Productivity Tips For Working From Home Long-term

Recommendations from the home-office of a Virtual Business Manager

Approx. Reading Time: 4 min.

While many businesses have been slowly allowed to reopen under COVID-19 safety measures, Canadian and other offices remain closed and staff continue to work from home. There is no sign this will change anytime soon, which means any current challenges of being focused and productive from home will stick around for some time. 

A recent survey by The Angus Reid Institute showed that as of June, two-thirds of Canadians, who are now working from home, think they will continue doing so, even once they are allowed back. Only around one-third (36%) expect returning to their physical workplace full-time, leaving 64% of workers either continuing to work-from-home or shifting to a combination of working at their employers’ workplace some days and from home on other days.  

In my first blog on productivity, March 18, I shared "7 tips to make working from home productive", where I addressed basics like: Setting your alarm and getting up as though you're going out to work, getting dressed and out of your pyjamas, creating a schedule for the day, taking regular little breaks, eliminating distractions as much as possible, and sticking to a work end time. These are still good recommendations and have been working well for me throughout my ten years or so of working remotely (catch up on those 7 Tips here: http://bit.ly/3a1dG6x).

Now seems a good time for a blog sequel on home office productivity! This time, with a focus on tools to help you better manage your tasks, workflow tracking and project communication.

My 3 Tips to improve productivity are to Automate, Delegate and Track.

The delegation aspect relates more to business owners or managers, and I will address that in a future blog. To give you a real-life example of the online programs I use on a daily or weekly basis to automate and track what I do, here is a sneak peek at my workday.

1.       First off, I open my time tracker, Toggle. This is where I track how much time I spend on each client, individual projects, and my own business tasks. I can invite team members to specific projects or client files and can review weekly or monthly reports. Reports are a visual reminder on whether I am spending too much or too little time on certain tasks or categories (e.g. not enough time on networking or too much on fun tasks like writing!).

2.       Then I review and respond to open tasks in my clients' task management programs, like Asana, Trello and Teamwork. I use all three and each has a different feel and abilities. Trello is more basic in its layout and capacities, Asana has more functionality and a more complex feel, and Teamwork is the deluxe program. My clients and I can create tasks that we can both view and comment on, set due dates, check off individual items as completed, and mark tasks as “started”, “in progress” or “done”. We can also add comments on individual tasks.

3.       To do my social media, I schedule several posts for the next few days or week in HootSuite. I can post them to three of my social media platforms, add images, and control what time I want them to go live. To shrink long URLs that I reference, I use Bitly (Owly is good too). Both shorten URLs and allow you to track how many times they’ve been opened. That's my favourite part!

4.       When it's time to access, share or organise new or updated files, I use Google Drive, Dropbox and Microsoft 365 Sharepoint (formerly called Office 365). With Google and Dropbox, I can easily give or receive viewing and editing permission for individual documents or folders (Sharepoint permissions are a bit more complicated). Google and Sharepoint allow live edits, meaning anytime someone makes updates to a document online, the next person viewing it will see all the edits; this eliminates the tedious back-and-forth emailing of revised documents!

I would say these are my most-used tools and most relevant for this blog topic. What I've described above covers automation and tracking of your daily tasks, which will save you a significant amount of time and hassle. Tasks can be better organized, tracked and reminders set when they are in one program, instead of a notebook or Word document. Your notes that go with individual tasks are easily found online, and not lost on pieces of notepaper. And automating as many repeat processes as possible limits the need for re-typing and re-entering repeated information.

Bonus Tip: If you want to check yourself and see which programs or websites you waste time on, use Rescuetime.com

Here’s to working productively from home! If you have specific questions or need more advice, get in touch with me via my contact page!

References:

• McKinsey Global Institute survey, https://mck.co/3dpbneI

• Angus Reid Institute survey, https://bit.ly/2Z060NL

7 Tips To Make Working From Home Productive During COVID-19

Reading time: approx. 5:00 minutes

If you have decided or are ‘forced’ to work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic, you may be wondering how to be productive without your usual office routines. I want to share seven of my tried and tested steps on how you, as a normally office-based employee, can be productive from your dining table or desk in the corner of your home.  

