Let’s say you made the decision to leave your corporate job and pursue your passion, leaving no choice but to work from home (given the obvious lack of a new office space). Greetings from the club! I’ve been there for a while, and guess what? It turned out that working from home is more difficult than I had originally expected. It clearly has many benefits, but those benefits won’t be presented in a sweet, carefree, or generally cheerful way. Very much the opposite. Maintaining a steady productivity flow may be difficult when you work from home. And there are additional reasons for it. For instance, you might still unconsciously associate your home with your place to relax.
As a result, taking a quick nap on the couch in the middle of the day while you still have a ton of work to do might seem like a good idea. I guess not! Or perhaps you believe that since you are working from home now, you can put off some tasks permanently because no one is holding you accountable. You chose to be a kind person because you are your own boss. which is actually a really big mistake. OK, enough with the reasoning; let’s get to the useful information. What can you do, then, to make the most of your new workplace and schedule (namely, your home) in terms of utility and productivity? Well, in this article, I’ll put you through seven basic rules for working from home.
Read more: How to boost your productivity while working from home
Let’s get started
Contents
7 basic rules for working from home
The following are seven basic rules for working from home:
- Establish your own official working space.
- Get ready and go to work.
- Maintain a good and healthy work-life balance.
- Break your big work into smaller parts.
- Set ground rules and limitations.
- Work outside of your home occasionally.
- Go out of your home.
Establish your own official working space
Establishing your own “official” working area, whether it’s a fancy office with a door or even a seat at the dining table with a laptop, is another crucial rule for work from home success. I’ve seen every type of home office you can think of while working as a business consultant, including a foldable chair and table in a closet. The first step in creating excellent habits for a work-life balance is choosing a place to “go to work” every day, even if your “office” is simply packing and unpacking your laptop at the kitchen table. Put your laptop away in a spot where it can’t be easily reached after regular working hours if your workplace doesn’t have a door you can close and walk out after the day is done.
Read more: Easy tips on how to design your office for greater productivity.
Get ready and go to work
Getting ready and going to work is another basic rule for working from home. It might seem counterintuitive to be told to “go to work,” but when you work from home, you need to acquire a “go to work” mentality. Even if you won’t be participating in a video conference, get out of bed, dress, and get ready for the workday. That one little step allows you to mentally separate yourself from both your personal and professional lives. Additionally, this helps in changing up the routine that can result from staying home all the time. Working all day in your pyjamas may seem like fun at first, but it quickly becomes boring.
Read more: Common ways to boost your efficiency at work
Maintain a good and healthy work-life balance
This one topic (working from home) has been the topic of many books and articles, and it’s also for a good reason. Working from home means that work is constantly calling to you from other places. It calls to you like a temptress in the night. Although it’s easy to deceive yourself into believing that finishing that work in the middle of the night will genuinely allow you to spend more time with your loved ones, it is actually untrue. It is difficult to maintain a healthy work-life balance, but it is better to start off with good habits than to try to break negative ones afterwards.
Read more: How to stop feeling overwhelmed at work
Break your big work into smaller parts
Set reasonable and achievable goals. Try not to complete a lot of work in a single action. That one was one of the most unusual situations I ran into when I actually began working from home. I was only able to work on multiple tasks in short, focused periods rather than a continuous flow of steady work. It took me some time to figure out why. When there are other people around, you act differently. When people are close to one another, they produce a delicate field of energy, and just being in that field by itself can be an inspiration to go above and beyond what you normally do. This won’t occur when you’re at home by yourself, though. Because of this, you should divide your work into smaller parts using whatever productivity method you are most familiar with, such as GTD or the pomodoro technique.
Read more: How to tackle a heavy workload effectively for greater productivity
Set ground rules and limitations
A lot of people visit my home on a regular basis, including my two daughters and some other family members. I mainly work online or on the phone. I run several live social media sessions during the week and make a weekly podcast. It is important to set rules and limitations for what should and cannot happen in our home during a workday. My office door is one simple and effective method I’ve used to accomplish this. Come inside if the door is open. You are welcome to interrupt me. Come into my office door only if the house is on fire and the door is closed.
