If you want to maintain success throughout your career, it’s incredibly important to constantly remain productive daily. And that brings its challenges, even in normal working conditions. However, when you factor in the current coronavirus pandemic, this becomes even more difficult.
Most of us struggle with maintaining productivity when we work from home. After all, being at home means dealing with constant distractions, especially if you live with other people in your household. With that in mind, we’ll go over everything that you need to do to remain productive, both in a home office and beyond.
1. Importance of Pleasure
People often believe that work and pleasure are mutually exclusive. In a superficial way, that’s not illogical. After all, work is something obligatory, and something you have to get through to move onto the truly pleasurable activities in your life. Regardless of how much you love what you do – it’s still not free time, but a chore.
However, that doesn’t mean that there’s no pleasure to be found in working. In fact, pleasure is one of the main prerequisites of productivity. In order to be truly productive (especially at home), you will need to make sure you’ve got the most pleasure-inducing work environment. Luckily for you, we’ve got a few tips on that right here!
2. Pleasurable Work Space
This is essential to maintaining productivity. If you don’t have a specific work station that you can call your own, there’s not a lot of work that will get done in a hazy environment. And we’re not just talking about having a proper desk or a study. For instance – many writers spend a lot of their careers looking for the perfect workspace in their homes.
While a lot of them realize that this is a matter of finding the best possible desk; many find writing in bed the most pleasurable. And that’s not a sign of laziness or anything to be ashamed of. It’s only important to find a place that will be the most conducive to your productivity.
3. Mitigating External Distractions
Sadly, if you constantly getting distracted by other things, chances are you won’t be very productive. So, you should think about the times and situations when you’re the most distracted during work hours. Then, try to eliminate some of these sources of this nagging. These days, many people find that being online is a major source of distraction, regardless of their careers and professions.
Think about it – how many times have you sat down to work on an incredibly important and time-sensitive task, only to be swept up by a Twitter thread or an interesting Instagram feed?
Not to mention all of the never-ending series of intriguing YouTube videos or Reddit posts. And just like that, entire hours have passed by, and you haven’t done any work. So, if you don’t need the Internet for your work – we recommend shutting off WiFi for the duration of work hours. Sure, this may seem overly harsh; but it certainly works.
And don’t worry, if this isn’t an option because of the nature of your work, there are other options as well. You can find plenty of productivity apps for your browser and your phone. These apps serve to block access to any websites that aren’t specifically related to your work. That way, you can use the Internet to the extent you need it while working, but for nothing else.
Of course, not every distraction comes from the Internet. Sometimes, there are physical distractions that limit you from working to your fullest potential. In that case, you should try to physically distance yourself from any of the distractions.
Try to visit a coffee shop and work from there, or generally leave your home. Naturally, this is something of a general piece of advice; in the current global health climate, you may not be able to leave your home, or it may not be advisable. However, you should still try to switch things up to avoid getting stuck in a rut.
4. Treating Yourself
Now we arrive at the perhaps most important piece of the puzzle when it comes to connecting pleasure and productivity. From time to time – you simply need to treat yourself to remain productive. Yes, this may seem a bit childish.
In reality, even adults require some short-term satisfaction to finish a big project or assignment more efficiently. If you go too long without enjoying yourself during crunch time at work, you’ll begin to lose sight of what you’re working for in the first place – and that’s yourself. You can’t do many things that you don’t enjoy at the same time; for instance, fasting and diets are something that should take up your free time, not your working hours.
So, make yourself a proper timeline that includes some “treats”. Be it some online shopping, a couple of hours of downtime staring into the TV, or just a self-care day devoted to relaxation; you need it from time to time. And be sure to leave a nice, big treat for the end of your work timeline, so that you’ve constantly got something to look forward to while you’re working. Sure, this may seem infantile; but it’s guaranteed to work if you find yourself lacking motivation.
5. Social Distancing
In the COVID-19 era, “social distancing” is one of the buzzwords used by people to illustrate how the virus should be contained. However, in a different sense, this is also important for your productivity as well. When you spend a lot of time working, it’s always nice to get a text or a phone call from a friend, or your spouse and child.
However – if you spend too much time interacting with people unrelated to your personal life during work hours, your productivity is bound to suffer. That’s why we recommend setting clear boundaries with people in your life, and explaining to them why your work hours need to be respected in terms of communication.
Obviously, if there’s some sort of big emergency that you need to tend to in your personal life, people should still be able to reach you. But apart from that – leave the chit-chat for after work hours.
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