Productivity Tips when Working from Home

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Summary

1. Set yearly, quarterly, monthly, weekly goals. Without goals you have no path. There must be a clear target. What must happen this week. What are we after this week? You must know what you want. No clarity, no change…no goals, no growth. Workplace doesn’t matter.

2. Friday Finisher list – must happen by Friday. This is set by Monday. All must be completed. Non- negotiable. Completed for the week and the year will fall into place

3. Block time – Each project is blocked giving you structure which gains you freedom. It is not as constraining as you might think. 35-50 minute time frame in high performance studies. Don’t do anything else but that project. No email, social media. The more committed to this you can be, the higher level of success you will have.

4. Hourly breaks – 50 minute timer to take a short break, water, food, exercise 2-5 minutes. Highest producers take a break every 52 minutes. Doesn’t matter how long the break is. But pushing through doesn’t let you recharge and you have brain burn. Nothing great comes from extended work.

5. Family scheduling – Bring everyone on board with the weekly schedule to be able to know what might come up or who needs support. This sets up everyone for success at a higher level.

6. Interruption rules – When is it ok to interrupt and how does that look? Set the boundaries…how should they engage with you when they must interrupt? It must be consistent and follow the rules.

7. Meal Prep – corporate you have scheduled lunch. At home you realize at 3pm you have not eaten and so you eat crap in the pantry. You must do meal prep so that when you open the fridge there are healthy options. Do this on Sunday and stock up on healthy stuff so you feel better. Diet and sleep are the wins that anyone can do and can impact you more than anything.

8. Scheduling email and social media – Don’t let this overtake your day. Schedule your time for social media so that the rest of your day is work and productive reaching towards your goals. At home it is easy to check the socials all day…don’t let this happen. 30 min a day = almost a month of work days by the end of the year.

9. Significant afternoon break – work hours tend to be later at home. So, taking a large break of up to an hour to take a walk or meditate to recharge

10. Do whatever you can to schedule less meetings. – They are typically non-productive and the important items get dropped as meetings are exhausting. What is crucial to get done that will move you forward. Meetings should not matter and are not productive. Email can typically suffice. More meetings does not = more productivity. Especially at home as it is too easy to take a break and digress after a meeting. Focus on your weekly goals.

Full Transcript

Hey, I am Leigh Wilson and this is Focus Forward Business Design. So, I wanted to touch on something that seems to be coming up quite a bit, and let's face it, it always comes up. It’s all about productivity. Something that we thought was going to change and hasn’t, and that is people working from home. It kind of seems like that is going to be the way of the future as these businesses are realizing that they can have employees working from home, and they are just as efficient or even more efficient than they were in the office. And of course, there is less overhead.

But then I hear, 

“Well, it is really hard for me to work from home.” or

“I am not set up to work from home.” or

“I get all these distractions like laundry and kids.” 

You know all those things.

So, I wanted to touch this whole month on the subject of productivity, but for this week I wanted to jump in and give you just a few little pointers on how to maybe work from home a little bit better. Because like I said, this is probably not going to change.

The first thing that you need to realize though is that you have to have clarity on what your goals are, whether these are your weekly goals, your monthly goals, your quarterly goals or your annual goals, which you should have all those set. Those do not change whether you are working at home or you are working in an office. You have to have clarity or you will not move forward. So again, that doesn’t change. It takes a lot of mental strength to work from home. I know that. So, it’s really important that you know exactly what your goals are for the week to get done. The rules are the same at home as they were at the office. Okay, it’s common sense. You need to make sure you’ve got the yearly, quarterly, monthly and weekly goals. Without a goal you do not have a path. There has to be a clear target. 

What must happen this week? 

What are we after this week? 

What are the 10 things you must get done? 

Because with no clarity, we have no change. The workplace doesn't matter. 

You have got to have a Friday Finisher list. What does that mean to you? Well, I want you to know on Monday, what has to happen this week. These are non negotiable things. They have to be completed for the week because if you do this every week, your quarter your year, it’s all going to fall into place. You are going to be absolutely shocked. But if you are just working from a to-do list, or you are just randomly going, yeah you are right, those distractions at home are really tough to compete against.

Next thing, I want you to block time. I know you have heard of blocked time, and people say, “Ugh, it seems so restrictive.” But, it’s not. What I am talking about is I want every project that is on that top 10 for the week, that area has to be blocked on your calendar. So for example, let’s say that you are writing a new course. You need to block out time to do that. Block out time to check your social media. Block out time to check your email. Block out time that is uninterrupted time. Every project is blocked because that gives you structure that will actually gain you the freedom you think you are not going to get if you block this time. It is really not as constraining as you might think it is. You are looking at 35 to 50 minute time frames. All the high performance studies show this: if you can block out that amount of time, you will succeed at an extremely high level. Don’t do anything else but THAT project. No email. No social media. The more committed to this that you can be, the higher level of success you are going to have in your overall picture.

