No longer having to set that 6 am alarm, not having to spend an hour getting ready in the morning, getting to tailor your office to your liking– working from home definitely sounds like a dream, but it does come with its fair share of challenges:
Managing Your Own Schedule & Time
While not having an office job gives you a lot of extra time and the freedom to get to your tasks whenever, it can blur the lines between your me-time and working hours. There’s less structure to your schedule and it’s easy to fall victim to the enemy of many: procrastination. The solution to this is pretty obvious: you have to bring back that structure and stick to that schedule! For example: you work from 9am to 12 pm, take a 60-minute break, then work from 1pm to 6pm! Making yourself accountable is definitely a major key! Check out other tips on beating procrastination in our article here.
Distractions
Working alone, for the most part, means zero eyes watching you. This also means you’re susceptible to many distractions; getting on social media, online shopping, playing video games, the list goes on. When you have family around, it gets even tougher to stay focused. To keep yourself in-the-zone, it helps a lot to have a quiet, comfortable space dedicated to getting work done. Make sure you’re as far away from any potential interruptions as possible. Find out how having an ergonomic standing desk boosts your productivity and helps you stay focused!
Collaboration
Collaborating on a project is for sure one of the biggest challenges of a remote work setup; the exchange of ideas and output is just much harder to organize, especially when everyone is working in their own time. . Fortunately, there are plenty of project management software and collaboration tools like Notion, Slack, and Trello that help remote workers keep the team aligned and accountable!
Monitoring Performance
When you can’t physically see your coworkers or team members working, it’s more difficult to know whether everyone is being as efficient and productive as possible or not. In this scenario, it’s important that specific and measurable key performance indicators are in place!
Staying Motivated
Working from home means lesser supervision; when you’re not around your colleagues, the pressure to get things done is eased. To get out of that demotivation rut or to prevent it, it’s important that you know what works for you and what fuels your motivation. This should always be your starting point. For example, if you feel extra motivated the more tasks you complete, divide your to-dos into smaller chunks so they’re faster to accomplish.
Detaching from Work
Once you get used to working out of office, you eventually associate your home to that of the atmosphere at work. In a sense, it becomes more challenging to find that line between work and the time for relaxation. Though seemingly harmless at first, it could really lead to a burnout. The best way to go about it is to set reasonable daily targets and priorities. This way, you know you can take that break and put the rest off for the next working day! If you’re having trouble managing priorities and urgent tasks, you might want to give The Eisenhower Matrix a shot!
To Conclude
Making remote working work for you definitely requires some trial and error, especially because for so long; it wasn’t really the norm. Standards, routines, and effective communication are essential to fostering efficient work from home environments!
What work from home challenges did you face in the past or are currently facing? Let us know @harmoni.desk on Instagram!