Technological advancements, gig work, and our current global pandemic mean that a lot more people are working from home. Perhaps you’re thrilled about this, or perhaps you’re terrified. Either way is reasonable.
A central workplace gives you a regular schedule, coworkers to talk to, and a boss to hold you accountable. At home, you get none of those. Instead, you get self-accountability, social isolation, and unlimited distractions.
This shouldn’t sound scary, this should sound like an opportunity. If you do great work, communicate effectively, and hit all your deadlines, you’ll prove that you’re able to self-manage and self-motivate. If your production falls off, you could prove that you need to be supervised and you have a hard time adapting to change.
Drawing from my own experience as a manager of remote employees, as well as a writer working from a make-shift home office myself, I’ll share my best advice on how to stay motivated and focused while working from home. Once we return to normalcy, you can use the skills gained and responsibility you demonstrated through this experience to help develop your career.
1. Review Your Career Goals
The first step in staying motivated is to figure out why you should bother being motivated in the first place. To do this, you need to reflect on your career goals, make sure they’re relevant and inspirational, and figure out how your new work arrangement can help you achieve them faster.
For instance, one of the perks of working from home is fewer interruptions. Hypothetically, this means that you should be able to get your work done in less time. So how can you use that extra time to move towards your goals? Maybe you can take free courses through Coursera or edX to gain the skills you need for a promotion. Or maybe you can draft a project plan that solves a problem in your organization.
Relevant and inspiring goals are the ultimate self-motivator while you’re working from home. Be sure to sort this out right away.
2. Plan Your Day
Planning out your day gives is a foundational step for self-accountability. The structure of a central workplace makes this a veritable no-brainer, but when working from home, it’s easy to slip into ‘go with the flow’ work habits.
Without a plan, you’ll work ‘reactively’, meaning that you’ll just do the work that comes your way, without thinking about the future. The best-case scenario is that you successfully do the bare minimum that’s expected of you. The worst-case scenario is that you fail to prioritize effectively and miss an important deadline, or fail to foresee a problem and end up causing a bigger one. Instead, you want to work ‘proactively’. Consider what you can do to help keep projects on track, or what new problems await you when you return to the office and how you can resolve them.
The simplest way to do this is just using an agenda, a calendar, and an Eisenhower Matrix. Schedule in start times and breaks, prioritize your work based on importance and urgency, and set self-imposed deadlines. Be sure to include time to connect with your coworkers, as well as time to consider how you can help your team navigate challenges over the coming days and weeks.
A common perk of working from home is the ability to control your own schedule. While this increases the temptation to sleep in or put off your work, it also gives you the ability to take advantage of your most productive times. Determine when you do your best work, and then set a regular work schedule around that time. If you’re a morning person, then wake up early and get started. If you’re a night person, take it easy in the morning and plan to work later. Not everyone has that freedom, but if you do, take advantage of it.
3. Get Dressed
The idea of wearing your most comfortable outfit all day is incredibly tempting. The first thing I do when I get home from work is change into sweats, so the thought of never having to wear pants in the first place sounds wonderful. And why shouldn’t we? After all, no one is going to see us right?
I’m sure you’ve heard the advice about getting dressed while working from home before. And as it turns out, there’s actual research behind that advice. According to Dr. Karen Pine, Fashion Psychologist and Professor of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire:
“when we put on an item of clothing it is common for the wearer to adopt the characteristics associated with that garment. A lot of clothing has symbolic meaning for us, whether it’s ‘professional work attire’ or ‘relaxing weekend wear,’ so when we put it on we prime the brain to behave in ways consistent with that meaning.”
In short, if you wear your ‘lazy’ outfit, you’re more likely to feel lazy, which means you’ll be less productive.
I’m not suggesting you put on a full suit or do your full hair and makeup. For me, having a shower and changing into jeans and a sweater is enough to make me feel like I’ve truly started my day.
4. Schedule Phone or Video Calls with Coworkers and Supervisors
Working from home means fewer distractions, but it also means more isolation. This gets hard for introverts and extroverts alike. Given that this article is coming out while we’re all in pandemic-induced quarantine, we can’t even get together with friends and family to make up for it.
To make sure you stay motivated, productive, and connected to your work, build regular networking into your weekly schedule. I suggest maximizing your connection by using a video-conferencing service like Zoom or Slack, but if you don’t have access to those, a phone call works great.
And remember, this is something that benefits the person on the other end of the line as well. Don’t feel like you always need to have something important to talk about. A simple check-in from time to time is a healthy boost for everyone involved.
5. Take Breaks to Exercise
Office work is harmfully sedentary, and it gets worse when you’re working from home. For instance, the minimal walking you do around the office and maybe the coffee shop is now gone. You have everything you need within the relatively small confines of your home. For example, I experimented with a Fitbit a couple of years ago and I can recall taking about 8,000 steps in a day at the office, and around 1,500 on days I stayed home.
