Working From Home: 5 Hacks To Boost Productivity

Are you working from home, challenged to get everything done each day? Here are 5 hacks to boost productivity and bring positive performance results...

Top Tips To Know To Boost Productivity When Working From Home

Are you frustrated with your results since you started working at home?

Do you need some tips to help you push aside the distractions, overcome procrastination and boost productivity?

This article is written just for you!

Working From Home Trend

People are exiting the workforce in big numbers to become freelancers and entrepreneurs, and corporate America is taking notice. At the same time, many employers now offer legitimate work at home jobs and opportunities for working from home online, remotely.

Whether you have one of those work from home jobs for moms or you have just started your own enterprise you are in the same position -- There's nothing magical about your home office. You still need to do the work. 

However, some of you are finding that it is not as easy as it sounded the first time you heard about this, right? 

 We all want better results!  Now that you're working from home: 5 hacks to boost productivity follow below...

Have A Designated Workspace When Working At Home

The laptop lifestyle sounds like the best thing ever: You get to kick back on the couch in your PJs and watch the money roll in on autopilot. You can even do your work while swinging in a hammock on a tropical beach – or so the narrative goes. 

The reality is that working from home is still work, and treating it like work is one of the best things you can do to find success. Setting up a real home office is ideal, but you can still get away with converting a corner of your bedroom or living room into your workspace. The point is that you need a designated workstation where you can focus, roll up your sleeves and get the work done.

If you have family around while you are trying to work, make sure that they understand the importance of your work. They need to give you some space. You cannot interrupt your workflow every 15 minutes to talk about the latest episode of 'Stranger Things' or to watch the new 'Star Wars' trailer.

From one entrepreneur:

“I added a door with a lock  to my home office so I could better focus on my work and not have the chance of a child bursting in during a conference call. At our house we refer to it as Daddy’s no go zone.” said Ian McClary a business executive for an e-commerce hosting company, PhoenixNAP. 

Invest In A Quality Office Chair

Many freelancers find that investing in their home office is a good idea, particularly when it comes to finding a comfortable office chair. If you have never sat in a desk chair that costs more than $50, you do not know what you have been missing.

Executive chairs in the $300-plus range are worth every penny, worth the investment when working from home.

Make sure that yours can be adjusted to match your body type and size so that your feet rest flat on the floor. Your hands should be able to type on your keyboard without a bend in your wrist, and your monitor should be straight ahead, at eye level or just below it.

Plan Your Workday In Detail

Office workers who switch to remote work typically love the freedom that comes with working from home. There's no boss looking over your shoulder every half hour. There are no nosy co-workers to distract you.

However, you still need a plan.

Planning your workday in detail is one of the best ways to boost productivity, especially when you work at home. If you often find yourself sitting there at your desk, staring off into space and wondering what you should be doing, then you have a problem. You need to get back to filling out your daily planner and disciplining yourself to follow the plan.

Whenever you find your attention drifting to social media, pointless emails or some other distraction, just check the time, grab your planner to see what you should be doing at that moment, and then get right back on task. 

You might even consider using a time tracking tool to keep yourself on-task.

Schedule Home Office Hours

What happens when planning everything in detail yet still find it impossible to stick to the plan? This happens a lot with freelancers who have family members at home during the day.

What can you do when your plans are frequently interrupted by trips to the grocery store or visits from your Mother-in-law?

You need to schedule office hours!

This work-from-home gig is starting to sound a lot like working at the office, isn't it? Well, if distractions are ruining your productivity, then you need to eliminate them. Since you cannot just eliminate your family, you are going to have to communicate instead.

Set some boundaries. Compromise when you can, but put your foot down when it counts. Setting regular work hours – and communicating your schedule to your family and friends – is one of the best ways to stay productive while working from home. 

Boost Productivity By Waking Up Early

If the tips above are not working for you, then you might need to take more drastic actions to make sure you meet your targets and deadlines.

Yes, you might need to start waking up at 5:00am or 6:00am again.

You will be surprised how much work you can get done in that hour or two before everyone else in the house starts rolling out of bed.  In fact, you might even love it so much that you wake up even earlier than that to start working.

However, waking up earlier isn't easy. It may take some time to make it happen regularly. Begin by setting your alarm to go off 10-15 minutes earlier for the first week or so. Once you are rising consistently at that time, you can try setting the alarm to go off another 10-15 minutes earlier, and so on.

The first step is to start going to bed earlier.

If you are waking up earlier every morning but aren't going to sleep earlier every night, then you are going to suffer from sleep deprivation. When that happens, all your progress goes down the drain, and you will need to start over from the beginning. That is not optimal - You do not want that.

Following the first suggested track, within a couple of months, you will be waking up one to two hours earlier every weekday.  The best part is that those early hours will often be the most productive hours of your day working from home. The world is tranquil before the sun comes up.

If you can adjust to that new schedule, you will end up being super-productive. You might even be able to take off earlier on Friday and have more free time as a result. 

Working From Home AND Being Productive

Working from home can be a significant lifestyle change. However, if you have a hard time getting the work done every week, then try the five productivity tips above for the next 90 days and see what a difference they can make in your work output.