5 Ways to be Productive Working from Home

5 Ways to be Productive Working from Home:

1. Get dressed: I know it is tempting to just lounge in your yoga pants all day long but if you wake up, shower and get dressed you will feel more accomplished and ready to take on your day. It will help you sit up straighter and focus on the task at hand better than if you were to roll out of bed and walk to your computer.
2. Create a routine around when you do your best work: If you set aside some time at the beginning of the week to look through your days, this will help you be more productive. I work from home on Mondays.  It means I can work on the big picture, important and not urgent things because as the week goes on and I am in our clinics, there can be fires that come up that need my attention. And as good as I like to think I am at prioritizing, I can sometimes fall prey to working on the urgent, but not necessarily important.  
3. Set boundaries: Go through your day to day and define what is “work” and what are things you need to do at home, then separate it. Tell yourself that you will not touch a dish or do laundry until x y z is done with work – create a simple system that will keep you from feeling overwhelmed with both. This was really hard for me when I first started working from home because there was always something that needed to be done at the house.  I have done it enough now to be disciplined to ignore the home stuff while I am working.
4. Create a space you enjoy working in: This is huge, I am a big believer that your environment plays a huge role in how productive you can be, and that “outer order leads to inner calm.” If your space around you is cluttered, you may not even realize it, but it will impact your mood and your productivity. Turn on some instrumental music, put on your oil diffuser or light a candle and get stuff done!
5. Get moving: Don’t feel like just because you are at home, you can’t take a break. This is a vital part of not getting burnt out. You must take breaks from your computer, and screen time needs to be broken down. Set a timer for every 50 minutes where you take 10 minutes to walk around, get a drink of water, coffee, grab a snack. Something. Or you could make it to where you catch a workout class in the middle of the day and then come back and dominate the rest of your workday. On the days I work from home I often take a walk outside during a phone call. I can get so focused on cranking work out because I am dealing with fewer distractions so this practice helps me to make sure I am not sitting still too long.