Although working from home can be fun and has many advantages, some disadvantages are the number of distractions and the temptation to keep working because you are home. However, here are a few ideas to help better manage your time at home: limiting your cell phone usage, using your lunch hour wisely, and understanding what puts you in the “zone” to work.
When working from home, one does not have peers around them to discourage them from looking at their phone, which can quickly become a distraction. Although the occasional phone break is acceptable, often it can be tempting to take too long of a phone break or too frequently. To help ease your temptation and limit your cell phone usage, consider setting up app / screen time restrictions on nonwork-related apps during work hours. Screen time restrictions can be very customizable based on needs, such as limiting messages from certain individuals, restricting only a certain amount of time on a certain app per day, locking apps for certain hours of the day, etc. Consider starting with identifying your most distracting nonwork-related apps and lock the apps during your work hours. From there, you can customize your cell phone usage as you see fit. By doing so, your phone will prompt a message the app has been limited, which is an excellent start to eliminating distractions and improving time management.
Another tip is to use your lunch hour wisely. This means making sure you make the most of your lunch hour in a way that is relaxing to you, so that you can get enough rest. This will help you to not be tempted to take too many breaks or excessive phone breaks since you rested properly. If you like to turn on the TV during your lunch break, make sure you select something you can watch within the hour; otherwise, you may be tempted to not return to work to finish what you are watching. Additionally, try to avoid using your lunch break to run errands or complete nonwork-related tasks, so you truly get a break from any type of work. If a lunch break is not spent well, it can cause early fatigue from not resting properly.
My final tip to improve time management while working from home is to understand what puts you in your “zone” to work. Identifying what puts you in the “work zone” can really help one get a lot of work done in a decent amount of time vs. allowing distractions to pull you away and cause tasks to take longer. Each person’s “work zone” will be different, whether it is putting on the TV as background noise or listening to your favorite music or instrumental music, etc. Often your “work zone” can be fun and can fill you with a sense of accomplishment as you work through tasks, which will further increase your time management.
I hope some of these tips will be helpful in improving your time management while working from home!
