Working from home: 4 tips for a productive workday

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world is gradually shifting to a different way of working: working from home. Now that you’re working from home and it’s harder to effectively work together with your team, how can you still be productive? Luckily, we have created a series of blogs to help you make the transition during this challenging time. With the help of these 4 tips for a productive workday, you can still make your days at home productive and fun!

For many of us there is currently no other way but to work from home. This means we temporarily have to give up working physically together with our team. This affects our team communication and performance.

At PATboard, we believe that working together in the office is the most effective way of working and really gets the best out of any team and project.

Tip 1. Follow a simple morning routine

The first step into a productive day already starts at the beginning. A simple morning routine stimulates you to start your day with fresh energy. It helps you to prepare yourself mentally to stay productive throughout your workday.

When you work from home, it might be tempting to set your alarm right before you want to ‘’clock in’’ for work. Unfortunately, productivity studies show that morning people often have more productive days. They are more likely to feel like they are going to make things happen. And what is a better way to motivate yourself to boost your productivity than by being an early riser?

Tip 2. Get dressed for work

The second step is simply to get dressed! As tempting as it is to crawl behind your desk in your jogging pants, it will not help you to be productive. Changing into clothes stimulates your brain; it sends a signal to the brain that it’s time to do work. Research shows that when you put on clothing, you will automatically adopt the characteristics associated with the clothes.

So when you put on professional work clothing, you unconsciously tell your brain that it’s time to be productive. Boosting your productivity doesn’t get easier, just get dressed and get to work. ?

Tip 3. Make a planning and set goals

Then, with a morning routine completed and being all dressed up, it’s time to make a planning! Now that you can’t use agile planning tools together at the office, you can still create an overview of the tasks of your project in a personal planning. It will help you to be focused and productive.

Making a physical day planning saves you time because it’s clear what tasks you have to work on for the day. It helps you to work more efficiently. A physical long term planning in which you set goals makes your work visible. Which motivates you and your team to actually get to work, achieve your goals and finish projects.

Tip 4. Use your most productive periods of the day

Nobody can sprint through their workday from the morning to the evening, without having less productive moments in the day. Especially when you’re working from home, it’s important to know when your energy is peaking, so you can plan your tasks around it. Do the hardest tasks at your most productive periods, and use your slower points of the day for the easier tasks on your plate.

In the end, working together and interacting with your colleagues visualizes the work, which is the best way to stimulate your team to communicate better and boost each other’s creativity. It makes work more fun.

Slowly but surely we will return to working at the office again. But for the time that you have to work from home, prepare yourself to have a productive day with these tips, and get started!