As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to unfold, many employees have to learn to work remotely, while many business owners have to learn to run their companies from home, too. Both categories of population may struggle with constantly staying at home, and definitely see issues with productivity. Some can’t stand the availability of online entertainment as they sit with their laptop, others can’t manage their time, others still lack work-related communication.

However, business owners should take additional care about themselves, to keep the business going. Unfortunately, too many smaller companies had to close their doors forever as the result of the lockdown. To avoid that, and to keep high spirits in tough times, check out whether your environment and your daily habits contribute to your success.

Environment

Environment is something we may not notice, but we can’t avoid feeling its impact. Healthy environment is particularly important, especially in a family, especially during the lockdown, and especially for people working from home to provide for their families - let alone keep other people employed and getting their wages. Therefore, the environment is the very first aspect of productive and stress-free remote work.

Obviously, for many people, lockdown is not a time for major house or apartment renovations, but if you feel that the space around you is no good for work, maybe a few changes should be considered.

Your Working Place

The first aspect to pay attention to is the actual place you work from - your armchair, or your table and chair, or even the room you occupy as your remote work office. Most business owners are used to working from their offices, and they even prefer to travel there occasionally, only to avoid working from home. The concept of keeping work in the office, and relaxing at home is a good one. However, it may not be possible during the lockdowns, so make sure everything you use in your working hours from home is comfortable and handy.

Working sitting in your bed, or on the couch, is not a good idea, honestly. Better organize a table and a chair for yourself, and choose a chair you can sit on for hours. Many buy ergonomic chairs, others prefer fitballs, others still change position from sitting on a chair, to standing, every hour.

Pay attention to quality lighting, or even get yourself protective glasses if you don’t have ones yet. It makes sense to sit with your back to the room, and with your face to the window, if you can, to catch natural light.

Space Around You

Take time to analyze space around you, more specifically, in the room where you work more often. You may not be aware of it, but even the color of the walls can make you unconsciously moody or annoyed. If this is the case, you’d better find a different place for working, if you are not ready to repaint the walls. The color that fits for a living room may not fit for your home office.

Cleaning the mess also makes perfect sense. You can even choose to remove all the furniture or items you don’t use directly when working. Some people are insensitive to cluttered rooms, or even prefer creative chaos as they work. If you are not that kind of person, take care to remove things that make you annoyed.

Productivity

Making the space around you comfortable for working is part of the work done. However, productivity can be still undermined because people generally don’t have the habit of working at home. While in the office, the workflow, daily tasks, and a particular workplace culture keep the employees and the business owners working even at tough times, at home, these stimuli are absent. Therefore, learning a few additional methods will always be handy.

Manage Distractions

Managing distractions seems to be the hardest task of all. When there is nothing else to do but work, work can even be fun and engaging. But when you are at home, with a laptop on your knees, and so many unwatched movies and unplayed games, resisting the temptation becomes close to impossible.

Even without distractions as such, the brain can give you more interesting ideas to consider, like recalling your last vacation, or daydreaming about things. In this case, turning on some music can help retrieve your focus. The part of your mind that is bored can listen to the music, while the other part can do the work.

Unfortunately, there is another category of distraction caused by family members who either has no choice but to distract you due to necessity, or have no idea about personal borders and keeping away from a busy person. In this case, a family meeting is needed, to articulate the rules and priorities. Family issues are important, but your work is important, too.

Separate Work and Play

To be productive at work, and entertained in play, separate the two. Make an agreement with family members and significant others about when you have time, how much time you have, etc. This way, you have higher chances of doing your work without being interrupted. But when you do play, make sure you really pay attention to your family, and spend quality time with them. Make a schedule, if you can, and stick to it. You will see that your focus will immediately improve.

Health

Supporting own health during the lockdowns is crucial, not only in terms of the pandemic and the risks of Covid-19, but in terms of remote work, and also in terms of mental health (or even in terms of being literally stuck at home, as it was the case for many during the spring lockdown of 2020). Taking care of your health properly requires some discipline and some additional habits, too.

Get More Sleep & Movement

Quality of sleep is number one in the list of things that influence your health positively. Just make sure you don’t interpret quality sleep too literally in your own advantage - sleeping for 12 hours every day is unlikely to make you more productive. Rather, make sure you have a comfortable sleeping place, breathe fresh air as you sleep, and no noise wakes you up on a regular basis. By the way, sometimes, it makes sense to sleep alone.

And the second most popular recommendation is to get more movement. As trivial as it is, under the conditions of lockdown, this recommendation is just on time. If you can’t get proper exercise like jogging in the morning, or working out in the gym as you are used to, get up and exercise for 5 minutes every half an hour or so when you work. This will prevent numerous problems caused by long hours spent sitting.

Socialize

Only after people were deprived of the usual sweets of life like meeting friends and family on a regular basis, the value of person to person communication started to show. So, take effort to socialize, up to the degree allowed by the lockdown or other current anti-pandemic rules. Make sure you meet people safely, and spend quality time with your close family. It even makes sense to talk to childhood friends or remote family online, just to speak to a different person. If you have elderly relatives, make sure they don’t feel lonely and abandoned; they will be happy to talk to you once in a while. 

Keep Online Fun Away

Ironically, when one spends their whole day at their laptop, they want to relax and entertain themselves online, as well. However, it makes sense to cut the online fun down, if possible, and switch activities. You may not be amused about the prospect of joining the rest of the family in cleaning the house, but in the end, this activity can make you even more refreshed than a video game. And by the way, filter out triggering news in social media; this will only make you more anxious.

Final Thoughts

Working from home demands skill; experienced and successful freelancers will tell you this is a sort of art, in a sense. However, if learning this art will keep you productive and focused, it is definitely worth learning.