Working from home... You are your rituals!

Rolling out of bed, settling into the comfy sofa and popping open your laptop with cosy clothes on… living the dream! For most, working from home looks like this in the beginning, but as time goes on you start to face the challenges of keeping yourself motivated and focused. Your rituals have changed and you don’t realise the impact this is going to have on your productivity.

Rituals play a huge role in setting us up for work, waking up, having breakfast, rushing out the door last minute, sitting in traffic…

All of these things contribute to a routine that puts us in a state to work, purely through habit and conditioning. When these rituals get disrupted, it’s easy to become unfocused and can sometimes throw our entire day out of sync. Let’s take a quick look at some of the quick, simple rituals and habits you can implement on a daily basis to make your time as productive as possible.

1. Build a routine that doesn't care what side of the bed you woke up on.

Without your pre-work rituals, it’s very easy for life to blend into work and vice-versa. It’s crucial that you take time to “switch on” otherwise you could become easily distracted. No one enjoys being a busy fool and working for ten hours and having achieved nothing (we’ve all been there…).

First of all, identify your previous work rituals and identify which one’s you can still do, and other one’s that you can adapt. 

• Instead of driving through Costa, make yourself a good coffee at home (you’ll save a tonne of money too!).
• Listen to podcasts in the shower to replace the time listening to the radio on your commute. 
• You got dressed for work didn’t you...so do the same at home (yes… you reading this in the fluffy dressing gown).

Whatever it may be, the important thing is that you continue to practice and refine it to turn that morning ritual into gold. 

2. How do you throw a birthday party for Earth?

You PLANET!

I know this is not new to anyone but I can’t express enough how important planning is. Having a rough shopping list of things you need is so much more productive than going grocery shopping and buying things that you don’t need or worse...forgetting to buy milk! So I’ll say this once again, plan, plan and plan. I am not talking about having an elaborate schedule where every minute of the day including your toilet breaks are precisely calculated. I’m talking about a smart plan for the day that allows you to be productive.

With no one looking over your shoulder every few minute's for updates, this newfound autonomy can invite alot of distraction's. You want to prepare upfront to prevent this For me creating a to do list / checklist on my Trello works really well.

Over year’s I've tried a tonne of different methods of scheduling my day, but ultimately, it always comes down to some version of the same thing. I write down the three absolute must do things I need to accomplish that day, and focus on those. Simple, it keeps my focus directed in the right direction, and stops me from getting caught up in low value activities like checking my emails for no reason every five minutes.

3. Create your working environment

The environment that you are in can contribute immensely to your productivity. It should seem obvious, but having a designated area where you have all or most of your amenities with minimal distractions is where you can be the most productive. I understand that it may be difficult to do this for many people who normally don’t work remotely but there are some things that you could implement. Before I get started with work, I try to put away all of my distractions out of sight, I also make sure that I have my cuppa tea/ coffee and a snack next to me so that I don’t make the excuse to leave the desk which will lead to further procrastination. I also find having some calming piano music or white noise in the background helpful.

Some good noise cancelling headphones are arguably one of the best investments you could ever make working from home. Period. 

And lastly, avoid working in your bedroom. Set up a little station in the living room, dining room, spare room, whatever it is…. Just not the bedroom. I can talk more about this another time.

4. DO NOT DISTURB

It is VITAL that you communicate to your partner, family and loved ones that at certain times of the day you are not to be distracted. It is really appealing to just sit on the couch and binge watch Netflix with your partner or get consumed watching the news about covid-19 but the reality is, you gotta get your work done! I suggest coming up with a simple code which indicates that you don’t want to be disturbed. For example if you are wearing your earphones or a hat it means you are in focus-mode and you don’t want to be disturbed. By having that conversation with your partner or a family, it can immensely reduce distractions and increase productivity. 

5. Don’t be a busy fool! 

When working from home it can be way too easy for you to think just because you sat and worked in front of a computer for the past 8-10 hours that you’ve done loads of work... but have you? 

Have you really? 

If you honestly asked yourself this question I think you know the answer. To avoid this from happening, focus on 20% of the actions that get 80% of the results (Google the 80/20 principle!). Take the time to evaluate your typical work day and separate the high value activities from the low value activities, make sure your calendar is full doing the first, not the second.

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Overall, I hope these simple nuggets of wisdom help, most will seem rather self explanatory but I’m happy if you take away just one thing that may help you be more productive at home. 

I’d love to hear your tips, your rituals that you have implemented in the past, recent or distant, to make your time working remotely more effective!

Stay tuned for our next article, where we’ll be discussing how best to manage employees and contractors from home to ensure you’re getting the best out of your team.