Hi guys today I want to share with you 12 tips for working from home so if you
happen to be among those people who have the chance to work from home then I hope
that these tips will help you to still stay productive have relatively low
stress and also some fun while working from home so let's get right into it in
no particular order here are 12 tips for working from home number one is to set
up a work schedule which means that it's a good idea to plan in advance at what
time precisely you will start to work and at what time you will end it doesn't
necessarily mean that it has to be the same schedule every day because I think
that when you're working from home you need to be and you can also afford to be
more flexible you can adjust it on a daily basis according to your needs and
what works best but the important thing here is that you plan it in advance
let's say for example that on Mondays you schedule your workday to start at
9:00 a.m. and finish at 5:00 p.m. but on Tuesdays it could be different let's say
that every Tuesday you plan to spend more time with your kids in the morning
so you start your workday at 11 a.m. and you finish at 7 p.m. that's also an
alternative the important thing is that you plan it in advance so you can set
all the building blocks all the different things that you need to do in
your personal life and in your work life into that day number two is to create
work spots what this means is that not everyone has a dedicated room in their
house to make it a home office if you do then that's great like that's the ideal
situation but there are many people on the other hand like me who don't have as
much room and have to make everything work within a smaller space but it
doesn't mean that you can't have a dedicated work space before I continue
here's a question for you what do you feel are your biggest challenges in
working from home please let me know in the comments below even within a small
area or a small room you can pick one dedicated corner that
you assign as your workspace pick a space or a corner of the room that you
feel is conducive in terms of lighting in terms of comfort and maybe also
allows you to open the window for some fresh air
according to your preferences and also don't hesitate to move around some
furniture if the only play where you think you can work comfortably
is for example your kitchen then make the kitchen your dedicated workspace so
when you work just work in the kitchen don't work in the living room or work in
the bedroom by doing that you create a separate space between work and your
personal life and don't get everything mixed up together what you want to avoid
for example if you're working on your laptop is that you keep moving your
workspace around you take your laptop to the living room work there and then you
move it at night to the bedroom continue work there and in the morning you take
it to the kitchen and so on and so on you got my point because what that does
is that it mixes your personal life and your work life together and the danger
of that is that you will feel like you never have a break from work because
everything is mixed up all the time by the way in case you're new to this
channel I make videos on career change and multiple careers and one of my goals
is that I want to try to help people to shape the kind of career that is best
for their life and that they really want so if this is something that might
interest you then you might want to subscribe and also hit the little
notification bell so that YouTube will notify you when there are new videos
from me number three is to stock up on office supplies get all the things ready
that you think you will need to work productively may that be paper or maybe
pens or maybe some toner for the printer you don't want to be in the middle of
your work and then realize that you're out of toner and also try to find out
beforehand from your company that you are working for what items you can get
reimbursed because if you add up everything in the end it can amount to
quite a lot also think of any other things that you might need to purchase
that supports your work for example you might need a better chair or maybe not a
chair but even just add some chair pads or even just in your desk lamp if you've
decided that you want to work at night by the way in case you're enjoying this
video so far then please do give it a thumbs up that would really mean a lot
to me number four is to start a routine a morning routine in particular it
doesn't need to be anything elaborate you don't need to get into a suit but
you just need a simple routine some fixed steps that you take each morning
to signal to yourself and to your brain that
now it's time to start working several things among many things that are part
of my morning routine are to get a cup of coffee and do planks brush my teeth
but most importantly change my clothes so if you're working from home I would
definitely suggest that you get out of those pajamas and into something else it
doesn't need to be a shirt or a blazer it doesn't need to be anything fancy the
point is just that it's a good idea to not continue wearing your sleepwear but
get into something else change into something else
because by doing that you will kind of shift into a different mode from a more
sleepy and perhaps a bit more lazy mood into a working mode and the other
important benefit of doing this is when you're working from home sometimes you
have these unannounced conference calls you know what I mean so what you want to
avoid is that someone suddenly calls you or perhaps even your boss and you are
still in your pajamas and then you scramble and try to find something to
wear so I think that by changing into different clothes even just a fresh
t-shirt or a nice hoodie that will make you feel more ready for work
number five is setting breaks this is so important I've been spending a lot of
time at home working on my youtube channel and my blog and I know exactly
what it's like sometimes it's hard to get started but once you're in the flow
working on video editing on writing or whatever other work that you do then
sometimes it can even be really hard to get out of it and if you haven't
determined when you want to have a break it might not happen at all so many times
I just work for hours and hours and suddenly I've been working four or five
hours non-stop and all of a sudden I felt so tired so now what I always do is
I set breaks I either set myself an alarm or I simply remind myself that at
12:30 or at 1:00 p.m. I will have lunch even if it's just a ten minute break I
will have a short break and what I also like to do afterwards is just to take a
short walk outside to get some fresh air to get my mind going again to avoid
getting sleepy and so on number six is to create work hygiene and what I mean
by this is not washing your hands or using sanitizer although you should also
do that but what I mean by that is that you need to have a clear separation
between work and your private life there is a really big temptation when you're
at home to work all the time I know there are people who do the opposite who
do not work at all when they're working from home but there are also many people
and I think this is the majority who feel like they need to be working all
