Working from home can have many benefits. In 2020, 46.4% of Londoners had worked from home at some point. Of course, in the current world we live in, COVID-19 has made remote work more of a necessity than a luxury.

But what are some tips to getting started when working from home? How can you be more productive in your home office? With our simple tips, you can kickstart your career and become more efficient.

Utilise Productivity Tools

Increasing productivity when you’re away from the office can be a challenge. When your team aren’t in the same building as you, getting messages across can be tricky. However, there are plenty of online tools to help solve this problem.

Making sure your remote team succeeds is to arm them with tools that can help everyone stay connected. Some great team management tools include:

Slack
Zoom
Microsoft Teams
Google Hangouts
Monday

Have A Dedicated Space For Work

Even though you’re not at the office, you can still create an office space at home. Instead of using spaces in your home that are used for leisure time, such as your bedroom or couch, try dedicating a specific surface or room at home that is for working.

This can be a space where you can stay focused and committed to working throughout the day, rather than being distracted. Try to pick a place where there are fewer things to take your attention away. Plus, make your space quiet, this will help concentration.

Communication With Others At Home

Working from home may mean that there are others in your area. This can be family members, roommates or even pets. You will want to make sure that they respect your workspace when you are busy. Yes, asking pets to behave can be tricky.

Laying ground rules such as quiet times can be an easy way to boost productivity and making sure that your important meetings aren’t interrupted. Just because you are home, doesn’t mean you aren’t busy and working. It is important others know that.

Have Set Finish Times

Working from home may look like the best way to improve your work-life balance. However, don’t fall into this trap. It is easy to get carried away with this assumption.

WFM can be relaxing, making it easy to get caught up and losing track of time. Having set start and finish times for your daily tasks can be an easy way to mark boundaries. Creating a suitable work-life balance is crucial when away from the office.

Limit Social Media Use

In line with the last tip, limiting social media time can be a great way to boost productivity. For remote workers, social media can be one of the biggest ways to distract you from the job at hand. However, there are ways to fight the urge. They include:

Removing social media from your browser shortcuts
Logging out of all accounts during work hours
Working in incognito or private mode