As frustrating and occasionally upsetting as this may be, you need to roll up your sleeves and get proactive. It’s time to identify the barriers to productivity and take steps to eliminate them. These may include...
Your network
Business networks have quite robust communications needs. Your home network may not be up to the challenge, especially with the rest of the family learning, streaming and working online, too. You may need to invest in a business-ready broadband package if you run your own business from home. Check out https://www.lingo.com/business/broadband/. If you are using a VPN to access your employer’s network from home, this may also slow your network considerably. Investing in a better broadband package could help you claw back your productivity.
Your space
It’s difficult to be at your most productive if you’re working in the spare room and sharing your space with a collapsed weight bench, boxes and boxes of old books and a set of skis which have been gathering dust since 2004.
Invest some time in relieving your space of clutter, ensuring that you have plenty of access to natural light and making your home office a space in which you can be proud to work.
Your family (you love them… but you know it’s true!)
It can be extremely difficult to divide your time between your family and your work under lockdown. Keep set working hours and make sure your family know not to disturb you within those hours unless it’s the kind of emergency for which they’d call you at work.
Your phone
Your smartphone is your gateway to the world. But within working hours it can be a distraction that you’re better off without. Keep it in a drawer until it’s time for your coffee break!
Your attitude
Please don’t take this last point the wrong way. We’re not saying that your attitude is lazy or lacklustre. Quite the opposite, in fact. In your zeal to be at your professional peak under extraordinary circumstances, you may find yourself frustrated and saddened as you fail to meet your own (perhaps unrealistically high) expectations.
By all means, continue to push yourself. Just don’t fall into the habit of beating yourself up when you have a less than productive day. Productivity guilt creates way more problems than it solves. Until you learn to let the bad days go and ride the highs of your good days, you’ll never be at your best when working from home.
