Welcome back to PSA Thursday, a weekly segment in which we talk about how to handle money, work, and life in the middle of a pandemic.
Today’s focus is on work. Specifically, working from home, and how to stay focused and productive throughout your day.
Getting thrown into working from home when all you’ve known is the office life can be hard. Especially when there are added distractions involved that you don’t have to deal with at the office, like your kids, a pile of dishes, or your gloriously-stocked cupboards.
How can you manage the expectations of both your colleagues and the people you live with? How can you find a routine when you feel like you’re pulled in a million different directions all day every day? How can you ensure your kids are taken care of and your boss/manager/client is happy?
We answer these questions with these 31 tips we recommend for staying productive as you work from home.
Here’s a preview of five tips we discuss:
- Create a special signal that indicates that you’re working so your family is less likely to interrupt work.
- Schedule fun activities outside of work to look forward to. External obligations set a deadline for when work ends.
- Three ways to handle chores outside of work hours.
- Set up a new user profile on your computer or web browser to keep work and personal information separate.
- Eat lunch away from your desk.
Love these tips? Wish you had them packaged together in one place to refer back to them as needed? We have you covered.
Download the free ebook below that accompanies this episode. It includes all the tips covered in written form and a bonus one-sheet list of all the tips at the end. Print this sheet out and stick it near your desk!
P.S. – Sometimes it’s not about productivity. Sometimes it’s about non-stop self-care, or sitting with the struggle. We know that these are tough times, and not everyone has the mental bandwidth for productivity. If you can relate, this episode might not be for you. Our previous PSA was about building an emergency fund, and our future PSAs will likely focus on finance and real estate. We’ve heard from many community members that the transition to working from home was unexpectedly difficult and wanted to address that concern. 🙂
Resources Mentioned:
- Coronavirus Scams: How to Protect Yourself – Clark Howard
- Interview with Daniel Pink, author of When: The Scientific Secrets to Perfect Timing
- Noise-reduction earmuffs, from The Tools I Use in My Quest for Peak Productivity
- News Feed Eradicator for Facebook: Chrome | FireFox
- OneTab
- ToDoist
- Asana
- How to Use Multiple Browser Profiles in Any Browser – How-To Geek
- How to Create Multiple Profiles on Google Chrome – Pureinfotech
- Brain.fm
- Afford Anything Community Platform
- Interview with Cal Newport, author of Deep Work
- Audacity
- Slack
