January seems like the ideal month to work from home – dark mornings, dark nights, cold busy commutes – who wouldn’t want to avoid all that?!
But when you work from home, it can be all too easy to blur the lines between work-life and home-life, which can not only kill productivity, but can also make you feel like you never get a break from work.
So here are five top tips to separate business and pleasure.
Working from home sounds like an absolute dream – no need to get dressed for work, no need to negotiate the morning commute, and no need to bother with co-workers. The trouble is, working from home might not be quite as easy as you might imagine – there are distractions literally everywhere.
When you work from home, the washing-up becomes an exciting alternative to that project you’re desperately trying to ignore, a morning of ironing becomes the perfect antidote to a morning of checking emails, and even daytime television seems to have a certain appeal.
And to make things even worse, you don’t have the watchful eyes of co-workers to keep you in check and off all those sites and social media accounts that help keep you from your work.
So if you’re looking to work from home, here’s how to ditch the distractions and work more effectively…
Have you ever taken a conference call while commuting? How about when out shopping? Or lying in bed? If so, you’re not alone, as a recent study from career website eFinancialCareers found that over half of us (54%) don’t pay full attention when on a conference call.
After the torrential rain over the weekend, the UK looks set to be hit with even more deluges over the next seven days. The rainfall is set to be so bad, the Met Office has issued a yellow weather warning to western Scotland and northern England, parts of which have already been hit by flash floods.
If you’ve not yet fallen foul of the flood waters though, there’s still time to take the necessary steps to minimize the risk of you being washed out of your home, office, or both if you’re one of the thousands of business owners who run their operation from home.
If you do work from home this can be a disaster to both your personal and professional life, so you need to take steps to minimise the risk – the better prepared you are, the less damage your property is likely to suffer.
If you find your productivity levels drop as temperatures rise, don’t beat yourself up trying to find out why – it might not even be your fault! Here’s why…
