March 27, 2020
If you’re reading this, you’re likely working from home during Covid-19 and you need a few #lifehacks to manage your time, keep sane and stay productive!
Since starting my business in 2014 and working full time from home, I’ve learned to implement a few key things to keep a good work/ life balance. As the majority of the UK population are now in the same boat, working from home during Covid-19, I wanted to help by sharing my best WFH hacks!
My husband is the KING of morning routines. Nobody can touch his morning routine, and rightfully so. It’s his time and it’s what gets him geared up for a productive workday.
He usually drives to the gym for a 6:30 am class every morning, but since he can’t do that right now he gets dressed in his gym gear, puts his shoes and backpack on and walks out the front door of the house down our back alley and through to our back garden gate. He then starts his morning workout in the back garden… still 6:30 am on the dot of course. ;)
For him, mentally, getting up and walking out the front door at the same time to do a workout is what gives him the best start to his workday.
Whatever your usual morning routine is, adapt it where you need to but stick to it as much as you can! It’s tempting to get lazy and sleep in when you know you don’t have to leave the house, but getting out of your routine can give you a pretty sluggish start to your day and that’s not what we want!
Even if you don’t have a designated workspace in your home, it helps to keep the area you ARE working in tidy. Free of clutter and distraction. A peaceful space that’s conducive to creativity and productivity.
Because our home is where we live (duh) and also where we work, we keep it as clean as we can. For us, having clutter around the house is distracting and if there is housework to be done, it’s tempting to procrastinate from the work we really need to be doing.
We tidy the house every night before bed. It’s part of our “getting ready for bed routine” just like brushing our teeth. It might seem excessive to some, but it means when we wake up in the morning and start our day, we’re automatically in a clean space ready to get to work.
I cannot stress this one enough! Set yourself a time to start work and give yourself a few minutes break ideally every hour.
It will also help to set yourself a lunchtime break of at least half an hour or however long you’d have normally.
During your breaks, get up and walk around the house or around your garden and look at something other than a screen. Giving your body a rest like this will do wonders, trust me!
You might not think this has anything to do with helping you work from home, but it has huge benefits in keeping your mind and body in good health.
Working from home can often make you feel cooped up and sluggish because you pretty much only walk from your bed to your fridge to your laptop to your toilet. And repeat. That’s it. If I don’t go to the gym or go for a long walk, I usually hit less than 1,000 steps per day. Unfortunately, it’s the nature of working from home!
So in whatever way you can, whether it’s a back garden workout, going for a walk on your lunch break or some other way of getting your heart rate up, implement a form of exercise into your daily routine.
I used to have my computer in our tiny upstairs box room, then it was moved to our spare room and now I’m lucky enough to have a front room in the house that’s solely dedicated as an office. Wherever I was doing my work, I made sure I literally closed the door at the end of the day. It helped me switch off both physically and mentally.
If you don’t have a separate room in your home to work in, you can still put your laptop and your physical work “locked away” in a separate room at the end of the day. Hide it from view so it’s literally out of sight, out of mind. If you use your laptop for work but also use it for Netflix (like me!) you might be more tempted but logging out of networks, muting notifications (on your phone too), hiding email alerts, etc can all help you switch off at the end of the day.
I hope you found those tips helpful!
If you’re working from home during Covid-19, comment below with one of your own WFH hacks!
I’d love to hear how you’re being creative with your workspace and staying productive during this time!
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