Working from home, a great guide

Although a guide to working from home can be helpful to navigate through your daily routine, each individual is unique, and you will need to adopt that which works best for you in your environment.

So, let’s dive right into a great guide for working from home!

1. Capitalise on the extra time you’ve banked

You are no doubt over the moon about not having to deal with the traffic every morning with your life flashing before your eyes every time you change lanes.  While we feel that this precious time in traffic is wasted, it can now be capitalised on by getting an early start to your day when working from home.

Don’t allow the comfort of your pillow to keep you from getting up early. Put on a pot of coffee like you used to do ahead of the daily office run, throw on some clothes that you normally wear for a professional working day and tackle those tasks from the get-go.

When you feel you need a break, then chow your breakfast whilst working through your inbox.

2. Plan your schedule the day before and hit sixes all day long

Speaking of tasks, make sure that you are planning your routine the day before. It doesn’t help capitalising on that extra time at home and then spending the better half of your morning planning your day. With that approach, you will find yourself on the back foot more often than AB De Villiers hooking a short one for six. So, if you want to hit sixes all day long while working from home, have a plan and stick to it.

3. Use the right tools, like a lumberjack does

Ever seen a lumber jack cutting down a tree with a nail file? Me neither. In today’s world of rapidly advancing technology, there is an array of helpful, affordable and sometimes free tools that are the right tools for your newly discovered work life at home.

We have listed some of our favourite and most trusted tools used here at RocketNet:

• Microsoft Teams – great for video calls, online collaboration with file sharing and storage, application integration and calendar management
• Dropbox – a great file hosting service that offers transfer of large files, cloud storage, and file synchronization
• 1-Password – you can store your passwords, software licenses and other sensitive information with one master password
• RocketNet Fibre – hey, it’s our blog, but seriously we offer unshaped, uncapped and non-throttled fibre internet

4. Set aside some ‘connect-with-the-outside-world-time’

Human interaction is super important for your sanity. You don’t want to emerge from working at home into the ‘real world’ looking as though you escaped from some kind of asylum and are searching for your next victim. Get out to purchase a coffee, take that menacing dog for a walk or at best, sit down at that coffee shop to continue working for a while.

5. Use distractions to your advantage

It’s amazing how many people suddenly develop attention deficit disorder (ADD) when they start working from home. Instead of allowing distractions to pull you away from work, use them to your advantage. For example, if you are a gamer, then give yourself 30-minutes of game time as a reward for completing a certain number of tasks. If you enjoy a neat and tidy home, stick the washing on and use the washing machine as a timer to get some tasks done before the next load.

6. Hang a ‘work only’ sign on your door

Make a space just for your work at home and hang a sign on the door that reads ‘work only’ and includes some trading hours. You need to be able to switch off so you don’t end up in the WA (workaholics anonymous). Creating that separate space helps with the mind game and with healthy boundaries especially when your neighbor wants to come over for, ‘tea and a quick chat’ now that you are ‘free’.

In closing

Working from home can be liberating, fun and comfortable. It has been proven that it can increase productivity and improve work-life integration as well as employee satisfaction.

It requires a sharper focus and stronger discipline not to be distracted by all your creature comforts. Have a plan, find a routine, keep focused and enjoy working from home.