Tips for Working From Home During the Covid-19

We believe that many of you have thought about working from home. Now, as Covid-19 spreads around the world, many companies have to work from home. I used to think that working from home is equivalent to making money easily at home. However, the most important thing about working from home is self-discipline and ensuring work efficiency.

Working from home may be easier than going to the office, but self-control is a must if you want to work efficiently from home, so how to work from home effectively? Here are some tips to make sure you can concentrate on effective work at home.

1. Prepare Office Equipment

If you are required to work from home, then you need to prepare the equipment needed for work. Such as monitor, keyboard, mouse, chair, printer, etc. At the same time, you also need to install the necessary software in advance to improve work efficiency. For example, when you need to process a large number of PDF files at home, you can use a free online PDF Compressor to reduce the size of your PDF file easily. In this way, you don't have to spend time installing software when you are working.

2. Find a Suitable Place to Work

There is no need to decorate an office for working at home specifically, but there must be a comfortable place for working, such as a dining table, even in the kitchen. The place you choose should allow you to concentrate on your work. Don't work in bed. This will make you develop an incorrect sitting posture.

3. Clean Up the Working Environment

When you are doing some complicated work, or the project is not progressing, the clutter on the table can even affect your work efficiency. So you'd better organize your work environment before work, and don't put anything unrelated to work on your desk. The computer desk can only put the computer, mouse, keyboard, notepad, and pen. You can put a glass of water to remind yourself to drink at any time. It is also good to put a pot of green plants or a small fish tank, which helps to concentrate on work and relieve visual fatigue.

4. Keep Your Appearance Clean

Although colleagues who work from home cannot see your appearance, this is not a reason to let yourself go. Paying attention to your appearance will not only hint that you are working, but also help you adjust your thinking mode and get into work faster.

Although working from home is not like working in an office, there is no need to wear formal attire, the dress should still be clean and neat, and don't wear pajamas. At the same time, you can put on a simple makeup to get yourself into work better and avoid the embarrassment of sudden video conferences.

5. Set a Working Schedule

One of the most common mistakes made by working from home is procrastination. You need to make a schedule for yourself every day like normal work. With a schedule of work and rest written on paper, it will be easier for you to get to work more easily. Every time you complete a task, you will feel a sense of accomplishment when you see the items you have ticked off. Then you will be more motivated to complete the following tasks. So we need to make a work schedule and arrange the work in each period.

If it's a team project that requires communicating with colleagues while working from home, you'd better add a supervisor to your work tasks when you set a work schedule. You need to report your progress in time so that you can effectively improve procrastination. After all, this is not your job, but a collective job.

6. Take a Break

If a person works for a long time, it is difficult to maintain concentration and the results are not necessarily good. Many people work from home for hours, but later they discovered that only the first period of time was the most efficient. Therefore, it is necessary to take a rest during the long working hours. The working environment at home is more flexible than the office, so you can arrange some rest time. For example, working in 45-60 minute chunks of focused work followed by a short break, then you can have an afternoon tea or to walk around the room during the break time.

7. Keep in Touch with Your Colleagues

The biggest challenge of working from home is the decline in management and communication efficiency. When we are working from home, we cannot communicate face-to-face with colleagues. The connection between colleagues is only a network cable. The superiors cannot arrange work quickly, and the subordinates cannot report to the leader in time. Collaboration between colleagues has become a big problem.

In this situation, one of the main ways people socialize while working from home is to use the business messaging application like Slack. If your team uses a group chat platform such as Slack or Skype, keep it on and turn on message notifications. In this way, you will feel closer to everyone and will not miss team discussions and important latest news. Learning to use these apps that you can keep in touch with your colleagues easily.

8. Improve Your Professional Knowledge

This period of working from home has brought a lot of inconvenience to our work. Although the company cannot organize group training, it is still an excellent time that should be used to improve ourselves.

During this period, in addition to planning the time to finish our own work as soon as possible, we should also make good use of this time to systematically summarize and improve our professional knowledge. We can find some good training materials on the Internet to improve our working ability.

9. Avoid Social Media and Other Distractions

You will encounter all kinds of interference when working from home, which is usually not encountered in the office. Sitting in a comfortable chair at home, open social software, video software, or various applications like Facebook and YouTube, it is easy to waste your time.

You can consider installing some applications on your phone to keep you away from time-wasting applications. If you share your home with other people, explain to them that you need to stay alone while you work. Ask your friends to minimize calling and texting and keep your phone silent during your working hours.

10. Schedule Physical Activity

In order to keep healthy and energetic at work, it is recommended to schedule physical activity when you work at home. Sitting at your work area for hours every day will eventually lead to fatigue, lack of motivation, and disinterest. So you need to do some physical exercises. Exercise at home doesn't require a lot of exercise equipment. You can do some sports like rope skipping. It's even necessary to take a 15-minute walk after lunch.

Conclusion

With the tips we provided above, we hope you can work at home more efficiently. If you have better tips, please comment below or contact us.