You may think that having a job or business that you can do from home is the ideal scenario. Enabling you to manage your time and work in what suits you. Having that home and work-life balance just right, and being able to relax such as being able to avoid office workwear protocols or socialising with people you don’t like.
There are some major benefits to having a job or income provider that you can do from home. However, the people that do have this life will tell you it isn’t always plain sailing. Here are some of the ways you can ensure that working from home works for you.
Setting up a designated working from home area
One of the biggest things people find hard is the merge of work and home life, and how this can have you feeling like you are never off the clock. This could be because you are working in an area where you also relax, spend time with the family, and do other things in your home. Try and create a designated working area. That way you can separate the two while still being able to work at home.
Setting up a designated working area can feel daunting, especially if the prospect is thrush upon you like many people were at the start of the pandemic when working from home was the only option for many. Taking a proactive approach to setting up a workspace can help you take back some of the control over your working-from-home plans.
Desk
The leap to working from home for many was a decision that came overnight as the pandemic took hold of the country. A desk in this instance was any space around the home that they could utilise for pockets of the day. Hopefully, many of those who were asked to work from home and have continued long past the peak of the pandemic have managed to find a permanent working area in the home.
When it comes to finding the best desk space for you, you need to think about how you will be utilising the available space. For many, it will be the essential tech that takes up the majority of the space, so only a small desk is required, however, more creative work-from-home jobs may need a large surface area to have easy access to all the items that they require.
Monitor
Making the move from utilising your laptop screen to a monitor will greatly improve the ergonomics of how you work. To ensure that your work area is set up with efficiency, practical and health reasons balanced out adding a monitor bracket can get your monitor in the correct position and even lifted off your desk giving you back valuable desk space.
Depending on how much work you complete via your laptop, you might want to consider a second monitor so that you are able to view additional documents easily, especially during zoom meetings.
Dedicated tech
Using your laptop keyboard and touchpad might be OK for the short term, but utilising them day in and day out will soon start to have a negative effect on your working position. Having dedicated tech available to use that is separate from your laptops such as a keyboard, mouse and even a webcam for those all-important Zoom meetings.
Computer chair
You might think that the dining chairs that you sit on for your evening meal are comfortable but they won’t be after sitting on them after a few hours. Finding a computer chair that has a five-point wheelbase, adjustable height and seat position as well as lumbar support that will help ensure you are in the best-seated position whilst you are working.
Research different working from home funding options
Working from home may mean that you have started a business venture, and that could mean that you need to think about progressing that business forward. When you are just starting out, and also trying to find your feet in the working world, big investments can seem hard to navigate.
This is when researching your funding options and looking at unsecured alternatives could help you to find the right things for you and your business.
Try and keep home life separate
Keeping your work and home life separate can be hard, and while having a designated area to work in can help, you may also want to look at other ways to segregate the two things. For example, if you supply products, then shoving boxes of stock around your home may actually impact your home life.
Having designated areas for things can help you to keep things separate. Which helps your mindset as well as your ability to work.
Remember to socialise a little
Let’s be honest, working from home can be quite lonely, so it is important for you to get some sort of socialising into your day. Attending networking events can give you benefits for your business as well as personally. But also taking regular breaks, working outside of the home, and meeting up with friends and family can help you to get the breaks that you need.
Find time management hacks that work for you
Finally, finding the right time management hacks that work for you will help you to be more productive with the time that you have. This could be using blocks of time to do specific tasks, waiting lists to keep you in check, or trying to time yourself to do certain tasks. There are a whole host of options online for you to try.
Try some of these working from home hints and tips today and see how they could help you make more of your working from home situation.
