by Karen Adamedes
Welcome to 2021…where working from home remains a thing.
Whether you like it or not, there’s a good chance that your commute to work, at least at the beginning of this year will be from the kitchen to your laptop. If you like working from home, that’s great! If you don’t…then let me help you make the best of it. This year I will be sharing some tips from my book Professional in Pajamas: 101 Tips for Working from home, to help make it work for you.
To start with, let’s talk about productivity. It really doesn’t matter if you work from home or at an office – if you don’t know what you want to achieve in a day, you’re not going to know if you’ve had a successful day or not.
Working from home can be a lot less structured than an office environment. There isn’t anyone else but you to set the pace of the day. And no one else will know if you are working on what’s most important.
When you’re on a deadline for a client or a project, it’s potentially stressful but can certainly make you focused and clear about what you have to achieve. However, there can be many days when you have the flexibility to choose what you want to work on. Unless you particularly enjoy working in a last-minute panic, prioritizing your time will help ensure you are working on the right things, first.
Know what you want to achieve
Knowing what you want to achieve in a day will help you determine your priorities for the day. If you make a not-so-quick check of social media here, order some shoes online (oh wait, that might be just me), and reply to a couple of text messages, you can find that hours have mysteriously vanished.
Duncan Young, Head of Workplace Health & Wellbeing at Lendlease in Australia, says, “Small positive steps make can make a big difference over time. Be intentional with your time.” Duncan recommends spending some time each morning planning.
A plan will help you work out what you have to get done, what you’d like to work on, and the ‘wouldn’t it be amazing if I could do this too’ priorities for the day. Know what your goals are and how much you have to do. This can help you refocus after interruptions and drag yourself back to your most important tasks after other distractions (phone calls, emails, and meetings that you can’t avoid).
Set your priorities
This may fall in to the too-much-information category, but I find having my morning shower is a good time to decide what my top priorities are for the day. For others, taking a morning walk or getting dressed for the day are equally good times to think through the day ahead. Whatever works for you!
I’ve also found that writing a ‘Top Priorities’ list before I finish work for the day can set me up well for the following day. I know I am not going to forget anything important. This also helps me separate from work at the end of the day, and I don’t spend the evening thinking (quite so much) about the next day. I have a clear plan of what I need to be focused on when I start work the next morning.
One tip from the Chief Operating Officer of a start-up, who gets constantly interrupted when at the office, is to make sure that on the days you work from home, you have specific tasks to complete or conference calls scheduled. This helps, they said, to take advantage of the quiet and avoid the distractions of being at home.
Focus on the outcomes
Working from home is not a full-time gig for everyone. You may only work from home on the days that you need some peace and quiet away from the office or to fit in with personal commitments. Or at the moment there might not be a lot of choice.
Those of us who can work from home at the moment are fortunate to have that option to keep us and our families safe.
No matter why or how often you work from home, it pays to focus on the outcomes you want to achieve each day. You will better prioritize your time, help you avoid distractions, and at the end of the day (literally!) you will know you have been successful. You can quit for the day feeling satisfied, pat yourself on the back, and know that you achieved what you wanted.
Enjoy your day!
This tip is based on Tip No. 1 ‘Know what you want to achieve’ from Professional in Pajamas: 101 Tips for Working from Home.
Karen Adamedes is an experienced executive, author and career-tipster. In her most recent book ‘Professional in Pajamas: 101 Tips for Working from Home’ Karen shares many of the insights she has gained during a decade of working from home, where she has negotiated multi-million dollar deals, led national teams and delivered major projects. She does admit to sometimes working in her pajamas.
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