For many of us the prospect is starting to ring very true that remote working may become a permanent fixture in our lives – whilst this was seeming to be the case as far back as March, the benefits are being seen more and more and many businesses have begun to make the permanent shift, this may mean that you need to set up something a little more sustainable at home if you had only been planning on a temporary shift. So what preparations need to be made and how can you ensure longevity in your new home working environment?
Your home office and routines – The most important thing about working from home will be creating a space where you’re able to concentrate and stay on task, one of the bigger challenges to overcome at home is the many distractions around you. The best bet is to pick a part of your home that you don’t frequent often, that’s perhaps a little out of the way and set up your office there – a space that you only go to for work and don’t spend any leisure time, that way you know when you step into this room you’re at work, and once you leave it’s back to free time. Along with this comes building a similar work routine for home – this may involve getting up and dressing smart as if you were going to the office, following much of what you would do if you were going to the office – it’s more important whilst working from home to build these habits to ensure you can stay motivated at home.
Removing distraction – Similarly to setting up in a different part of your home, it’s just as important to remove any distractions. An example may be in your mobile device usage, during the pandemic there has been a surge in new users to online gaming services despite changes to initiatives such as Gamstop aiming to reduce participation options for players, despite this a growing number of services here are readily available, similarly with different sites and services on your laptop or PC it may be worthwhile to self restrict access particularly whilst you’re at work to ensure you don’t get distracted – there’s plenty of services out there to put temporary restrictions during work hours, and it may be worthwhile to utilise these.
A good work life balance – It’s so easy to get stuck in the routine of working longer hours and not stepping out of the ‘office’ whilst at home, similarly it’s just as hard to never really get in the groove of working and find yourself distracted each day. To combat this it’s important to keep a good balance – take your lunch break, when you leave your home office make sure that’s you leaving work for the day and when you enter your office similarly ensure thats you starting work for the day, keeping a good balance will prevent burnout and keep you on task as much as possible.
