How to Work From Home Effectively
Working from home has started to become a challenge for most of us. While the benefits are there, challenges and issues happens that prevents us from completing our work. These may lead to delayed work, ruined relationships, broken trust and stress. Knowing how to work from home effectively can help us overcome these challenges and be more successful in our work in the new workplace setup.
I had been working from home since the pandemic hit. It has been about 3 years by the time I wrote this. And during those years, I had learned a few things that make me successful in working from home. The key thing to remember here when working from home is to ensure that work is completed and delivered on time. Simple as that. And as I have mentioned above, there would be challenges that would prevent us from accomplishing that. For us to be able to do our work, we just simply need to over come those.
What prevents us from working from home effectively?
Here are the challenges that prevents us from working from home effectively:
Power interruption. Right? Simple as that may be that is the one most significant hurdle for us. Without electricity, we can not do our work. A lot of the work that we do revolves around using computers thus, without power, we can not do our work.
Loss of internet connectivity. This happens. While we get the most reliable internet provider in the country we are in, there would be times that we will lose connection preventing us to keep in touch with our colleagues and complete our work.
Presence of distractions. At home, or whatever you are working from, there will always be distractions. There is just much more at home, depending on your setup. TV is big distraction. Being near the kitchen where the food is is another distraction. The people you are with in the house will always vie for your attention for something. Maybe something happening in your neighborhood will also distract you. There are so many things that could take your attention from what you need to do.
Lack of discipline. This is all on you. Without the discipline to do the work, it would really delay the completion of it. If we lack the discipline to do what is necessary and when to do it, we end up with nothing to show for.
What are the effects of these challenges?
We can not be effective working from home if these challenges are not addressed. Here are some of the effects:
Delayed work. Of course, we will not be able to complete our work on time. This would mean that we need to do it on another day or time when we could be doing something else. Without us knowing it, or maybe we are aware, it creates a domino effect on others work too especially if our work is critical for them to start theirs.
Ruined relationship. Yes. It could ruin relationship amongst coworkers, not to mention with the immediate supervisor or manager. Trust is a big thing when working from home. If we are not able to accomplish our tasks on time, then it could hurt the relationship we have with those we work with.
Trust. As I have mentioned above, this is a big thing. How could someone trust us if we fail to deliver? While this may not be an overnight thing but continuously being hindered by the challenges can make us not trustworthy. Needless to say, this could jeopardize our work from home setup, or worst our jobs.
Stress. This stems from work piling up. Delays would cause more work because, you know it, work will always be there and will continue to come. That is why we try to finish as much as we can as fast as we can because we know something else will come up. Now, if the challenges are not addressed, this will just create more work for another day and, eventually, we get burn out and stressed. Not because there is just too much to do. But because we failed to complete the task on time.
How to work from home effectively
With that being said, there is a simple way to work from home effectively. That is to keep in mind to deliver on time. Just keep this in your head and you will be able to solve the challenges that prevents you from completing your tasks.
For example, thinking that we need to accomplish a task today, we need to make sure that we have power, stable internet connection, away from distractions and instill self discipline. Okay. That did not help much so let me break it down.
Have a backup power. Simple. Have a backup power. Solar is the way to go. I do not have this but what I heard from the people I know is that this works for them. A good 4-8 hours back up which should be enough to work for the day. But that is expensive so a UPS power supply could also work which would give you 2-3 hours depending on your usage. This could work. Instead of delaying most of the work, the hours it provides could still make you do so good progress on whatever task you have.
Same thing with internet connections. Having a second connection can serve as back up. While this may not be applicable for all, some use their phone, still a reliable second connection can help you do some work and make significant progress.
Remove or move away from distractions. For TV or food, this is easy. Just move to another location. This would prevent you from having easy access to entertainment and food. For the people around you, you just need to set expectations that during your work hours, you are not to be disturbed. Of course, if you have kids in the house like me, they will always come to you. However, when you talk to them and they get to see the habit and routine, they will eventually follow yours.
Have discipline. Easy to say. Difficult to do. But, not impossible. The first thing to do is time boxing. Schedule your specific tasks throughout the day and stick to it. Again, it would be difficult to start because you are adapting, but eventually, you will get the jist of it. You will experience a moment in time when you do not do your routine, you are agitated and irritated feeling something is wrong. I am telling you, scheduling and time boxing would really do wonders.
Summary
Working from home effectively can be challenging at some time. Challenges such as power interruptions, loss of internet connections, various distractions and discipline can prevent us from completing our work. If left unchecked, this could delay work, hurt relationships, break trusts and stress. We can all overcome these by keeping in mind that we need to deliver on time. This would lead us to resolve these challenges by having a back up power, secondary internet connection, removing or moving away from distractions and sticking to routine and schedules. By doing these, we can be effective in working from home.
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