Being productive is one of the most common problems that most people face when working from home. The challenge to get out of bed and get stuff done is hard to overcome especially if you feel like having a lazy day. I know because I’ve had these days one too many times!
So what should you do to be more productive while working from home? The secret is to take mini breaks.
Why? Because like when studying, our minds can only focus between 20-45 minutes (this varies from person to person ofcourse as some may have lower or higher span). As for me, it depends upon what I’m working on. Although I get distracted (going to the bathroom, noise outside, text, nephews knocking on the door, food calling me) constantly, it’s easy to re-focus if I am into deep in (or really like) what I’m doing.
I always try to make use of the current technology to make my life better and I’ve found a great app called 30/30 that helps me manage my tasks and get stuff done while incorporating mini breaks 🙂 Thanks 30/30 you are one amazing app!
For a difficult or time-consuming task, I allocate a full 40-50 minutes, then have a 10-minute break, and I either work on the same task for the same amount of time or move to another one if I already finished the first one. I think it tricks my brain to work harder to finish a task than if I just work on it without looking at the time I’m consuming for everything I work on.
Making reports have also been easier with this. As a social media manager, what I do is breakdown the report by channel. So 20 minutes for Facebook followed by a 5-10 minute break then another 20 minutes for Twitter and it goes on until I finish making a report on all social media channels. What I learned is that from the first break, it felt like I didn’t need the second break anymore because I was in the zone. Long before I knew it, I was already done with my report.
No rocket science there, just taking mini-breaks while working! 🙂
Are you working from home? How do you stay productive? Share it with us in the comments section below.