Ho Chi Minh City and other provinces and cities continue to implement social distancing. Many companies/businesses have proceeded to have 100% of employees work online from home. The term “Working online from home” has become a popular trend today. The challenge is to ensure work performance, or how to keep yourself well-focused on work, not affected by personal activities.
THE “SWEET TRAP” OF WORKING ONLINE FROM HOME
Working from home, besides the positive aspects, also causes work efficiency to decline. The cause stems from the sweet traps that working from home brings:
- Spending more time surfing phones, social networks, E-commerce platforms, and watching entertainment shows.
- Eating more comfortably, staying up late and waking up late, altering biological clocks, increasing the risk of obesity and digestive diseases.
- No more supervision from the boss, letting deadlines slide.
To get out of the sweet trap of working from home, HUFLIT Career Hub suggests 8 tips to improve efficiency when working from home:
1. WORKSPACE AT HOME
Author Scott Galloway wrote in his book “Post Corona” that investing in upgrading the home workspace will become a trend in the near future. When there is a demand for comfort and convenience to stimulate concentration and creativity. It is also understandable that recently, many young office workers are “checking out” workspace decoration products, from desks, chairs, desk decorations, to technological devices.
A private workspace does not necessarily have to be a large office. Sometimes, it is simply a small corner in your bedroom, living room, or balcony. And this small corner should ideally be completely separated from the rest of your house.
Note: You should not choose a place that is too cozy, more suitable for sleeping and relaxing than working, such as on a bed or a sofa. Another small note for the online workspace at home is that it needs to be well-lit and quiet.
These things will help you easily concentrate and get more inspired to work.
2. ATTIRE WHEN WORKING REMOTELY
You might not think that: the way you dress also affects work efficiency. Working remotely allows you to freely dress the way you want. You can even work while still in your pajamas. And you will easily feel sleepy and relaxed at any time with your pajamas while working from home,
In fact, you don’t need to dress too formally when working from home. Simply put, change out of the clothes you feel are “too sloppy”. Choose more suitable work attire that makes you feel more “responsible”.
In addition, you can also put on some makeup and groom your appearance a bit before sitting down to work at home. Looking a bit pretty at home is not wrong at all, right?
3. WORKING FROM HOME DURING OFFICE HOURS
Maintaining the same schedule as working at the office is a great way to work effectively from home during the Covid-19 pandemic. These timeframes include the start time, breaks, and the end of the workday.
Of course, by working from home, you can eliminate the commuting time from home to the office and vice versa. Therefore, it is inevitable that you might “delay” starting your work by a few minutes, or finish later than usual. However, do not let this go too far, leading to shortened working hours or work interfering with your daily routine. Remember to say “no” to laziness and procrastination.
4. MORNING HABITS
On normal days, you have to wake up early and go to work in the morning. Over time, this routine establishes good morning habits for you. Specifically, waking up early, preparing a working mindset, eating on time, drinking a cup of coffee, or exercising,… When working from home, if you allow yourself to be “sluggish,” it can significantly impact your work performance.
Advice from HUFLIT Career Hub: maintain good morning habits just like when you go to work normally. On the other hand, this also has a positive impact on resetting your office work life after the pandemic.
5. STAYING FOCUSED WHILE WORKING FROM HOME
When working from home, you face a high risk of encountering obstacles from your own family, especially families with young children.
For those living alone, the “temptation” comes from home entertainment forms: such as watching movies, texting, reading stories, browsing Facebook, or taking photos,… These forms easily draw you in and consume a lot of time. As a consequence, online working time is reduced, or tasks are neglected.
Therefore, when working online from home, clearly divide your schedule. Dedicate time solely to work; once work is completed, you can pay attention and care to other things. Do not let household chores like childcare, cooking, laundry, or neighbors,… distract you when you need to focus on work.
To avoid being distracted by these devices when working from home, you can refer to the following tips:
- Turn off your phone while working.
- Keep your phone out of reach when you need to focus.
- Turn off notifications or put it on silent mode.
- Only use your phone during your break time. MU
6. CREATE A TO-DO LIST
“To-do list” is a list of tasks to be done, with their order of execution depending on deadlines and importance. Creating a To-do list not only helps you visualize and determine your daily workload, but also helps you stay away from stress. Too many tasks piled up can cause you to feel stressed and negatively affect your efficiency.
7. DON’T FORGET TO COMMUNICATE WHEN WORKING ONLINE
Isolation or disconnection can completely happen to remote workers. Especially with the current prolonged social distancing situation. To avoid this, you need to regularly contact and communicate with your colleagues – those who are also working remotely like you.
Besides communicating via text, you can discuss work and ideas with your colleagues online. Or simply if work discussion is not needed, you and your colleagues can just share with each other about the difficulties of working online at home and how to solve them.
8. DON’T FORGET TO EXERCISE WHEN WORKING FROM HOME
HUFLIT Career Hub has mentioned the importance of exercising and health training exercises when working from home #Homeworkout. Maintaining physical exercise not only brings efficiency to work, overcomes office diseases, but is also a solution to overcome mental health-related diseases during the social distancing season. You can follow the article here
Working online from home can create “sweet traps” that affect your work efficiency. Maintaining good daily habits will help you soon achieve high work efficiency.
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