It's crazy times at the moment and looks to be like this for few months more at least... With all these new measures to keep the spreading of Covid-19 minimal, businesses are pushing staff to work from home.
As of last week, I have hit the 1 year mark from when I became a full-time freelance designer (YAY, I survived one year hahaha). Since I work from home, I always get asked (and still do to this day) "How do you work from home? I would watch TV and play with the dogs".
Even though playing with my two chocolate labs, Flynn & Fritz would be great... I needed to set some things in place to make sure I did the work and made the money to stay in business. I would of not lasted even 6 months if I played around with the dogs most of the day hahaha.
Here are a few key things I do to stay focused on working from home. Hopefully, a couple of these things might help you out in this time of crisis.
1. ALWAYS have a great nights sleep. At least 7 hours. Sleeping well at night gives me the energy needed the following day to focus and keep stress down. Some people can get right in the zone and work late into the night while at home. Having less sleep will take it out of you the next day.
2. EAT WELL. Eating/snacking on junk crappy food brings your mood down, makes you drowzy and allows stress to creep in. I'm lucky enough to have a healthy eating wife that keeps junk food out of our house (mostly, she loves the occasionally Kit Kat hahaha). Eating well keeps energy levels up which helps you run busy all day.
3. ROUTINE. Do the same things you would do when heading off to work. Wake up, have a coffee, shower and dress in work attire (or maybe something slightly more comfortable). This point is a must, doing the same routine gets your mind in work mode and you're good to get stuck into it.
4. SET HOURS. Keep your set working hours and a set working space away from the kitchen and lounge room. My office is down stairs over looking my backyard away from all temptations. I just head up stairs for my 30-60min lunch break than straight back down to knock things off my to-do list.
4.5. Make your office space yours, put nice plants, photos, posters and music in your space to make it comfortable and inspirational.
5. DON'T STRESS. Stress does not get the job done quicker. Things go wrong, just take a walk in your back yard, play with the dogs and take your mind off the stressful situations for 15mins. Come back and work through it with a smile.
I hope a few of these points will help all you work from home and work through this inconvient situation.
Stay healthy and keep your distance from others, we will beat Covid-19.