How To Be Productive Working From Home

A few things I’ve learned about working at home during the COVID-19 period

Like many people, I’ve worked from home for much of the last year. I love it for various reasons, no doubt many of them the same as others who work at home, and I outlined my feelings in this article here:

https://jphalliday.medium.com/6-reasons-why-i-love-remote-working-f1d6c27a06b4

Last week I went into the office for a couple of days. And seemed to get twice as much work done. I didn’t really understand it, so I decided to try and figure out the reasons why. Here’s what I found.

My Desk

At work, I have a desk in a small, glass-walled office. The only thing on my desk is a laptop, a monitor, a mouse and my notepad and pen. There’s plenty of space for drawings and other documents.

I have the same at home, plus the addition of my personal PC, another (big) monitor, keyboard, mouse, lamp, Hi-Fi amplifier, and various bits and pieces of junk. There’s not much space for even a notepad, let alone drawings.

Somehow it’s easier to be productive with a clear desk.

The Environment

Because of COVID-19, few people were in the office. So it was quiet, with almost no chatter or phone calls in the background. Pre-COVID, there were ten other people in our office, with a constant hubbub of conversation and telephones ringing. Also, people would be continually stopping by my desk to ask questions or requiring help with something.

This time though, there was no-one. Except for me, so other than the light over my desk, the office was dark and quiet. Just how I like it.

At home, it’s also quiet, other than my wife and baby, but they’re downstairs out of the way. When colleagues want to talk to me, they call on Teams or Zoom. Or some are old-fashioned and use the phone!

It seems, though, that people only call when it’s essential, so there are fewer interruptions.

In theory, each workspace has its advantages and disadvantages, so they should balance out. But they don’t, somehow. I get a lot more done in the work office than in my home office.

I suspect it’s due to two things: music and the personal PC. Much as I love music, it can hinder my workflow unless I open up a yoga and meditation playlist, which is effective but boring.

It’s also all too easy to open a browser and lose time on sites like eBay, social media, forums, or researching something interesting.

I kept the PC turned off for a day or two, and guess what? I got a lot more work done.

Caffeine

I’ve always been a big tea or coffee drinker, especially when out on the road. Sometimes it’s due to boredom. Sometimes it’s the stimulant of choice when an early morning is called for.

I recently took stock of my consumption: starting when I get back from my walk at about 07:00, I’d be on one to two mugs of tea or coffee per hour. I have a policy of never drinking after Four in the afternoon, so I can sleep at night, but still, I’m easily into double figures.

And recently, I’ve been getting crushing headaches and powerful emotional lows. Rather than being a stimulant, the caffeine struggled to lift me to a normal state.

So I decided to cut back. Right back. The 07:00 drink is, of course, obligatory, although I don’t need it, I’m a morning person. I have another at 09:00, and no more. On the first day, I felt like I’d been hit by a bus. The second day, flu-like (maybe that should be COVID-like) symptoms came charging in and made me feel even worse. They lasted almost a week.

My sleep improved almost immediately. I’ve never slept much; between four and six hours of restless dozing is usually my lot. But the second night of abstinence, I slept like a drunk in a gutter. I got a whole seven hours and barely stirred once.

I’ve settled into a more restful rhythm now, that is if I get to bed early enough. I’m getting a good five to six hours of sleep, waking maybe only a couple of times. And some of that is because we share a room with a four-month-old.

There’s a double bonus too: I can concentrate harder and longer during the day, and my productivity is noticeably improved.

Distractions

Distractions are an odd one. And by distractions, I mean external ones, not me wasting time on forums or social media. At work, it’s often busy, and people’s conversations can take my attention from the task at hand. But they’re almost always work-related distractions, usually someone who needs help or information.

At home, though, the distractions are the things going in the house or outside my window. I’ve a lovely view over the gardens at the back, and at the front, it’s a busy road, so there’s always something going on.

The view from my office window at work is an uninspiring brick wall.

Also, working at home means it’s easy to get sucked into doing something non-work related and losing an hour here or there. Tidying the bedroom where my desk lives, archiving my old transparency film collection, or picking up a book and getting lost in it for a while. Or staring at the tree outside and planning how I’m going to dismantle it.

I don’t do that in the office for some reason. I don’t really know why; maybe it’s psychological. Perhaps because I’m in the office, I get into ‘work mode’ and get stuff done.

Isolation

I’m a bit of a loner at heart. Although I like other people’s company, I don’t crave it like some of my extrovert colleagues do, and I’ve been quite happy with Lockdown.

When working in the office, I usually support the Sales and Hire teams which takes a lot of time and hinders progress on projects.

The beauty of working at home is that I can turn off all the distractions. My personal PC can be unplugged, the phone set to silent, ‘do not disturb’ activated on Teams, and I can get stuck into a project without being hassled.

The takeaways are:

A clean, tidy and uncluttered desk

Minimal distractions in your environment

Stay away from the caffeine

Try and ignore the external distractions

Shut yourself away if you need to

Stay off the internet. No cat videos, no eBay/Amazon, no social media. They’re the biggest time wasters of all.