The COVID 19 pandemic upended the world, as we knew it. It led us to seek alternative paths towards maintaining productivity. More and more corporations decided to take advantage of near-seamless connectivity to shift their workforce from the office to the home. Thanks to recent progress in online communications, it is now possible for individuals to collaborate on projects, even when they live very far apart. This way, workers can retain their productivity and efficiency, while remaining safe from the dreaded novel coronavirus. Let us see how you can create the ideal working conditions for your home office:
- Use a Dedicated Room for the Purpose
This is very important since it will enable you to create a proper working environment. Yes, you can go to work with a laptop while lying on your bed. But not only is it bad for posture, but it can also decrease your productivity quite significantly. Apart from that, if you are called to a sudden zoom meeting, it will create a very negative impression. This is why you should dedicate a room or at least a portion of a room towards the creation of a makeshift office.
- Make Sure There Are No Distractions
You have to make it clear to your family members as well as household staff that your working hours at your remote working station are absolutely sacred. It will give a pretty negative impression if you are in the middle of an online meeting and the hired help starts vacuuming the floor right behind you. The same holds for your children as well as any other household members. Once you stop working for the day or when you are on a break, they may enter the room and do whatever is required. However, they must respect your working space when you are working in it.
- Establish Certain Boundaries
Establishing boundaries is very important for all stakeholders concerned. However, it is equally important to communicate the same upfront to your whole family as well as any roommates. Similarly, you will have to tell your line manager and your colleagues regarding your own personal dos and don’ts. You will have to make the whole situation very clear, right from the beginning. Apart from that, and perhaps most importantly, you will have to set boundaries for yourself as well. It is very easy to get sidelined while at home. For instance, you could be doing your tasks such as looking online for business for sale and suddenly you get distracted and interested in the noise that your neighbors are making. This is why you have to set daily targets and fulfill them within the allocated time limits. It is imperative that you hold yourself accountable and always remain fully focused so that you achieve all your objectives while remaining fully productive.
- Learn to Communicate Effectively
For many people, learning to work from home can be a very lonely and isolating experience. They miss out on all the coffee breaks, the office chatter, the little meet and greet sessions in the lunchroom. Here, learning to use the various tools for communication can certainly help you to both overcome this issue, and also build and maintain strong and stable work-based relationships. You should relax and take the time to better understand exactly which tools and methods of communication that you and fellow colleagues would prefer to use. It may email, Google Docs for group projects, phone, video conferencing, text applications, etc.). There are no universal tools, so you will have to mix and match and see what works for you and your organization.
- Make your Room Bright and Vibrant
Lighting also helps create the right mood to enhance your productivity. In a nutshell, the brighter the room, the more productive you will feel. In fact, you can achieve very high productivity levels by the simple expedient of replacing the windows in your working space. Just make sure to replace them with adequate windows to add in more light or do the proper changes to the whole room, in that case, hire a general contractor to help you figure out what changes to make.
Conclusion
Working from home need not be a burden if you set boundaries and make sure your household, your senior management, and your colleagues follow them stringently. You should learn to communicate effectively and adequately. Finally, it is very important to have adequate lighting available for your remote working space. You may consider replacing your windows for this purpose.
