Working from home, a dream come true or a time management nightmare?
All over the world, COVID-19 has forced professionals to exchange their office for the kitchen table. This causes quite a bit of turmoil. One person hardly gets any work done because it’s ‘bring your kids to work-day’ every day, another one gets stuck because assignments have been dropped and uncertainties arise. While a third person gets more done now that meetings and appointments are canceled and the chatter of colleagues has faded out.
On Twitter a guy named Phil observes that he just had a Zoom call that ended automatically after 40 minutes because the organizer was on a free tier. “I would pay extra for this feature!” , he jokes, calling it: “the greatest advance in meeting productivity ever’.
Risks of working from home
Under ideal circumstances, working from home can boost your productivity. However, there are some risks: such as blurring boundaries between work and private life, the tendency to multitask and difficulty switching off from work.
When working from home, you might as well do laundry, right? And when there are no meetings to attend or colleagues to talk to, you risk spending far more time behind a screen than is ergonomically sound. Online meetings and consultations use more energy than in person meetings, leaving you drained and exhausted. And if you’re living in financially insecure circumstances and/or in close quarters with your spouse and children, stress levels can easily go through the roof, making it hard to focus.
Whatever challenge you face as a remote worker structure and daily routines can help you navigate these challenging times.
Some tips from our time management course:
- Start your day with a regular morning routine: get up on time and practice primary self-care (and family care). Start work on a set hour. Reflect first on what you would like to do that day, before checking your mail or engaging in other work related activities.
- Keep your to-do list short. It’s better to focus on one to three really important tasks, and getting them done, than have a long list of items that you just “didn’t get around to”.
- Do your difficult tasks first or as soon as possible. The more energy you lose, the more difficult it is to focus. The same applies to your housemates.
With the online time management training course you will learn proven techniques to boost your productivity and experience less stress, even when working from home.
