5 Tips for Working from Home

If you’re like most of the world right now, you’ve probably found yourself at home with your laptop and work files. You might be feeling a little uneasy about how you’re going to navigate the next 2 weeks (or longer). To complicate things, if you’re a parent, that means your kids are likely at home too. So how do you successfully work from home with all of these factors in play? Here are a 5 tips to make the most of your days at home.

1. Workspace

Find a space within your home that is solely your “workspace.” This means it shouldn’t be the kitchen table if you’re planning to eat there as a family every night (although score one for family meal times!!). It also shouldn’t be a room that the whole family easily congregates to on a regular basis.

Find an extra room, or at the very least a corner of a room, in your home that you can claim as yours. Before you even begin, set up this space for success. Have your files nearby, get your laptop all hooked up, make sure you have paper, pens, and general office supplies that you might need. This will help you from wasting time searching down that stapler that’s hiding in the junk drawer.  The idea is to keeping concentration high and interruptions low.

2. Schedule

During your normal workday in an office, you have a typical flow to your day. Working from home shouldn’t be any different. Keep in mind that your schedule will look a little different, but it’s still important to keep structure to your day so you are getting everything done.

·         Set a start time – give yourself a time you’re going to “start work” and keep it.

·         Breaks – you probably break more often at work than you think. Schedule these too. Maybe a mid-morning coffee, lunch break, and an afternoon snack or walk around the block.

·         Set an end time – Whatever time you sign off at the office should be the time you turn off your laptop at home.

Schedules aren’t just for you. If kids are at home, they need a schedule too so they don’t need to keep asking you what to do (see #3). A sample schedule could look like this (you pick the times):

·         Breakfast/Chores

·         School time

·         Creative – legos, drawing, painting, building

·         Lunch

·         Play outside

·         Screens

·         Snack

·         Reading

·         Dinner

·         Family TV time or Family Games

·         Bedtime

3. Manage expectations

This is so important if you have kids at home. You are home, they are home – they want to play with you! By all means, make some time to do that. No matter when you choose do it, keep it consistent so they know what to expect. This is true for your schedule as well. Let them know when you’ll be available and how you want to be notified if they need something. Can they just walk in? Do they need to knock? What should they do if you’re on the phone? What should they do if there’s an emergency?

The number one thing you should take away from this post is this: expect interruptions. They WILL happen. Every day. More than you want. You will feel frustrated by this. But as one of my favorite authors and speakers, Jill Savage, has said, “Motherhood is the ministry of interruptions.” That goes for fatherhood too. And tripled if you’re working from home. But I promise, it can be done!!! It may just take some time for everyone to get used to this new plan.

4. Minimize distractions

One of the hardest things about working from home is seeing all the things that need to get done at home staring right at you. When you’re at work, you can be blissfully unaware of that pile of laundry or the dishes that didn’t quite make it into the dishwasher last night. But now they are there, reminding you that they need to get done. This is the number one thing I hear from people who wonder how I work my business from home.

Make that Breakfast/Chore time that you set up for your kids your Chore time too. Get the laundry started, drop the dishes in the dishwasher (better yet, assign those things to the kids to keep them busy!) And use the breaks you’ve built into your day to do one thing per break time. This is not the time to decide you’re going to purge the linen closet. Simple tasks like filing a few papers, switching a load of laundry or wiping down the table are perfect.

5. Get dressed

Yes, I know. This seems like the perfect opportunity to stay in your pajamas. Don’t do it. I promise you’ll stay more motivated if you put real clothes on. You don’t have to grab the pant suit, but at least change out of your loungewear. Keep that sense of routine! It really does make a difference – less temptation to grab a book and climb under a blanket (a very real distraction for me!!!).

I know this is unchartered territory for many of you, but I know you can do this!! Reach out if you need any assistance in making it happen.