Working from home is a trend that has only recently been introduced into the corporate lifestyle however it is one that has quickly caught on thanks to its many advantages! However, while working from the comfort of your home might seem like an excellent idea, it does come with a few caveats.
Many people who start working remotely from their homes often complain about reduced productivity, lack of communication with their respective teams and of course the difficulty of time management and maintaining accountability. This is why today we are going to tackle all these 3 problems and hopefully provide you with a solution that can help you take advantage of working from the comfort of home without feeling like you’re falling behind your colleagues.
- Lack of Productivity
Now, this is more often than not the biggest concern among people who have chosen to give up on their desk life and instead work from their homes. The major problem here is that most of us associate our home with relaxation and comfort and thus find it difficult to concentrate on work while lounging on the couch or even lying down in bed. Now the best way to get on top of this is to have a designated workspace. Maybe a separate desk or a table, doesn’t really matter what it is as long as you get into the routine of sitting down there for the duration of your working hours. Now, many people have already done something like this but still find it difficult to get their work done as something or the other keeps distracting them. This is why having an organized desk is super important as it helps in concentrating your mind on to the task at hand and keeps your focus from wandering off somewhere else.
- Lack of Communication With Coworkers
Staying away from the office premises for a long time can often result in feeling like you have dropped out of sync with what your co-workers are working on and can often lead to communication issues. The easiest way around this is to hold regular staff meetings over Skype or some other video calling application where you can effectively talk to your team and make sure you are on the same page. While it is true that nothing can really substitute talking to someone face to face, having an instant messaging service like Slack for the workplace makes sure that you are always up to date when it comes to the latest work updates.
- Maintaining Accountability
Deadlines can be hard especially since they have a sneaky habit of coming up right behind you when you least expect them to. Add that to the fact that working from a more comfortable environment like home often leads to a more laid back attitude when it comes to working, and you can easily fall into a situation where you are constantly having to play catch up and push harder for deadlines than you had to from your desk job. The best way to combat this is to bring some self-accountability to your daily workload and maintaining to-do sheets which you tick off as you complete your assigned work through the day.
—
At the end of the day, working from home is all about keeping yourself motivated and if you like your job, it isn’t that super difficult! Of course, following these three simple tricks should boost up your productivity by a ton, but at the end of the day, it is on you to make sure that you get your work done no matter if you are working from a desk or a couch inside your living room. Having said that, working from home is a wonderful opportunity, and I’m sure that most people if given the choice, would choose to work from the comfort of their house rather than endure a daily commute as well as an office environment!
