With the onset of the pandemic, almost every organisation had to move to remote work to keep operations running. It became crucial to make employees work from home in order to ensure their safety and health.

While employers ensured they keep track of employee productivity and paid them for their hard work with the help of a billable hours tracker, employees also looked for better ways to schedule their work in order to increase their efficiency.

While it’s not too difficult to stay productive, it does require some discipline. Especially for those shifting to remote work for the first time, some habits need to be modified to achieve better results. The below-mentioned tips will allow you to stay productive while working remotely:

• Build a dedicated workstation:

Having a fixed space plays a vital role in increasing work efficiency and will help you become serious as soon as you enter it. Find a clean distraction-free space and set it up to accommodate everything that you will need for work every day.

Spending a few minutes every day to keep it organised will help you focus on work more easily. It will reduce the amount of time spent on looking for things and help you achieve more in less time.

• Bring outside beauty inside:

Plants and natural greenery brings a feeling of calmness and relaxation into any space. When you add plants to your workspace, they clean the air around you and also reduce noise levels.

Adding just a handful of easy-to-maintain house plants will make your workspace look more bright and colourful. The addition of colour through plants elevates your mood and makes you feel more creative.

• Identify your high-productivity hours:

Everyone has certain phases during the day when they feel the most active and are able to perform better. For instance, writers feel they are able to think better in the early hours of the day when there is less noise and distraction.

Evaluate your work patterns and examine your energy levels to identify when you feel the most charged up during the day. Schedule the most important set of tasks in those periods to get the best outputs.

• Dedicate time for de-stressing:

All work and no breaks can lead to severe burnout and cause stress. This can lead to a significant decline in employee productivity. Dedicate some time every day to engage in activities that will help you de-stress.

These can be as simple as spending time on social media, playing a game, or just taking a walk. Taking short breaks in between work will boost your efficiency and allow you to work with vigour.

• Avoid multitasking:

A lot of times we start working on multiple things together with the expectation that all of them will get done simultaneously. What we fail to realise is that although it is possible to execute them together, it’s not possible to ensure high quality of work.

Multitasking divides your attention as you have to juggle work, presentations, calls as well as family since you are working from home. Doing one thing at a time will help you accomplish things faster and prevent work quality from dropping.

• Divide your work into small achievable chunks:

When you structure your day to handle multiple big tasks, it can get overwhelming very soon. Instead of listing a task entirely, break it down into small chunks. This will make it easy to accomplish more in less time.

It is easier to tick the boxes off the to-do list when work is divided into sections that are realistic and achievable in the given time frame. It also makes prioritisation of tasks more quickly.

Conclusion:

In a nutshell, finding and working in a decluttered workspace can boost work productivity. Moreover, giving up the habit of multitasking will also prove helpful in the long run.