COVID-19: Tips to ensure productivity when working from home

England’s deputy chief medical officer recently stated that it could be six months before life in the UK returns to ‘normal’.

Many UK businesses have been working from home for the last few weeks and this prediction implies that it could be much longer than first expected until employees are back in the office.

For some working from home is a pleasure, however, for the vast majority this is unfamiliar territory and can easily come across as daunting.

The freedom available can have a lot of benefits but can simultaneously lead to a productivity drop.

If you’re looking to maintain and even improve your productivity while working from home, below are a few of our top tips to help you.

• Keep a routine

Working from home provides a wide array of benefits, but few are as sweet as the lack of commute and extra time at home (in bed).

While we’re confined to our home, it’s far too easy for our routines to be replaced by late nights and even later mornings.

Maintaining your routine while working from home is incredibly important for structure, starting the day correctly and setting work hours that you’ll stick to.

It’s easy to get lost in a task and work past your traditional hours.

While it may seem counterproductive to discourage this when discussing productivity, regularly working late into the evening will lead to burnout which will ultimately diminish your productivity going forward.

• Get dressed

We can’t deny that it’s tempting to roll out of bed 5 minutes before your supposed to start and spend the day in your dressing gown.

But this is a definitive way to get stuck in a disjointed mindset.

Treat every day like a normal working day, have a shower, put on some fresh clothes and trust us, you’ll be feeling much fresher and look much better if you’re on a video call later in the day.

• Don’t forget to have a chat

We’re ultimately social beings and not being able to stop by your favourite colleague’s desk for a quick chat can be quite jarring.

To combat this, it’s important that you have the right communication tools to hand.

Checking in with people via email, text, over the phone or via a video call won’t just keep you in the loop but it might just help maintain your sanity during this bizarre period.

• Create a designated work environment

Before starting your day, you need a clearly defined and organised workspace, whether that’s an office, dining room table or even the coffee table.

We all know how easy it is to get side-tracked and put on some daytime telly on while you answer a few emails, but by ensuring you have a designated work area, it’s far easier to block out any distractions.

Additionally, at the end of the day, you can also leave the office or pack up your workspace to ensure you maintain a good work/life balance.

• Have a break

Now that you have your designated work environment you can work with all potential distractions out of sight.

But remember, grinding out work nonstop isn’t healthy and again will result in burnout.

So regular breaks are essential to re-energise yourself and ensure the work you are producing is quality rather than quantity.

Take time out every hour by stretching your legs and grabbing a brew or even take one of our colleague’s lead and do a little bit of cleaning to refresh yourself.

Hopefully, these tips will help you be as productive as possible when working from home.

For more information on how you can maintain a successful business during the COVID-19 pandemic, check out our support hub here and to request a free trial of KashFlow, click here.