Work outside of your home occasionally
Working outside your home when you are working from home might seem a little bit odd. However, only at first. You’ll quickly come to understand that working from home doesn’t require your constant presence. In essence, it implies you are free to work from home or walk outside as you like. I am aware that not all “work from home” opportunities fall into this category, but for those involving the processing of information, when all you need is a laptop and an internet connection, this usually works out perfectly. It brings in a crucial component of diversity and freshness. When dealing with the various challenges that arise from being a digital nomad, it may also be the source of some extremely fascinating social interactions.
Read more: 5 ways of staying focused while working from home with children
Go out of your home
Another basic rule for workinng from home is to go outside of your home. Working from home can make you less socially connected. I eventually came to terms with this after doing it for close to two years. So, in addition to dividing your time between working outside of the home on a regular basis, you should definitely go out more. Our daily work routine—that is, the work done in an office—provides a major part of the social connection that we need. That portion won’t exist if you start working from home.
However, you will always need to make new friends. My response to this was to considerably increase my social connections over what I was doing when I was working in my own office. Whatever it takes to get me away from my house or workspace—going to the movies, running in the park, meeting for drinks, or just chatting—is what I’ll do. My social life formerly ranged around a 3, and it now consistently registers around an 8 on a scale of one to ten.
FAQs
Do and don’ts while working from home?
Dos
- Create a daily routine.
- Prepare for your work.
- Communicate with your team regularly.
- Take regular breaks.
Don’ts
- Don’t do your household chores during your work hours.
- Do not procrastinate.
- Don’t let your day slip away.
What should you not do when working from home?
- Don’t work in pajamas.
- Working from the bed or couch.
- Taking the opportunity of working from home for granted.
- Not considering health.
- Not setting ground rules and boundaries.
What things are required to work from home?
- Creating your own office space.
- Having a good Internet service.
- Establishing a work schedule.
- Setting up an organized desktop.
- Putting on a nice outfit apart from pajamas.
- Getting out of the house.
- Keeping a clutter-free working space.
How do you manage your time working from home?
- Make a schedule.
- Designate a workspace.
- Prepare yourself as if you’re going to the office.
- Avoid distractions.
- Create a daily and weekly to-do list.
- Set a limit on technologies.
- Set achievable goals.
- Make a list and prioritize what needs to be done.
How can I stay professional while working from home?
- Maintain Strong Lines of Communication.
- Create a schedule and stick to it.
- Maintain a Workday Routine.
- Avoid Contentious Topics on Team Calls.
- Keep up your online presence.
How long will WFH continue in TCS?
Employees are returning to the workplace, but more than 70% of TCS techies plan to work from home through the end of 2022.
Why is it good to work from home?
The absence of typical office distractions is one benefit of working from home. Quieter surroundings aid in completing the work more quickly and calmly. Simple time management skills and a To-Do list to monitor important tasks are all that are needed.
Why is working from home so hard?
The interruptions from work at home are one of the challenges of working remotely. Although many people think that working from home increases productivity, interruptions from distractions can quickly slow down your work. It’s crucial to effectively manage your time and distinguish between “home” and “work” time in order to avoid this problem.
What are the top three challenges to working from home?
- Managing Your Own Schedule and Time.
- Communication and Coordination Challenges.
- Distractions.
What is the most challenging part of working from home?
When working from home, communication is even more difficult because it is still difficult when people interact face-to-face. People communicate nonverbally the majority of the time. Effective communication is therefore one of the most frequent difficulties you will run into when working from home.
What is one of the major problems with working at home?
If you work from home or in another remote setting, you can experience loneliness, issues with time management, and digital miscommunication.
That is all for this article, where the 7 basic rules of working from home have been discussed.
I hope you learn a lot from the reading. If so, kindly share it with others. Thanks for reading, see you around!
