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Friday, January 21, 2022
How to Stay Focused Working From Home & Be Productive
business.tutsplus.com: Working from home offers many key benefits, but it can be a major change. If you’re wondering how to work from home, it pays to follow a structured approach. This helps you maintain a balanced lifestyle while working remotely.
10 comments:
Gaby Fonseca Luna
said...
I would say these are all pretty good steps to follow in order to at least semi-successfully accomplish anything from home. I personally have been reminded how hard I find it to get settled in, follow a different routine, and do any of those steps listed in the article. The article does miss stating that not all of these steps are realistic for everyone to follow. Not everyone can afford to have a dedicated office space, more often than not I have noticed desks either get placed in a bedroom or in a shared area – both noted as “no’s” in the article. The “structure your day” portion also fails to note how, especially living with other family members, working from home equals more time that could be spent doing home-related tasks. Now, it’s impossible to foresee any and all circumstances when making lists like these, but I also think it is important to refer to multiple sources to amplify the possibility of finding helpful solutions.
This article is particularly useful during these two weeks of remote learning– which as much as I personally do not like it, believe it’s definitely worth the pain. I mean, no one wants to get COVID-19 (or the omicron variant) Haha! As the article points out, minimizing distractions is key to staying focused from home. In fact, on Tuesday morning, right before classes, I took it upon myself to delete Instagram and TikTok (yes, I finally did it). Now, despite how bored I may get from time to time, I truly have no distractions present. In consequence, I’ve managed to stay more focused during lass and have without a doubt felt more productive throughout my day. Additionally, I believe I’ve actually managed to “fix my sleep schedule”. Whereas before I would spend hours mindlessly scrolling before going to bed, I now get ready for bed, read a bit for leisure or class, and sleep at a more “socially acceptable” hour.
I think staying focused while working from home will always be a hard task for me. Some days I am fully capable of staying focused however other days it seems I can not whatsoever, an issue that has been exasperated due to the pandemic forcing us to stay at home. I think this article definitely highlights very good techniques and processes to make working from home easier however it definitely is easier to say these things than actually follow them. Personally when I am working from home having a home office is a little difficult to achieve. I think having a separate room just for an office is definitely a luxury and even having a desk just solely dedicated to work is also a luxury many college students are not able to achieve. I do think the other tips are easier to achieve with limiting distractions and giving yourself goals to look towards. Something I personally need to work on is giving myself a more rigid structure for my day because I tend to try to do work and homework at any moment I can rather than dedicating time for it.
Currently, I am feeling very thankful for this article. Zoom class drains me. I think it's because it doesn’t feel real so my responsibilities in class become fake. I struggle heavily with finding the motivation to sit on zoom all day and then continue to be on my computer to complete assignments. The first tip in this article is pretty useless to me. If I could have a separate space I would but I do zoom from my bed. I live in a dorm with nowhere else to go and my roommate's partner uses my desk for their classes. But I have never really had a problem with doing zoom from my bed, at least I am comfy. I have been finding comfort in structuring my day, I have the Todoist app across all of my electronic devices so I am able to see what I want to accomplish that day anywhere from my laptop to my watch. That has been something that has been extremely helpful because it is oh so satisfying to check things off and get points rewarded to you. I guess you could say that I am counting down the days until we are back in person but maybe these tips will make online class more manageable.
This article felt more like an organized list of all the things people working remotely are expected to do rather than a brand new tutorial or compilation of little known tips and tricks; the reminders to remove distractions and take breaks are not news. I would say the most useful piece of advice in the article would be when Childress emphasizes that “what worked in the office won’t work at home”. Being in a new environment that was previously established to function in a drastically different way is very difficult, so making the proper adjustments to make working in that space as productive as possible is definitely helpful. The article does fail to consider some varying, uncontrollable environmental factors though; for example, building a comfortable workplace may be out of the realm of spacial or financial possibility for some people while mental health issues may become an obstacle for others.
I honestly groaned when I read the title of this article, but I thought it would be worth it to check it out, see if it offered any new information for me to consider. After two years of online work, school, etc. for all of us, the number of articles and conversations about this have just been… too many. Though, I do think it offers some important ideas like making your space comfortable and in a way that works for you, and also remembering to take breaks, take care of yourself, and maintain a work-life balance. These are all super important to remember, to make sure we are taking care of ourselves, especially when we are online. But, to me, this article feel superficial and repetitive (again, especially after two years). I think these conversations are personal to you: what works for you specifically? There is no one end-all-be-all solution to making working from home as comfortable as it can be.
Reading this article at the end of our first week back on zoom made me realize how much I used to know about working from home, and how much I'd forgotten over time. It also made me realize that some of the little habits I'd been doing actually had good reason to them. For example, this week (as well as last year on zoom), I always clean up my desk before class or before doing homework. This article makes a good point about how important your workspace is to your own focus and productivity, and it's interesting to me how much that had become ingrained in me.