As the owner of a virtual business support company and having worked from my home office for 10 years now, after having been a corporate office employee for decades, I have learned how to be productive from my desk at home. Here, none of your usual daily office routines happen automatically, so it is up to YOU to create some routine!

Here are my 7 Tips to make working from home productive:  

1.      Set your alarm. Get up the same or similar time you would otherwise, minus your commuting time, which could be a significant saving. This alone sets you up for a good start.

2.      Get dressed. Do not stay in your pyjamas! It won’t help to sit on the couch in your jogging-pants and try to focus. Wear something reasonably presentable to get yourself in the right mindset (think workplace), which also indicates to your spouse or children that you are in work mode.

3.      Plan your day. Write down a schedule for that day. List the top 1-3 tasks to work on. Decide on the amount of time you plan to work until your first significant break. Our brains can’t stay fully productive for longer than 90 minutes, so plan 60 or 90-minute increments followed by 15 or 30-minute breaks. Plan your lunch break as well. Track what you’ve worked on and check it off when completed, so you see what you’ve achieved – it is hugely satisfying to check off completed tasks! If your employer doesn’t already use a team management program, set up a free online account and invite your team members. Email your manager or supervisor what you’ve worked on at the end of each day or two – it will stand you in good stead to show you’re still getting things done.
GREAT TOOLS: Trello, Asana, Basecamp or Slack (the first two have free basic plans) to create task boards, task lists, due dates and communicate on projects with your colleagues without clogging up your emails. Quite intuitive and quick to learn and many help videos available online. A simple task list in Google Keep or Evernote also work.

4.      Eliminate distractions. Reduce demands from your pets, children or spouse, who will feel that because they see you at home, they can discuss today’s news, be entertained and beg for playtime or walkies. Explain to them why you need to enforce work hours. Stay off your social media accounts until you have a scheduled break and turn off your mobile phone ringer and text messaging. Check it only at set times for new messages.
GREAT TOOLS: Simple: mute buttons, turn off email notifications on your computer

5.      Establish work and rest routines. While you need to be strict with work time, be sure to take breaks. Our brains’ 90-minute limit is based on energy and oxygen supply, so restorative breaks are hugely important. Step away from your desk and really switch out of work mode for 15-30 minutes. Step outside if you can, make a cup of tea, eat a healthy snack and chat with whoever is at home with you. Also, schedule when to end your workday and at a reasonable time, so you can keep that important demarcation between work time and personal time.
GREAT TOOL: A simple kitchen timer. If you don’t have a portable one, set the timer on your stove, which also forces you to get up from your desk and move a little.

6.      Tell people. Let your friends, children and parents know that just because you are home for the next few weeks does not mean you’re free for unscheduled and unlimited phone or video calls during the day. If your employer is paying you, make it clear to friends and family that you have work hours. If you are lucky enough to have a separate office at home, you or your children can draw a sign with your “home office hours” and post it on the door or stick it on your refrigerator.

7.      Plan for fun. Make sure you plan for fun time and take a little bit of advantage of working from home – after all, you are saving on travel time. If you can, go for a walk during your lunch break, take the children out so they can let off some steam, play a game at home or take a short nap. Schedule a quick phone or video call with a colleague or your work team to stay connected and help reduce the feelings of social isolation.  

Click here to download these
7 tips as a bullet point list for your reference.

If one day goes a little sideways, don’t beat yourself up about it. Even after ten years of working from home, I have days when my best-laid work schedule and routine doesn’t come off smoothly. Stuff happens, as we all know now. Try to accept it and prepare to have a better day tomorrow.  

Also worth mentioning is that employers are taking a huge financial hit by sending home X number of staff. I hope you will continue being paid the same salary or hourly rates. That means you, as an employee, can help ensure your company stays productive and competitive during a shut-down, and therefore your job still safe when you return from voluntary or mandatory self-isolation or quarantine.  

