Dr. Gleb Tsipursky – The Office Whisperer
Nirit Cohen – WorkFutures
Angela Howard – Culture Expert
Drew Jones – Design & Innovation
Jonathan Price – CRE & Flex Expert
- Working from home often means contending with an environment that is full of distractions.
- The absence of direct supervision and presence of colleagues can reduce motivation and accountability, making it easier to procrastinate or deviate from completing tasks.
- We came up with nine helpful tips and products to ensure you’re helping yourself stay focused and be productive while working from home.
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Working from home presents a unique set of challenges that can make it difficult to maintain focus and productivity. The blurred line between personal and professional life in a home workspace can lead to distractions, such as household chores, family members, or even the temptation to indulge in entertainment options like television or social media.
The absence of direct supervision and presence of colleagues can reduce motivation and accountability, making it easier to procrastinate or deviate from tasks at hand.
Want to stay focused on work but don’t know how while working from home? No problem: Here are nine helpful tips and products to ensure you’re helping yourself stay focused and be productive while working from home:
1. Use an online scheduler
Sometimes you need help to ensure you’re staying on track while remotely working. Keeping a journal with assignment due dates, writing down meeting times on a whiteboard, and more are common strategies, but it’s key to take advantage of software specifically meant to organize your tasks and make work easier. Keeping track of scheduling meetings can be simple.
Calendly is a cloud-based scheduling software company that offers users a simple way to schedule appointments and meetings. The software offers various customization options, such as scheduling rules, availability settings, and reminder notifications to help users streamline their scheduling process.
2. Set yourself up with a project management platform
Keeping an online team of workers on the same page is difficult, which is why task management softwares exist. Many companies who have remote and hybrid workers utilize work management platforms. These tools make it exponentially easier for workers to keep track of priorities and assignments.
Monday.com is one platform that offers a range of features that enable businesses to streamline their project management and collaboration efforts, including customizable project boards, task tracking, time tracking, and team communication.
3. Buy an ergonomic chair or desk
Working from home often means contending with an environment that is not ergonomically optimized, which can lead to physical discomfort and diminished concentration as well. Getting a back support cushion for your desk chair, or an ergonomic chair or desk can help.
Ergonofis, for example, has a range of products that includes ergonomic standing desks, ergonomic chairs, monitor arms, and other accessories that promote better posture, reduce strain on the body, and increase overall comfort.
Flexispot also touts a product line that includes height-adjustable standing desks, desk converters, desk bikes, and ergonomic accessories such as monitor arms and footrests. These products are designed to promote movement and flexibility throughout the workday, which has been shown to improve energy levels, reduce the risk of musculoskeletal disorders, and boost productivity. Read our reviews of some of their products.
4. Consider noise canceling headphones
While music may help some workers to focus and be more productive, there are a great number of workers who are distracted by sound. Wearing earplugs isn’t always an option, as workers have to often listen to things on their worker computers.
Luckily, noise canceling headphones block out distractions and can boost focus with the right music. These MOVSSOU headphones get great reviews. If you want to splurge on more, then check out these JBL headphones.
5. Use a door hanger that indicates availability
Much like a “do not disturb” door hanger that you’d use in a hotel, there are similar door hangers that you can use for your home office if others are at home when you’re trying to focus.
If you have little ones in the house who tend to enter your home office often at inconvenient times, you can let them know that you’re busy/in a meeting by putting a simple sign on your door handle.
Check out this pair of door hangers.
6. Reward yourself with your favorite sweet treats
Now if you really need to motivate yourself to get your tasks done, you could try pavlovving yourself. This is an enjoyable and viable way to get your work done, and entails giving yourself a small treat every time you get a task done.
What better motivation than candy or chocolate? Check out these popular sweet snacks: Giant assorted candy, or if you’re feeling too guilty for that, go for chocolate-covered almonds that’ll give you an energy boost and reward in one.
7. Get proper lighting
A home office needs to be the right environment to get work done in, and it’s staggering how many distractions there are within the home.
But ensuring that your home office is properly lit is essential. If your blinds are closed and it’s dark in your office, you will be more prone to getting sleepy and possibly even taking a nap.
If you can’t have your curtain open for one reason or another, check out this lamp that has 3 lighting options and comes with charging sockets: Aooshine Bedside Table Lamp.
If you like lighting that can be changed to any color, check out these LED strip lights or these color-changing floor lamps.
8. Start using a Wifi extender
When Wifi is slow, so is work productivity. Luckily, there’s a useful option for improving connectivity; This small Wifi extender and signal amplifier penetrates walls and floors and extends Wifi to every corner of your house.
9. Add a blue light computer screen protector
It’s no secret that staring at a screen all day can cause eye strain and even headaches. The culprit is blue light, which is a light wavelength that is emitted from our phones and computers.
One solution is to put a blue light blocking screen protector on your computer that will reduce eye strain and fatigue, allowing for better concentration. Here’s a popular blue light blocking screen protector for a macbook.
