A few days ago, as I started writing the third chapter of my forthcoming book on the Palm Pre, I noticed that I hadn’t so much written anything for a few hours as played a computer game for three solid hours.
That’s when I had to remind myself that working from home was tricky — a million distractions threaten to sap your productivity. In that spirit, I’ve got some of my favorite tips for being productive when you work at home.
Respond to e-mail at set times during the day. Don’t reply to every message you get as you get it. Establish some e-mail discipline and set blocks of time aside throughout the day to communicate. That way you’re not constantly randomized and can concentrate on real work.
Always respond to your boss right away. Yeah, despite what I just said, your boss is an exception. Your boss gave you permission to work from home, and if it smells like you’re Twittering, your telecommuting privileges will be revoked faster than you can get to your basement office in fuzzy slippers. Remember that any boss is going to be at least a little suspicious of home office workers. Respond quickly and decisively to keep those doubts at bay.
Integrate your messaging as much as possible. E-mail, phone, fax, text, IM… people have so many ways to reach you that it’s sort of like you’re in a zombie movie, and the undead are reaching through every broken window and missing shingle in your house. One way to take control is to get an Internet fax service so you can send and receive faxes from your PC, and faxes arrive as e-mail.
Use a schedule. When you work from home, you probably don’t have a lot of meetings to go to. But that doesn’t mean your day is an undifferentiated blob of free-form activities. You’ll be more efficient and more productive if you schedule your tasks in Outlook — from 8 to 10, write the report. 1 to 2, work on performance reviews. 2 to 3 is time to check the analytics. Don’t leave your schedule to chance.
At the end of the day, shut down your PC and stop answering e-mail. Another risk of working from home: Not knowing when to stop. Don’t let your job take over your home life. At 6pm, shut off your PC and say goodbye to the office until the next morning. Your family will thank you when you’re not answering e-mail at 9pm.
Take breaks. Make sure you take a real lunch and an afternoon break as well. Think about it: At work, you have frequent interruptions and opportunities to talk to other people. Those breaks reset your mental clock and invigorate you. At home, you can get lost in work for hours at a time with no breaks. And that will make you less and less efficient as the day goes on. Stop, recharge, re-engage.
Photo by dr.jd