Quarantine notwithstanding, I don’t suggest making a trip to the gym in the middle of your workday. The time you’ll spend traveling to the gym and back turns a one-hour workout into a two-hour endeavor, and that’s going to be prohibitive for most of us.
What I do suggest is a home workout routine. There are many free workout programs on YouTube, I’ve done some from the Bodybuilding.com channel and they’ve been phenomenal. If you don’t want to do that, just set some goals around simple exercises like sit-ups and pushups. If it gets your heart rate up, it’ll help.
Along with the benefits for your physical health, exercise is also great for your mental health. Exercise stimulates the chemicals that improve your mood, reduces stress and symptoms of depression and anxiety, and activates the parts of the brain responsible for memory and learning (source).
6. Reward Yourself
One of the perks of working from home is that you’ve got everything you own within reach. Your kitchen, your bathroom, and perhaps troublingly, your living room. The temptation to take a break and watch TV or play videogames is going to be strong, but that’s not necessarily a problem. You can use your temptations as motivators by running a personal reward system.
Do this by setting milestones for yourself. For instance, you can pledge to complete an assignment, then take a break and watch an episode of Star Trek (my ideal reward). Just don’t be unreasonable (1 hour of work does not equal 2 hours of TV time) and be sure to hit all your deadlines! These types of ‘micro-rewards’ can go a long way towards keeping you on track, making you feel accomplished, and giving your mind some relief.
7. Set Up a Dedicated Workspace
In order to stay focused while working from home, you’ll need a space that feels like work. The best option is a dedicated home office with a door that closes, and if you have one, great! Unfortunately, most of us don’t have a dedicated office (myself included), so just choose a relatively quiet spot you can set up to resemble a proper workspace. This could be your kitchen table, a guest bedroom or a desk in your basement.
According to MattressClarity.com, you should avoid working in bed. This is because your mind associates your bedroom with sleep, so you’ll often feel tired and want to take a nap. If you work in the bedroom too often, your mind will start believing it’s a workspace, and you’ll have trouble falling asleep as your mind buzzes about work stuff.
You’ll also want to keep ergonomics in mind. When you work from the couch, bed, or sitting on the floor, you’ll feel fatigued as your body thinks it’s time to relax, and you’ll get back and shoulder pain from slouching or leaning (source). You’ll be your most productive self if you get a proper computer chair and you sit-up straight.
If you have an actual home office, you can dress it up like a real company workspace. For instance, you can display your career achievements and awards, diplomas and certificates, and branding from the company where you work. The more the room feels like work, the more connected you’ll be with your work, and the more likely you are to stay focused.
8. Set Ground-Rules with Family and Roommates
You wouldn’t expect family and roommates to interrupt you while you’re in a meeting at your central office, and the same should be true when you are working from home. You solve this by setting some ground-rules around quiet work time.
When it comes to quiet times, some folks make it about the time of day (“no interrupting me from 8–12 pm and 1–4 pm”) and some make it about the workspace (“no interrupting when I’m at my desk”). Choose which works best for everyone in your home, and since we aren’t robots, plan to be a little bit flexible.
I advise you to avoid common areas where the rest of the family hangs out, as it’s nearly impossible to enforce quiet time when your partner and kids are going on about their day. Besides, their lives have to go on, so it’s not fair to ask them to walk on eggshells to accommodate you.
I recognize that a lot of people have their children at home with them right now, and it can hard to manage them and your work simultaneously. I’m not a parent myself, so I have no advice for you. However, the folks at Livescience.com put out a good article that you can see here.
9. Set Break timers
Break timers can help motivate you to push through your work and avoid procrastination. By giving you something to look forward to, it makes it easier to leave your phone in the drawer and leave your web browser closed.
And along with the motivational push to do a good chunk of solid work, it also pushes you to pull yourself away and give your mind a break. And while many of us announce it with pride when we’ve worked through our breaks, there’s a lot of science showing that taking frequent breaks actually boosts our productivity (source).
Fortunately, there’s a simple formula. Scientific studies show that the best way to maximize your productivity is to work for a solid 52 minutes, followed by a 17-minute break (source). Just set a timer on your phone and you’re good to go.
A manager’s advice to everyone working from home during the #COVIDー19 crisis:
— Chris (@ChrisjBergen) March 22, 2020
Do the best work of your life. Produce more, hit all your deadlines, communicate frequently.
When this is over and you want a ‘Work From Home Day’, you can say “Remember how well I did back then?”
Closing Thoughts
Working from home is not going to be the same experience for everyone. For those of us who are accustomed to solo project work and conference calls, the biggest changes might be around how to manage our kids and pets. For those of us who work in more collaborative environments, you may need to make serious changes to your mindset as well as the way you do things.
Studies show that working from home can increase productivity, but whether that happens in your case is up to you. Without planning and accountability, the added productivity can melt away from the effects of isolation and a lack of motivation. But don’t be afraid — you can thrive so long as you make plans, take care of your mental and physical health, and take a flexible mindset.
Good luck, and I wish you good health over the coming days and weeks!
