinct home office, and do not allow any funny business inside. No eating lunch in there, no TV, maybe even no internet, and you can just work and transfer the files you need via pen drive to a social, deliverables and such computer, maybe a laptop. I did this for a while.
Don’t work in bed. Not just laptop usage, but anything, even just live voice recording. It’s ergonomic suicide. In fact, I even recommend a standing desk, but one step at a time.
#3 Set and adhere to your hours:
You should clearly define your working hours in such a way that it’s impossible not to mess up. It’s often seen, when working from home, a person becomes flexible in working, able to work “whenever I want.” Be careful this doesn’t actually mean “I am constantly on call and never relaxed.” I generally crunch my work time into sprints, maybe once a week making a bunch of content for several hours straight. It just works better than tinkering day after day. In any case, just make sure you work according to the office hours you set.
#4 Take short mini-breaks on every half-hour for something easy, or every ten minutes for something hard:
The breaks should be pretty short, you’re still working overall. Since there are more distractions at home than at the office, spending time with your loved ones during breaks, IF you can tear yourself away from them to get back into the game. If not, don’t let yourself do those things until work time is completely finished. That applies to anything you feel like doing during the breaks.
#5 Don’t get worried and distracted by covid news:
Yeah yeah, we get it, it’s a difficult time. Most people are ready to just do something about it, to reshape their careers or even their whole lives so that they come out of this more successful. Unplug from all but the news most essential to your goals and industry, and keep your mindset positive.
It’s okay if you like the news, but ideally, it’s only for researching something that can expand your business or work opportunities.
#6 Communicate with your team/office members and socialize:
Working from home brings in a lot of challenges with communication. Try to establish some kind of meetings and discussions occasionally with your coworkers, subordinates, boss, whoever. Communication needs to be more deliberate, clear, and frequent because people aren’t all in the same office building or room anymore. Also, with proper precautions, go out, socialize, and relax. Don’t forget communicating with the most important people to you outside of work.
#7 Exercise and Stay Healthy
Sitting for long hours, staring at a screen, and focusing on work can have ill effects on your health in excess. Don’t use the lockdown as an excuse to be sedentary, stressed, and overwhelmed. Exercise helps a lot in setting healthy habits in other areas of life and making yourself more effective. Not productive, effective.
You don’t have to become a greek god or goddess, just do exercises like basic isometrics, Yoga, or sprinting, just something physical and challenging. Then, also implement some non-exercise but tiresome outdoor activities, like gardening, going for a walk, playing a sport, etc. Within the limits of your area and its restrictions, of course.
In addition to the above tips, you can also explore the Knowledge Base section on my website, where I share many useful tips on working from home, finding or creating opportunities to make money online, and lots more.
Feel free to reply if you have any questions.
Good Luck!
Thanks,
Cleo