I also found the article's tips on how to avoid digital distractions helpful, although I find that I experience digital distractions in a different way. For me, if I have any non-work-related tabs on while trying to do class or homework, I'll often click on those tabs to see if anything on the website has updated while I've been away. So, I've had to keep them closed during work, and treat reopening them as a form of break in itself.
My planner has been my best friend for this last week of Zoom school, I mean let’s be honest it kind of always is. Truthfully, though I have found it incredibly overwhelming to resettle into my dorm, classes, homework, work, and my freelance designing after break all at once. It is even more difficult to balance all of this because mostly everything is on Zoom. Personally, I never really had to do Zoom school, I went an asynchronous route. So, sitting on my laptop for this long has been getting to me. After classes, I simply don’t want to see my computer. During class my biggest distraction is my laptop itself, not my phone or social media. I try to work on too many tasks at once. This article illuminated that, I should be writing breaks into my schedule and take a bit of a more relaxed approach if I have to to get through the foreseeable future.
This article allowed me to identify some key mistakes we all could be making while working from home. I appreciate how it not only made me think about what I could maybe change at home, but how to go about altering such habits. Going through 6 main steps to successfully working at home, this article can be a helpful tool for just about anyone who must work from home. The tools mentioned in this article can especially apply to the theatre community, especially in education as we continue to adapt theatre in whatever way we can to keep growing our knowledge (even if it is not conventional). For example, as a stage manager in high school during covid, the cast, director, and I all attended rehearsal via zoom. This proved to be especially difficult because although I am used to having access to my electronic devices during rehearsal, the actors weren’t which provided a new challenge. If they had access to the tools in this article, I believe it would have made reducing distractions a bit easier as well as create an environment with the typical camaraderie. As the article mentions, “it is more challenging to maintain and grow connections” when working from home, which is evident in a rehearsal zoom.
As someone who exclusively does homework from their bed and has been since they can remember, I understand and acknowledge that these genuinely can help but I don’t know if I’m ready to invest in a quality desk chair. I think I might seriously have to start considering it since the amount of remote learning and jobs have increased and it’s no longer just homework at home. Although, I will say some of these suggestions are a little unrealistic for people specifically having the room for a separate office space. That is the best case scenario, but many people including myself have to make do with a desk less than a foot away from my bed. A tip I am actively trying to implement is adding some structure to my day. For me, that looks like updating my google calendar and including things such as grocery shopping and laundry to make sure that they don’t fall through the cracks when things pick up.
10 comments:
I would say these are all pretty good steps to follow in order to at least semi-successfully accomplish anything from home. I personally have been reminded how hard I find it to get settled in, follow a different routine, and do any of those steps listed in the article. The article does miss stating that not all of these steps are realistic for everyone to follow. Not everyone can afford to have a dedicated office space, more often than not I have noticed desks either get placed in a bedroom or in a shared area – both noted as “no’s” in the article. The “structure your day” portion also fails to note how, especially living with other family members, working from home equals more time that could be spent doing home-related tasks. Now, it’s impossible to foresee any and all circumstances when making lists like these, but I also think it is important to refer to multiple sources to amplify the possibility of finding helpful solutions.
This article is particularly useful during these two weeks of remote learning– which as much as I personally do not like it, believe it’s definitely worth the pain. I mean, no one wants to get COVID-19 (or the omicron variant) Haha! As the article points out, minimizing distractions is key to staying focused from home. In fact, on Tuesday morning, right before classes, I took it upon myself to delete Instagram and TikTok (yes, I finally did it). Now, despite how bored I may get from time to time, I truly have no distractions present. In consequence, I’ve managed to stay more focused during lass and have without a doubt felt more productive throughout my day. Additionally, I believe I’ve actually managed to “fix my sleep schedule”. Whereas before I would spend hours mindlessly scrolling before going to bed, I now get ready for bed, read a bit for leisure or class, and sleep at a more “socially acceptable” hour.
I think staying focused while working from home will always be a hard task for me. Some days I am fully capable of staying focused however other days it seems I can not whatsoever, an issue that has been exasperated due to the pandemic forcing us to stay at home. I think this article definitely highlights very good techniques and processes to make working from home easier however it definitely is easier to say these things than actually follow them. Personally when I am working from home having a home office is a little difficult to achieve. I think having a separate room just for an office is definitely a luxury and even having a desk just solely dedicated to work is also a luxury many college students are not able to achieve. I do think the other tips are easier to achieve with limiting distractions and giving yourself goals to look towards. Something I personally need to work on is giving myself a more rigid structure for my day because I tend to try to do work and homework at any moment I can rather than dedicating time for it.