the time some people wake up at 5 a.m. 6 a.m. and they think that they need to be
on it right away and then they work their way through all the way until 8
p.m. 9 p.m. that's really not good at all because in the long term you will
burn out so you need to set times where you are off work and this is much more
than a break a break is maybe just 10 minutes 15 minutes or half an hour but
what I mean is that you need to set hours where you are really off from work
it can be for example after 5:00 p.m. that you just turn off your message
messaging app you don't check your emails or it could also be in between it
could be also the case that you start working at 8:00 a.m. till 1:00 p.m. and
then you really stay away from work for three hours let's say and do something
else for example take a walk with your dog or play with your kids spend some
time with your spouse or or whatever it is that you want to do and it's gonna be
different for each and every person so it's really important for you yourself
to determine what is optimal for you how much time do you need to be away from
work because I think that for every person there is an optimal time an
optimal amount of time during which they will be productive and if you go over
that limit then you will just spend more time on it but you're not really doing
anything either number seven and this is one of my favorite tips is to stock up
on pantry items if previously you've been working in an office or where you
have coffee machines and you have snacks and maybe drinks fruit etc then that
might be something that you'll miss when you're at home because perhaps your
fridge is empty you don't have anything to eat or snack so I would highly
recommend to stock up on your favorite snacks and drinks that could be coffee
tea milk almond milk milk or anything else that you need to
create your perfect kind of coffee and also snacks make sure that you have your
favorite chocolates or even better fruits available ready in your fridge so
anytime when you feel that you need a break and your blood sugar level is low
and you need to munch on something you just need to walk over to the kitchen
for a few steps and you have your bananas apples pears etc already number
eight is to announce your work schedule to your family the reason why this is
important is is so that they can also play their role in supporting you doing
your work for example if you tell them that you need some quiet time between
let's say 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. because you're working on some proposals or
you're doing something that requires high concentration they can help you by
keeping the noise level down or if you have kids for example you can get them
to stay occupied with something else a puzzle or whatever or for example if you
have a video call scheduled every morning at 10 a.m. then it's a really
good idea to announce that tell everyone in your household about that so that
when you're in the middle of the video call people will not be just suddenly
walking around behind you know 9 is get fresh air I mentioned this before this
is part of taking a break but here specifically I think it's important to
actually go out go out of your room out of your office out of your house and
breathe in some fresh air because you don't necessarily notice it but after a
while inside after 3 or 4 hours it can get really stuffy and the oxygen level
might also be quite low and I notice this every time once I've spent more
than four or five hours inside I lose a bit of my concentration and then what I
do is I simply step out sometimes even just for five minutes ten minutes I just
walk around a bit and after that I feel so much more refreshed number ten is to
over communicate about your work when you were still working at the office
meeting people face-to-face it might be much
to communicate what you're trying to do what you need from the other person also
to collaborate and work things out but once everyone is at home and working
remotely it might be a tad more difficult to communicate especially if
some of the people are not really used to it yet so there might be potential
for miscommunication misunderstandings to happen in terms of who is for example
responsible for what who is in the middle of doing what so I think it's a
really good idea to be proactive in this case and talk it through take some time
to call up your colleague or chat with them to really clarify hey I'm doing
this and this and this this is my timeline these are my challenges and so
on so try not to keep it to yourself but put it out there and communicate it
number 11 and this is related to the fun aspect of working at home is to try to
create the ideal atmosphere for you to work this means to think of all the
things that could make your working experience even better that could make
it less stress and more fun if you feel that you need a pair of headphones so
you can cancel out the noise from outside and it doesn't cost that much
then go ahead and get it and also think about music think about it consciously
what kind of music gets you into a working mode I have different kind of
music playlists or music types that I listen to depending what I'm doing also
think about lighting if you feel that you're not getting enough sunlight then
you might just want to move your desk over to the window so that you get more
light what's important here is to try to create a nice ambience instead of being
stuck to your work desk in your office which might feel constrained and
uncomfortable get a bit creative design your workspace in a way that makes it
fun and relaxing and just nice to work at number 12 is end of day routine and I
think that this might be the most important thing of all I already
mentioned it briefly before but here I really want to emphasize the importance
of having an end day routine there has to be a time
where you shut down your laptop or you log out of your email or you sign out of
your messenger or you you put the status on away or whatever some steps some
routine that signals to yourself that okay today I finish the work all the
things that I've scheduled that I wanted to get done today if there is anything
that I haven't finished today I will note it down and I will assign it to get
it done on another day but today I've done my work I finished and that's it
when you're working at an office it's much easier to have a closing or an end
of day routine which is simply that you shut down your computer or your laptop
or whatever and you get out of the building and you go home and that's it
perhaps after that some people might still contact you but your brain already
kind of registered that ok actually this is password time I don't need to be as
alert but if you're at home and you leave everything on and you're still in
work mode then it's really difficult to shut off and in the long term it will
affect you it will burn you out I hope this video was useful to you please
share it with your friends and family and anyone else who you think could
benefit from it as always I thank you so much for watching especially to those of
you who watch this video to the very end I wish you an awesome day stay safe and
healthy and I'll see you again soon
you