How To Be Productive When Working From Home

SET UP YOUR SPACE

Much has been made of the benefits of clearing a room to create a home office. Sadly, not many of us can magic an extra room in our flats at will. Try zoning off a part of your kitchen table and only sitting on a certain chair when you work (I recommend an office chair, unless you want to leave 2020 with a hump). Try to work somewhere out of view of distractions, like the telly, your phone or your boyfriend. Buy some equipment to make your life easier: laptop stands, pen pots and the like can be bought surprisingly cheaply and make a world of difference to your life, as does a WiFi booster if your internet is as temperamental as your boss. Finally, put everything to do with your job in a drawer (or a shoebox, if space is an issue) at the end of the day. I also like to go for a short walk; a kind of tiny commute ‘home’ and away from ‘work’. Trust me, it helps.

COMBAT ISOLATION

The virtues of Zoom have been extolled to an almost religious extent (unless yours is a maverick company that uses Teams, in which case: I’m sorry). As we all know to our cost from those lockdown quizzes, however, the amusement factor wears very thin, very quickly. Colleague camaraderie is a big part of office life and one of things I have missed most. If you can, try to set up a quick coffee with a friend at least once a day, or walk to your local corner shop and have a chat with the owner. They will find you strange initially, but warm to you as time progresses, especially if you wear entertaining pyjamas at least twice a week.

GET DRESSED AND GET OUT

I said wear your pyjamas twice a week, not all the time. Getting dressed (and properly; I don’t mean athleisure) does wonders for your thought process and your productivity. Put on jeans, put on a skirt, put on a damn ballgown – just don’t sit in a festering heap of old tracksuit bottoms and your ex’s questionable jumper. If you find this too difficult to achieve (we have all been there), give yourself the challenge of being up and out of the house by 8.30am, even if it’s just to walk around the block. In the absence of physical deadlines to keep, you need to make your own.

LUNCH IS A THING

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a man in possession of a good job must be in want of Pret. When I started working from home, I gave up a good lunch every day in favour of whatever I could scavenge from a fridge with rapidly dwindling supplies. It was not worth the £5 saving. Lunch is an excellent way to boost your spirits, a midday marker some of us can’t go without. So don’t: if a tuna mayonnaise baguette is your poison and puts you in mind of productive days at a desk, make the pilgrimage to your sandwich shop of choice. If you are usually a meal-prepper, rejoice in the fact that you need no longer heat up your delicious offerings in a sub-par office microwave. Make lunchtime special and your days will drastically improve; you will also be less tempted by an afternoon snack. Oh, and don’t fall into the Netflix-at-lunchtime hole: you will emerge at 4pm, hating yourself.

My final tip? For goodness' sake, stop talking to the cat. If you can master that, you're on your way to WFH success.