Okay, the next thing I want to talk about is taking breaks. Those hourly breaks. You need to be able to take a break every 50 minutes, maybe 75 minutes for you. You will know what works for you. Get water, get food, do a little stretching, whatever that looks like for you. It doesn’t have to be a long break; 2 to 5 minutes. It’s been proven with millions and millions of high producers that take a break on the average every 52 minutes. Again, it doesn’t matter how long that break is. It can be very short. But pushing through doesn't let you recharge, and you get brain burn. Nothing great comes from extended work. You need to be able to reset.

Next, family scheduling. Bring everyone on board with the weekly schedule to be able to know what might come up or who needs support. This sets up everyone in the family for success at a higher level. You need to know what could go weird and how you can step in and support somebody. But, we are talking about working at home so there are kids, there are dogs and spouses or whatever. So there needs to be some rules here for interruption. I’m just going to call them interruption rules for lack of a better word. When is it ok to interrupt and how does that look? Now I am talking about at home, but honestly if you are in an office, this shouldn’t look any different. you still need to have those rules in place. Set the boundaries. How should they engage with you when they must interrupt you? Those rules have to be consistent though. They have to be followed, and you have to train people. You are not going to have to tell them once or twice. You are going to tell them 30, 40, 50 times especially if you are dealing with kids and spouses. You have to set those boundaries though. They know that from this time to this time, you are going to be writing, and you are not going to come out of that room. But don’t worry, you are okay! Then you will take your break and they will get to see you.

Alright, next thing, and this is really important when you are working from home - meal prep. When you work corporate America or maybe in an office, you may have a lunch hour that's kind of set so you know that you are going to lunch and sometimes you go with coworkers. That lunch thing is kind of already built into your brain. People that work at home tend to work longer hours, that’s just how it is. A lot of that might be because you take breaks, you take your kid to soccer, you do whatever. But you tend to work longer. So, it’s really important that you have things already prepared, you’ve got some healthy options. Because what’s going to happen at home is that you are going to look at the clock and it’s going to be one o’clock, two o’clock, maybe three o ‘clock and you are going to realize you have not eaten. So, you open the fridge, there is nothing in there so you turn around and eat the crap in the pantry. You know you do it. We all do it! You must do that meal prep so that when you open the fridge there are some healthy options in there. Do this on Sunday and stock up on the healthy stuff so that you feel better. Diet and sleep are the wins that anyone can do and they can impact you more than anything else that you do in your week.

Alright, here’s the big one, and I am going to get some push back on this: Scheduling your email and social media time. It’s easy for us to step in and let everybody else’s agenda or their social media activities rule our lives. Don’t let this overtake your day. Schedule your time for social media so that the rest of your day is work and it is productive reaching towards your goals. At home, it’s so easy to get distracted and check the socials all day. Don’t let it happen. It is so easy to abuse this at home. Think about it, 30 minutes a day equals almost a month of work days by the end of the year. Who can afford to lose a month of productivity time? That is going to set your goals so much further back, and for what? Probably nothing. Here is what I really like, a significant afternoon break. Because again, like we talked about, if you are working from you, you are probably working longer hours than you were if you were working in an office. So, taking that large break in the afternoon maybe up to an hour, hour and a half. Take a walk, meditate, recharge, read, whatever you need to do is going to allow you to work later if you need to do that.

Alright do whatever you can do to schedule less meetings! We have all gotten in this Zoom meeting thing since the pandemic started a year and a half ago and now they are habits. We do all these meetings. But they are typically nonproductive, and the important items get dropped at meetings are exhausting. So, what you find happening and especially at home is you have a meeting and you are like, “Oh ok I am done.” You take a break, you change the laundry, you do whatever, and all those important things, especially if you do not have goals attached to them, they get pushed back. “Oh, I’ll do it tomorrow.” So, try to keep those meetings to a minimum.  The things that are crucial to get done, those are the things that are going to move you forward. Meetings should not matter and are no productive output. Email can typically suffice, and again  I know I am going to get  pushback on this. “But Leigh, I don’t see anybody anymore.” or “We don’t get together.” That’s fine. Save that for your social time. But as far as what you are doing during the day, more meetings does not equal more productivity. I know that if you look back on your calendar for the last 90 days and look at all the meetings you had that were Zoom meetings or phone meetings or whatever, you will find that you had very little productivity as a result of those meetings. We know at home it is really easy to get sucked into that, and then you digress after that meeting. Focus on your weekly goals so that you will know what has to be done by Friday.

These are just a few things that if you are still working at home and that may be an extended thing for you, it may be something that is just going to be a little bit longer, but you have got to have a system. And I know it is really tough because some of you are maybe working in an apartment where you do not have an office and you have a corner of the dining room table, and I am telling you to set boundaries uninterrupted. You can do this. Look back through these, listen to this again, write down these tips. This is your future, these are your goals that you are setting. These are the things that are going to get you excited. So, you have to make it work, and it can be a great thing because you do get to have more interaction with your family, you do get to be at home where you are comfortable. So, make it a win. Don’t make it a negative thing. 

If you like this please share, hit like and follow us. All this month we will have productivity tips, some tools and some different things for you to utilize so that you can move towards your goals further and faster than ever in the past. And remember that at the end of the day, it is always your choice to focus forward!