RTA

10 of the Best Work From Home Tips

Working From Home (WFH) can be tough on productivity and teamwork. Here are 10 tips from the real time team to help you work faster and smarter!

  1. Invest in a good set of headphones. Headphones offer plenty of benefits. The most important: it can help you drown out all the distracting noises at home, whether it’s your neighbours, car traffic, lawnmowers, or even kids that you are homeschooling. Secondly, it can help you hear better on video calls. And lastly, if you’re someone who can listen to music or podcasts while working, then it can help you stay focused.
  2. Manage your time better using apps. You can’t improve what you aren’t measuring, and that’s where these apps are brilliant. They help you keep track of time, and show you where you are most productive, and what wastes your time. There are free and paid options, but one of our favourites is RescueTime (it offers a free trial period for you to try it out first before committing).
  3. Use apps to turn off social media distractions. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and the rest of the social media channels with constant notifications can derail your work productivity. Turn these notifications off for a set time using one of these brilliant apps.
  4. Create a set routine. It will help to keep you productive and ready for any unscheduled meeting that may pop up. Decide on a start time and your daily habits (like making coffee, going for a walk, doing some exercise) and then set a set schedule with defined appointments. Once your morning and afternoon habits are entrenched, your productivity will benefit.
  5. Set up communication rules with the rest of your team. Decide on one channel of communication, for example, Microsoft Teams, Skype, or Slack, and then use it for all work communication instead of using different channels all at once—that’s how miscommunication happens, and tasks are lost. Also, decide on what the work hours are, and then don’t contact your teammates outside those hours (unless it’s an emergency).
  6. Get some fresh air every day. It doesn’t need to be a long walk, but you do need to leave your desk and computer at least once a day. Not only is the fresh air and exercise good for your health, it’s also proven to help kickstart creativity and improve your productivity.
  7. Leave the admin to the pros. The best way to free up your time is to give your admin tasks like tax and accounting to the professionals. If you need some help with doing all these tasks for you, just give us a shout here – we’d love to help you out!
  8. Create a dedicated workspace. Sitting and doing work in your lounge or TV room isn’t good for your productivity. Instead, set up a desk in a quiet place in your house where you’re separate from other people, and where you can create a mini-office with everything you need to work from home.
  9. Create set breaks every few hours. Just like in a real office, you need to get up and move around and give your eyes a break. The best way to do this is to schedule into your daily and weekly calendar.
  10. Be prepared for load shedding. That’s right, it’s a real problem for anyone that wants to work from home—but you can work around it. Make sure your laptop and phone are always charged, and check the power outage schedule to ensure your video calls aren’t at the same time.