All the best in your new work-from-home routine, stay well, and contact me if you have related questions or post a comment on social media (Twitter or LinkedIn) to share how my tips are working for you and what else helps you stay productive.

Photo by Alexa Williams on Unsplash

ABOUT ME: A former corporate executive assistant turned entrepreneur, now a Virtual Business Manager of Martina Rowley And Company in Canada guiding clients to better time management, accountability and increased productivity through streamlining their tasks and processes. A disciplined and organisational nerd with a cute cat, who makes many attempts to distract me during my workday.

3 Tips On How Entrepreneurs Can Take Vacations

As I am about to embark on my two weeks+ holiday in Europe, I am reminded that one of the biggest challenges as small business owners and solopreneurs is taking time off! There are things to do, clients to take care of, new clients to be found and prospected and someone has to pay the bills!  

I believe that most of the resistance and panic over “I can’t possible take this much time off” centers around guilt. We let thoughts take over like, "I need to work hard / I need to be available whenever clients want to get hold of me / I must put in at least X huge number of hours every day and week to succeed / or I’ll miss a great deal or contract". How much of that is really true for every week, in 52 weeks of the year? And how much good does a stressed and overworked You really do your clients, yourself and your family?

Avoid burning out! Multitasking and worrying about every aspect of your business can take a toll on your mental, emotional and physical well-being. An article by Forbes emphasises that simply working harder isn’t the solution. It suggests, if you are rewards-obsessed (instead of having a harmonious passion), are bored, trying to do it all, or refusing to slow down when life sends you speed bumps, you’re greatly increasing the chances you’ll experience burnout.  

Do not let that happen. I know from a similar personal experience that it is MUCH harder to recover long-term and completely from burnout or an illness than it is to avoid it in the first place. Try these steps to enable yourself to take that holiday without (or with far less) guilt:

1. Delegate: Before you even start planning your holiday destination, explore who can cover some of your main tasks during your absence. Could a Virtual Assistant (VA) or Virtual Business Manager (VBM or OBM), social media manager, fellow web designer or bookkeeper (or whatever your industry or niche) help you out for a while? Maybe you can do a quid pro quo – they act as your backup and you do the same for them.
   As long as your clients have another go-to specialist, they can manage without you for a couple of weeks. Ask around in your business network. Very important: Have a Scope Of Work document (aka step-by-step guide or instructions) on how you want your delegate to do your tasks. This has worked very well for the support my team and I provide for my clients.

2. Work Smarter, Not Harder: Using some of my recommended online tools can save you time and improve how you track and retrieve tasks and documents (look up my last two newsletters). Implement set work hours and enforce them with yourself and your family, e.g. make yourself unavailable at certain times, so you can stay focused and increase productivity and output and do your most important work at a time of day when you feel most energetic. I tell my clients I am available 9am to 4pm and that's my general workday (often shorter, only occasionally longer). Create short priority lists for your days that you can actually complete. I like the "Urgent-Important-Matrix" or officially called the Eisenhower Matrix (because General Eisenhower apparently invented it) to help me prioritise or delegate!

3. Tell Clients in Advance: I notify my clients well in advance (several months) of any longer vacation I am planning. They appreciate being informed ahead of time, and in the weeks coming up to my break I emphasise us working on tasks or projects that need starting or completing before I leave. I have always found that my clients are understanding of my need to take time off, the same way they benefit from and take their breaks. You may find that your fear of leaving clients ‘unattended’ for a couple of weeks is completely unfounded!

Thankfully, I have a very capable and reliable VA subcontractor working with me and handling my holiday coverage, and as such my level of guilt over going incommunicado for one or two weeks at a time is very low. If you didn’t take a good long break this summer yet, plan yours and go for it. If you need more encouragement, The Entrepreneur.com has a good article on How Entrepreneurs Can Avoid Burnout.

And now I’m going offline – I have a holiday to pack for!