Amidst the pandemic, many of us have been social distancing and staying at home for the past months. Work has moved in our homes as well. How can you achieve a productive work from home day?
Working from home might sound great, but it has its challenges. Since you’re working and living at the same place, you need some sort of separation between the two for a healthy work-life balance and better productivity.
The author Tim Ferriss said: “If you win the morning, you win the day.” – Tim Ferriss. If you’re looking for productive ways to start off your workday at home, keep on reading.
Here are 7 morning habits that will help you set up for a productive work from home day!
Drink water and splash water in your face
Actually, this one’s for everyone, whether you’re working from home or not.
Do it as the first thing in the morning, to completely wake you up. Wash your face to wash away your sleepiness and drink a big glass of water to wake up your body.
During your sleep, your body repairs itself and gets rid of toxins in the body. Drinking a glass of water on an empty stomach helps to flush out these toxins. Besides, it also helps ‘waking up’ your organs.
Let natural light in
Open up the curtains, roll up the blinds and let the natural light come in in the morning!
Natural light will help you to be more awake. And when you’re more awake, you’ll be more productive.
Lighting is an essential factor in staying focused, feeling inspired and boosting your work from home productivity. Natural light also helps to control your body’s Circadian system.
For cloudy days or when it’s still dark outside, you can use natural light bulbs, like Philips Hue. With Philips Hue lights, you can control the light’s color and brightness from their app or remote control.
Dark spaces and bad lighting can cause eyestrain, fatigue, headaches and depression.
Besides, it’s good for your eyes to look at something at a distance every 20 minutes – look outside your window!
Get moving or stretching, preferably outside
Get some sort of movement in the morning to wake up your body and get your blood flowing!
Because there’s no commute when you work from home, it’s even more important to get some sort of movement before you start working.
Even a quick 5-minute walk around the block will reset your mind and make it feel like a ‘short commute’, helping to separate home life from work life.
Ideally, you do something similar at the end of your workday as well.
If you don’t have the option to go outside, get moving inside with a home-workout or yoga session. Any type of movement is good to improve your work from home productivity.
Eat a healthy breakfast
Breakfast is the most important meal of your day, so don’t skip it! It’s not just to get your metabolism running, but what you eat in the morning affects your whole day.
Your food impacts your work from home productivity. Try to avoid sugary cereals or spreads, because that will make you feel tired. Too many carbohydrates, especially refined carbs, like bagels, toast, and muffins will lead to a crash and burn.
Choose protein and fiber-rich foods. Some healthy breakfast options for a productive day include eggs, avocado, berry fruits, oatmeal, (protein) smoothies, bananas, and yoghurt.
If you don’t have time to make breakfast in the morning or want to make your morning easier, you could prepare overnight oats in a jar in advance.
Get dressed
It’s very tempting to stay in your pajamas or cozy clothing all day when you work from home. But a productive work from home day in your PJs….? I didn’t think so!
Changing into regular clothes will put you in a more productive and ‘serious’ mindset, instead of being lazy in your pajamas. It is also more efficient in case you have to go out to run an errand or have to jump on a spontaneous video call.
Dress for success and elevate your outfit and productivity with a watch, like the Myrna watch from Thümm and Co. It has an easy to read silver dial and a tan genuine leather strap. And from now ’til the end of the year, you can enjoy a 20% discount !
By wearing a watch, you don’t have to check your phone for the time and then get sucked into notifications, apps, etc. It also allows you to see the time even if you use computer programs in full screen. Turning on full screen creates a distraction-free environment and helps you to focus better on your work.
Plan your day
Have a plan of action for the day, so you can do targeted work instead of scattered and unimportant tasks.
Don’t keep your plan in your mind only, but write it down to get it out of your mind. As David Allen says in Getting Things Done: “Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.”
Write down your top 3 tasks that you need to finish that day and how much time you approximately need to complete each one.
Seeing your watch on your wrist while you’re working, reminds you to stay on track of your plan. The more you keep to your plan, the more you can enjoy your free time outside of work.
Organize your workspace
If you don’t have space for a dedicated desk, clear out the dinner table, kitchen island or any other ‘table-like’ place. Using your sofa as your workplace, will not only decrease your productivity – it also causes posture-related health problems.
Be sure to distinguish clearly between eating and working by taking off all of your work stuff from the table when you’re not at work and vice versa.
If you do have a dedicated desk, keep it organized. When you see chaos and disorganization, you will feel chaotic and disorganized.
During the day, your workspace will get cluttered by using it. But start each day fresh, and give yourself a few minutes to tidy and organize your workspace.
Read also: 15+ Helpful Things You Want In Your Work From Home Setup
Let’s get started and have a productive work from home day
Staying productive while working from home is quite the challenge. But working from home also has its advantages.
Since you don’t have to commute, you’ll have more time to spend on activities you enjoy. However, to truly enjoy your free time, it’s important to let go of your workday.
The more productive you are during your working hours, the more you can enjoy your free hours! The morning habits in this post, help you to start off your day on the right foot and set you up for a productive day working from home.
