Working from home might sound like a fun idea initially... but a couple days in and you'd know it's a much different scenario and possibly a harder scenario to work from. In many cases, you work alone and your daily interactions are limited. Over time, this can contribute to an overall lack of motivation, and it's when productivity levels begin to dip.
Lack of motivation is not only a risk to our work, but can have a detrimental effect over our mental health. Feeling demotivated can lead to negativity and self-deprecation as the isolation of working from home takes its toll. Here are 10 simple things #AGstaff do to help boost our motivation at home!
Start your day early, pretend you're still going to office
Another enjoyable perk of working from home is not having to get up, rush out of the house, and commute to office. However, working from home doesn’t mean you get to skip your morning routine altogether. Get up early, take a shower, make your coffee and breakfast, and prepare your lunch, just like you have to leave the house. Looking for a quick and healthy breakfast or lunch solution? We have just introduced our new power meal: Goodness Bowl. Ready in 90 seconds, and packed with all the nutrients you need to start your day right.
Change out of your PJs
It's incredibly tempting when working from home to wear the most comfortable set of clothes you own, especially since most of the time you're rolling out of bed and starting work soon after. It's been found that even clothing has a symbolic meaning to our brains, it primes the brain to behave accordingly. In other words, if you are content to wear lazy clothing all day when working from home, you are probably more likely to act lazy, and therefore get less done.
Don't work where you sleep
If wearing PJs makes you lazier while working, working in bed triples that effect at the very least. Not only that, but it will stress you out to have the place where you do all your work also be the very spot where you try to relax and fall asleep at night. Set up a work room/corner, for work only. After all, it's still important to have a work life balance!
Set a mood and dedicated work space
Choosing where you work in your home is also important. As mentioned, it is so important to keep your bedroom separate from your office. Also, try to avoid working in the living room or kitchen where you can easily get distracted. Create a dedicated workspace for yourself—preferably in a sunny, bright, and cheerful part of your home. This is going to be a space where you’ll spend a lot of your time!
Make a Schedule
Most people will not be able to function properly working from home if they don't have at least
some sort of regimented schedule guiding them. This can start with waking up as a set time each day, setting your daily priorities to get done. You can even break up your time into manageable chunks. For example, you might work for an hour, followed by a 15 minute break, repeating that cycle throughout. It keeps you focused, and also gives you something to look forward to. If you like things digital, a calendar app or task management app like Asana or Trello will be useful. With us, we prefer to jot things down with pen and paper, on our favourite
Mossery x Amazin' Graze notebook.
Take Regular Stretch Breaks
Exercising naturally boosts endorphins, which increases happiness, enjoyment, and interest levels, all of which are important for productivity. Regularly stretching helps you maintain great posture, and keeps your blood flowing (rather than sitting in a spot the whole day). At a minimum, stretch throughout the day so you don’t get sore or hinder your quality of life. Our preference? Watching quick online yoga lessons on Youtube or Instagram (15 minutes is more than enough) with an
eco-friendly yoga mat to protect our knees.
Eat the right snacks
Food is the fuel with which we keep our engines running. However hard you determine to work, without appropriate nourishment you will be running half empty at best. Did you know there are specific nutrients that can boost productivity? We previously talked about the best
superfoods that can not only help boost your immunity but increase your focus too - read all about it
here.
Stay connected with your colleagues
You won’t have a boss or any coworkers around to keep you motivated physically like in the office, but you do have different ways to connect online. Keep in close contact digitally with your colleagues, set your daily goals together. Simply sharing and voicing that out makes you more likely to follow through with your plans. Social pressure is powerful; use it to your advantage. Our favourite? Zoom calls and Slack to keep each other updated and brainstorm on better ideas!
Maintain your regular work hours
The beauty of working from home is that you can be flexible in setting your working hours. You might take a longer lunch break in the afternoon and tell yourself you'll work past the usual 6pm - after all you are at home and have the flexibility of changing up your work hours. Don't. Enforce a hard limit at the end of the day. Distance yourself from work, so you don’t work nonstop.
Minimise distractions
If anyone says it's less distracting to work from home, rather than in the office - they're not honest (at least in our view)! It is inevitable to have distractions at home, you just need to minimise and manage it. If you chase distractions all day, you’ll get nothing done. If you try to rule out distractions entirely, you’ll end up frustrated and might even burn out by the end of the day. Strive for a happy medium; allow yourself some distractions within a contained period. For example, you might allow yourself 10 minutes of Facebook time, or delay watching that YouTube video until a certain time of day. Also, your pet cat or dog doesn't need your attention all day long!
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We hope you enjoy this list we pulled up! Working from home may have its strength and weaknesses, but it's always important to stay motivated and focused, especially in critical times. We'd love to hear how you keep yourself motivated too, share with us in the comment below, or tag us in your story so we can share it with more people!
