Your workplace may require you to work home, or your part-time side hustle or simply running your won business from home. The arrangement allows to work at the comfort of your home, minimize costs, and have a flexible life among others.
However working from home presents challenges such as getting distracted, disrupted, failing to switch to work mode, finding it hard to focus and also not having an ideal home office.
To overcome this, you can effectively work from home by sticking to a specific routine, creating an ideal home office, minimize distractions, plan you day, schedule regular breaks and stay connected with your colleagues.
Benefits of Working from Home for Moms
- Working from the comfort of our home office
- More flexible timeline during the day- it allows moms to see their kids during the day
- Keeps you closer to your family
- Easier to achieve work life balance
Challenges for Moms Working from Home
- Too much distractions and interruptions- it reduces your productivity
- Harder to switch to work mode – because of being in the home atmosphere
- Low productivity because an ideal work environment is not achieved
- Hard to focus and concentrate- too much distractions in the house
- Lack of suitable office or desk- not many have the necessary resources of a home office
Read: How to Manage Working from Home with a Child
How Moms can Effectively Work from Home/Remotely
1. Stick to a Routine
It may seem boring doing normal routine tasks such as preparing for work but this and other routines are important to keep your mind focused on work. Sticking to a routine will help you stay focused and in the right work mode. Without it, you will just drag around all day will little and no work done, probably because your mind is still in relaxing mode.
A good effective work routine is one that is based on discipline.The normal routine you would do if you were leaving for office is perfect for this. Include all would do if you were to leave for office and other things that shifts your mind from home mind-space to work mind space.
The entire process prepares your mind for work and makes the switch to work mode. To help make the switch do the following;
- Wake up early, make breakfast and enjoy it with your family.
- Take a shower, pick an outfit for the day and dress up. Dressing like you are going to the office helps keep your attitude and mentality focused on work. However, it is not necessary to wear high heels around the house.
- By the time you sit on the desk, your mind is ready for work.
- Stick to this routine on all days you are working. The discipline you gain will help you to wake up and work even on the days you feel lazy and just wants to sleep in. The routine will also help you remain productive as you work from home.
Read: Staying Focused while Working from Home with Husband
2. Create an Ideal and Functional Home Office
Your home office is very instrumental in separating workspace from personal space. Working in an office that enables you to work is hence very important. It helps you focus and avoid the challenge of losing focus and concentration.
Since you are no longer going to the office, you must create your ideal home office to ensure that you remain focused and productive. If you don’t have one already, pick a spare room and make it a dedicated office for your work. Below are some key considerations you need to make;
Tips for Setting up A Home Office
- Choose an area with natural light and free from external noise interference- It will keep you focused as you work at home
- Make sure your office has a desk, a comfortable chair, a computer, a printer and internet connection among other office necessities. These necessities enhance your comfort and replicate the office environment
- Put in a plant, a portrait or some desk decorations to give it a personal touch. Helps keep you relaxed when you are working from home
- Keep all your office paperwork in the office and not in other parts of the house. To ensure you keep the boundaries of your work from your home
- Limit access to this room, especially to your kids as they may accidentally spoil your work. It will help remain focused and minimize distractions from other people in the house as you work
- Let everyone living with you know your office is out of bound unless necessary.
3. Minimize Distractions and Time Wasters
Anyone can be distracted even though all of us have different focus levels and interference elements. Your home space many have distractions that strays your focus and prevents you from effectively working from home.
How to Minimize Distractions/Time Wasters Working from Home
- Let your family members know that you are working and you are not to be disturbed.
- Your kids may be your biggest distraction and you must find deliberate ways of managing them. Give specific instructions to your help to keep the kids away from the office.
- Discipline the family that you are not to be disturbed unless it is absolutely necessary.
- If music is a distraction rather than helping you relax, eliminate it from the office.
- Avoid social media and overusing of your phone while working at home as these cause more distractions and time-wasting.
- Dedicate an office phone if you have to and only give your attention to personal calls on your breaks.
- Don’t take unnecessarily long breaks either.
- Be disciplined to stick to your time allocation for everything.
- When working focus on work, and once you are done, you can use this time to catch up on family or social media to your satisfaction.
- Resist the temptation to work from the couch or even your bed for that matter. Work from the home office to shift your mind space.
- Don’t entertain guests. It is tempting to have guests call in but remember they are a distraction if the visit is not absolutely necessary. Arrange for guests to come on a weekend or an afternoon if you do part-time work at home.
Read: Top Time Stealers you Should Avoid when Working from Home
4. Plan out the Day Activities
Like I have emphasized you can’t win without a plan. Even your work needs planning and without one, you are a target for distractions and time-wasting when working from home. Be keen and layout your daily plan every morning before you even start working.
- The simplest way is to list all tasks you intend to accomplish for the day.
- Categorize them on their importance, urgency, ease to complete and time required to complete.
- Consider all the necessary factors as needed to prioritize the tasks. There are tasks that you must complete before others and so they have a high priority. For instance you must prepare your presentation before attending a virtual meeting.
- Once you have the list of your tasks, prioritize them based on more urgent tasks, and of high importance and handle them first. It will help if you break up long tasks into small chunks to complete them faster.
At the end of the day, do a self-assessment of your days’ work. Check out your plan and compare it with what you have achieved.
- Were you productive today?
- Were you able to complete all your tasks?
- If not which tasks were not accomplished?
- What are the major reasons why this was not possible?
- How could you improve on your work for tomorrow?
The answers to these questions gives your assessment a focus to help keep you motivated and keeping track of your work . It also makes it easier for you if you will be reporting to your boss on your progress. Even if you are not employed but working on your business it is a form of accountability and discipline that will see your work excel.
5. Schedule Regular Breaks
Research has shown that humans are more productive in completing a task when they take breaks in between work. Likewise, create a break schedule that will help you rejuvenate and become more productive. Even if you are working from home, you also need breaks.
For instance take a tea break or even two if you feel you need to. Grab a healthy snack while you are at it. Take enough time on your lunch break to regain your energy and focus. This is one of the greatest advantages of working from home and you better take it.
Also remember that a break is a time to get up from the chair, stretch, and take in some fresh air. Check up on how your kid’s day is going, and check out on your spouse. Talk to someone and rest your mind and body for more work again.
Do not overwork yourself. You will get fatigue and your productivity will go down. Don’t work unduly long hours than you would have done at the office. Working from home is similar to working from the office in terms of the commitment that you give your work.
Breaks are not a threat to productivity while working from home. You need breaks from work for you to re-energize and resume working. Failing to take breaks only takes the toil on your body and your productivity. You will find you are too fatigued to work and hence do not get any work done anyway.
Read: How to Set and Enforce Work Boundaries
6. Stay Connected with your Colleagues
Working from the office is made fun by the sharing, collaboration and communication between colleagues. The opposite is the biggest downside of working from home. However you can replace the lack of physical connection by staying connected on the digital space. Working from home is no excuse to stay away from your colleagues.
You need to do regular checkups on team members and share in your progress.Don’t lose the collaboration and socialization of the office just because you are working from home.You need the other colleagues’ input and other colleagues need you too. If you run your own business instead, allow and enable everyone on your team to stay connected virtually.
There are so many virtual platforms such as Zoom, Google Meet and other live platforms that allow individuals to hold video calls, collaborations and update each other on their progress for free. Make sure you attend the scheduled virtual office meetings even the optional ones. They will help in aligning your team’s vision and goals together.
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