Living room couches, kitchen tables, and homemade offices have become the go to work space for so many since March. Working from home is a unique and challenging experience. For this blog and the next we will take a look at our companies tips for working from home. This week we will focus on the three general tips I have for working from home, and next week we will look at tips from one of our other employees on how to work at home with a young child.

Where you work, and the surrounding area plays a big part into how much you can concentrate on daily work. It might take some time for you to find the right space, but once you do it can make a big difference. Even if you have been working in the same location since you started working from home, take a moment and think about your space.  

Did you like your answers? When I first started working from home I tried working from many different locations. One by one I narrowed down my work location based on the questions above. Working from my bed was comfortable, but I found that I was not motivated throughout the day. Working at my kitchen table kept me focused, but sitting on a wood chair all day was not comfortable. Working in the den where my desk is was comfortable, but I got distracted easily due to my husband’s online classes.  

This left me with my living room.  

While the living room isn’t the most ideal workspace, it is the most ideal when considering the other possible spaces in my apartment. Now, this is not to say that this is the only location you should work from. I have found that if I move between my desk during the times when my husband isn’t in class, and the living room, my days are more productive than if I just sit in the living room working. Or, when things are better I hope to work from a coffee shop every so often. No matter what you decide, finding a good location can make or break how you feel about your daily work.

It sounds cliché, but having a plan or daily schedule is important for everyone. I’m not saying that you need to have every moment of your day planned out, but every day should have a general routine. This plan includes daily tasks like having a cup of coffee by 9 am or making sure that you’ve showered before 8:30 am. Maybe you need to set a reminder so that you don’t accidentally eat lunch at 2 pm since you tend to get so focused you forget about food (trust me, it happens often more than it should). This plan should also include a general time in which you try to go to bed and when you wake up in the morning.  

A loose schedule is better than no schedule.

Your plan doesn’t have to be daily, in fact one of my biggest work plans is based off of what I do daily. In my phone I set aside days in my Google Calendar for specific tasks. As a great example Wednesdays afternoons and Thursday mornings are set aside for me to work on the blog. That part of my schedule doesn’t change from week to week which allows me to plan everything else during my week accordingly. My best advice is to start with 1-3 goals each week. These can be things that have a specific deadline – like how for me, the blog needs to be done before Thursday at 11 am – or they can be things that just need to be done by Friday. I challenge you to write your goals down I a planner, or journal, or even on sticky notes that stay on your fridge. Try this out for a week or two and see how having a plan or schedule can change how you work from home.

Now I’m going to be honest, this one is hard for me sometimes. Or rather, this is where I get distracted easily. If you have ever started watching a video on Facebook and then 30 minutes later find yourself watching a video about how bouncy balls are made, then you understand how brain breaks can lead to distraction. Even so, brain breaks are so important. Focusing on a singular task for too long means that you are more likely to get frustrated with it if a problem arises. The trick is to find a brain break that won’t lead to wasting time.  

So, really try to avoid anything on your phone or computer.

I don’t know about you but I love doing sudoku and reading. During my brain break time I try to work on a sudoku, or if I’m reading a book I’ll read a chapter. My advice is to try and have your brain break be 5-10 minuets long after a 25-30 time of work. Really think about it like this, for every hour, you should have around 10 minuets of a brain break. My ideal plan is to work for 25 minutes, take a 5 minuet break, work for 25 more minutes and then take another 5 minuet break. To stay on track I have used my Alexa device to set timers for myself, or I will play my work playlist on Spotify that has about 25 minuets of calm work music, followed by 5 minuets of upbeat music so that I can tell when my break time is without a timer. No matter how you decide to take your breaks, or break up your time, make sure that you have something you can focus on that doesn’t take a ton of time and is the least likely to lead you down the rabbit hole of wasting time.

No matter how hard you might try, working where you live is hard. The cycle of having a work life balance is broken. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t steps you can take to make sure that you create a mindset between work time and home time. Set up a work space, have a general or detailed schedule for your days/weeks, and make sure to take breaks. While you might be alone in our house, you are not alone in the struggle of working from home.