6 Work From Home Productivity Tips

Day 9,999 of working from home (who’s counting?) and maybe it’s the warmer weather making productivity harder than it was 9,998 days ago, or maybe it’s the realization we’re settling in to WFH for the long haul. Our first stage of coping with office withdrawal: roasting each other’s WFH setups. The second stage: actual, practical tips to help you stay focused and amazing.

How and When to Make a To-Do List

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Most productivity experts stress the importance of a written to-do list. (Writing it down vs. typing it makes it wayyyy more satisfying to cross the items off anyway.) In the book Organize Tomorrow Today, the authors recommend making a list of the three most important items to get done along with designated the most important. The old and respected Ivy Method recommends your top five or six items. Either way, both methods recommend making the list the day before and focus on starting with the most important versus the ones that are faster to bang out.

Put a Time Limit On It

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Along with choosing your important to-do’s, pick a time that you are aiming to get each one done. That will help keep you moving forward and less likely to get sucked into something else, like mindless scrolling.

Limit (or Delay) Distractions

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We live in a world of distractions, but luckily there are several ways to limit them. Our faves:

• Mute Slack messages and IM’s. Let your teams know you’ll be heads down in a project for a bit.
• Limit social media. You can either set limits with the app itself (Instagram has a “set daily time limit reminder” function) or you can set up limits on your iPhone through the settings -> screen time function.
• Turn your phone over. Promise it helps.
• Resist the temptation to throw in a load of laundry or other household chores as they can disrupt your brain power and focus.

Tackle the Hardest Thing First

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A lot of Praytell’s parents have been getting up between 5–6 am in order to get concentrated work done before the kiddos are up. Kids or no kids — we’d recommend tackling your hardest projects early in the morning and saving more mindless tasks like cleaning out emails until the end of the day when brains are fried.

Start the Day with Yourself

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It can feel incredibly refreshing to start off the day by doing something for yourself or your home/workspace. Whether it’s a morning run, yoga, meditation or even just making beds or washing dishes, you’ll feel more productive knowing you accomplished something before the day started.

Designate Your Hours

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Especially if you work with teams in other time zones, make them aware of your working hours and block off your calendar for when you’re offline. Before you check out for the day, make sure to connect with your teams and let them know you’re signing off so you won’t be bombarded with emails or IM’s. Personal time is sanity these days!

Questions? Drop us a line at Hello@praytellagency.com

Jeannie Evanchan a vice president of media strategy with 10 years of public relations experience. After spending her first 10 years chasing local market news in markets around the country including Indianapolis, Chicago and New York, she switched to PR in 2010 and hasn’t missed her 2 am wake up call even once. She’s based out of the Brooklyn office, but mostly works from her Westchester County home.