Productivity impacts your company’s profitability and affects the balance between home and work. Perhaps you are already following productivity advice such as allowing ample time for restful sleep and dressing up to get yourself in the right mindset. Yet, these steps alone may not be enough to produce the level of productivity results you want or need.
More than that, they are not suitable for all entrepreneurs who work from home. Everyone who works from home can prosper by boosting productivity, but each person may benefit by taking different steps. It is necessary to analyze your normal workday activities and to pinpoint the challenges you are facing.
One step that may be applicable to many people is to develop an effective scheduling. With a schedule, you can consistently follow productive routines and manage your time better.
Here are a few other important steps you may take to further boost productivity while working from home.
When you run a company out of your home, you need to maximize every minute for peak efficiency and greatest productivity. Some people feel sluggish during the morning, and this can impact performance throughout the workday.
Find a simple routine that energizes you to set the structure of your workday. When repeated, it will become a habit, so you will always start your day the same way.
Fight fatigue with upbeat music and simple stretches by the desk. Or, you can take a brisk walk in your neighborhood and conduct a team briefing at the same time.
Consider mixing pleasure with business before you sit down to perk up. Another idea is to eat a protein-rich breakfast, so you do not go through an energy crash shortly after. Add a cup of coffee or caffeinated tea to your breakfast if you woke up tired. While you are eating, get started with your workday by reading emails or reviewing your schedule for the day.
It is better to devote the morning reinvigorating yourself than to spend several hours being lethargic and unproductive.
While many people can be more productive working at home than in a traditional office environment, it is not always the case. When you work from home, you are free from constant intrusions from an overbearing manager. But, your home environment may have personal distractions, such as disturbances from family and friends.
Home-based company may also incline you to do chores in the middle of the day, such as running a load of laundry while you are working. Distractions from clients and employees are usual. If you manage a team of remote workers, the primary method of communication between your team includes instant messaging.
The constant ding of messages can be upsetting when you are trying to focus on an important task in front of you, but it is more disruptive feeling the need to respond to each message you receive right away.
With a schedule, you can specify the time to respond to emails and chat messages at designated times each day. You need not reply to all messages right away. You can even mark your availability on a chat platform as “Do Not Disturb” or otherwise unavailable.
If you have the habit of opening your email every few minutes, use the snooze feature in the program to control the habit. You will likely have a different schedule each day. With this in mind, it is wise to create a new schedule at the end of each workday for the next one. Give yourself the flexibility to reschedule tasks, but embrace this organization to induce productivity. How else will you know how much time you need to get a task done?
In your daily schedule, block time at regular intervals to respond to communications. No matter how urgent an email may seem, the following part will help you find a true value of your tasks.
Many entrepreneurs struggle to rank their tasks. If this group includes you, you may feel as though everything is essential and must tackle it all at once. This creates needless stress for you, and it also makes you less productive.
When you are creating your schedule for the following business day, ask yourself this question: “What’s the ONE Thing I can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?”
This is the task to focus on in your day. Remember that this should be the single item on your to-do list that only you can do. Sometimes, it will make other tasks obsolete, or it may enable you to delegate stuff to your employees. Thinking about the one thing will get you on the right track.
Regardless of the size of your business, you must create reasonable and thoughtful goals for yourself. These may be goals for the day, the week or the month. Periodically, you will need to review your progress to make sure that you are making headway. Hold yourself accountable for meeting your goals as you would your employees. If you manage a team, set goals for them and follow this same procedure.
Keep in mind to divide the goals into short-term, mid-term and long-term projects. You need to find the steps necessary to achieve the goals and create a proper timeline. More than that, you need to find the most-suited team member for completing different tasks. Sometimes, outsourcing will emerge as a smart idea.
Project management tools keep people on track and watch their progress. Because everyone in a team can check progress, it is an excellent way to help your team stay accountable. Use team meetings to share company goals with your team, and delegate tasks. Communicate who handles what and what time they have to carry out the goal. Accountability plays a direct role in efficiency and productivity.
As beneficial as working from home can be, many entrepreneurs with a home-based business struggle with performance. Your abilities to get the day off to a great start and to work as efficiently as possible are essential to achieving productivity improvement.
Name your most significant challenges and use these tips to make thoughtful improvements in your daily work activities.
Author Bio: Michelle Laurey produces stories on finance, entrepreneurship, and productivity. Always interested in ways which can help individuals reach full potential in life, she loves sharing her thoughts. She is a virtual assistant for a few small businesses. Outside her keyboard, she enjoys a good book, healthy food, and bike rides. Reach out to her on Twitter.
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