At Onyx Digital, our entire team is remote – so we are built for this. However, for many of us – working at home is new, shall we say – new challenge. With the CDC guidelines of restaurants operating as carry-out only, we can’t enjoy the noise of working from a quant coffee shop, or the liveliness of working from a brewery or pub. Until those guidelines are released, we thought we’d share our tried and true tips for staying productive while working from home. (It gets easier, we promise!)
Define a space
Have a room dedicated to working. Don’t do it wherever you happen to be. Set aside some space, preferably a room (it doesn’t have to be big) to be your workspace. That way, when you enter it, you know consciously what you’re there to do: go to work. It changes the state of mind from “I’m at home” to “I’m at work”. Set regular hours when you’ll be working, and try your damndest to stick to those predefined hours. Also, set aside time throughout the day for breaks and self care.
Don’t just roll out of bed
We know this isn’t feasible everyday, but try to stick to a morning routine. It’ll get you in the groove of things. Make yourself a coffee, or breakfast, do a yoga stretch routine, and make a feasible list of tasks to get completed for the day.
Turn off or at the very least silence your cell phone
Distractions seem innocent, but before you know it, you’ve gotten yourself down a YouTube rabbit hole with no hope of escaping.
We can’t stress this enough – GIVE YOURSELF BREAKS
Don’t be locked in the room all the time. For every hour you work, have a 15-30 minute break. Give your mind time to digest what it’s just done, then come back. You’ll improve the quality of what you produce a hundredfold.
Know when to wind down and stop for the day
Don’t work late into the night. Set defined times when you’re going to work, and then when it passes, stop. You can have a bit of leeway here, but make sure that you don’t end up letting work run your life.
From all of us at Onyx Digital – Stay Safe, Stay Home.