Currently, I am feeling very thankful for this article. Zoom class drains me. I think it's because it doesn’t feel real so my responsibilities in class become fake. I struggle heavily with finding the motivation to sit on zoom all day and then continue to be on my computer to complete assignments. The first tip in this article is pretty useless to me. If I could have a separate space I would but I do zoom from my bed. I live in a dorm with nowhere else to go and my roommate's partner uses my desk for their classes. But I have never really had a problem with doing zoom from my bed, at least I am comfy. I have been finding comfort in structuring my day, I have the Todoist app across all of my electronic devices so I am able to see what I want to accomplish that day anywhere from my laptop to my watch. That has been something that has been extremely helpful because it is oh so satisfying to check things off and get points rewarded to you. I guess you could say that I am counting down the days until we are back in person but maybe these tips will make online class more manageable.
This article felt more like an organized list of all the things people working remotely are expected to do rather than a brand new tutorial or compilation of little known tips and tricks; the reminders to remove distractions and take breaks are not news. I would say the most useful piece of advice in the article would be when Childress emphasizes that “what worked in the office won’t work at home”. Being in a new environment that was previously established to function in a drastically different way is very difficult, so making the proper adjustments to make working in that space as productive as possible is definitely helpful. The article does fail to consider some varying, uncontrollable environmental factors though; for example, building a comfortable workplace may be out of the realm of spacial or financial possibility for some people while mental health issues may become an obstacle for others.
I honestly groaned when I read the title of this article, but I thought it would be worth it to check it out, see if it offered any new information for me to consider. After two years of online work, school, etc. for all of us, the number of articles and conversations about this have just been… too many. Though, I do think it offers some important ideas like making your space comfortable and in a way that works for you, and also remembering to take breaks, take care of yourself, and maintain a work-life balance. These are all super important to remember, to make sure we are taking care of ourselves, especially when we are online. But, to me, this article feel superficial and repetitive (again, especially after two years). I think these conversations are personal to you: what works for you specifically? There is no one end-all-be-all solution to making working from home as comfortable as it can be.
Reading this article at the end of our first week back on zoom made me realize how much I used to know about working from home, and how much I'd forgotten over time. It also made me realize that some of the little habits I'd been doing actually had good reason to them. For example, this week (as well as last year on zoom), I always clean up my desk before class or before doing homework. This article makes a good point about how important your workspace is to your own focus and productivity, and it's interesting to me how much that had become ingrained in me.
I also found the article's tips on how to avoid digital distractions helpful, although I find that I experience digital distractions in a different way. For me, if I have any non-work-related tabs on while trying to do class or homework, I'll often click on those tabs to see if anything on the website has updated while I've been away. So, I've had to keep them closed during work, and treat reopening them as a form of break in itself.
My planner has been my best friend for this last week of Zoom school, I mean let’s be honest it kind of always is. Truthfully, though I have found it incredibly overwhelming to resettle into my dorm, classes, homework, work, and my freelance designing after break all at once. It is even more difficult to balance all of this because mostly everything is on Zoom. Personally, I never really had to do Zoom school, I went an asynchronous route. So, sitting on my laptop for this long has been getting to me. After classes, I simply don’t want to see my computer. During class my biggest distraction is my laptop itself, not my phone or social media. I try to work on too many tasks at once. This article illuminated that, I should be writing breaks into my schedule and take a bit of a more relaxed approach if I have to to get through the foreseeable future.
This article allowed me to identify some key mistakes we all could be making while working from home. I appreciate how it not only made me think about what I could maybe change at home, but how to go about altering such habits. Going through 6 main steps to successfully working at home, this article can be a helpful tool for just about anyone who must work from home. The tools mentioned in this article can especially apply to the theatre community, especially in education as we continue to adapt theatre in whatever way we can to keep growing our knowledge (even if it is not conventional). For example, as a stage manager in high school during covid, the cast, director, and I all attended rehearsal via zoom. This proved to be especially difficult because although I am used to having access to my electronic devices during rehearsal, the actors weren’t which provided a new challenge. If they had access to the tools in this article, I believe it would have made reducing distractions a bit easier as well as create an environment with the typical camaraderie. As the article mentions, “it is more challenging to maintain and grow connections” when working from home, which is evident in a rehearsal zoom.
As someone who exclusively does homework from their bed and has been since they can remember, I understand and acknowledge that these genuinely can help but I don’t know if I’m ready to invest in a quality desk chair. I think I might seriously have to start considering it since the amount of remote learning and jobs have increased and it’s no longer just homework at home. Although, I will say some of these suggestions are a little unrealistic for people specifically having the room for a separate office space. That is the best case scenario, but many people including myself have to make do with a desk less than a foot away from my bed. A tip I am actively trying to implement is adding some structure to my day. For me, that looks like updating my google calendar and including things such as grocery shopping and laundry to make sure that they don’t fall through the cracks when things pick up.
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