15 tips for effective teleworking

Teleworking has come to stay. While many workers have returned to work in offices since lockdowns ended in most parts of the world, others have continued to work from home, with its pros and cons.

Before the pandemic, teleworking was seen as luck, something that every worker fed up with offices, heavy colleagues and bosses wanted. When remote work was imposed, many discovered that doing work tasks from home was not so easy and there are not a few who have completely lost control of their work routine.

In order to help you, here are a few tips for teleworking and making our home workday more productive.

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15 recommended tips and strategies for telecommuting

Before the pandemic, many were those who envied those who teleworked. There was an idea that telecommuters were those lucky few who could get up late, sit in their pajamas all day in front of the computer or lie in bed with the laptop. In the popular ideology the idea that the teleworker is his own boss is established

, a boss who pampers himself, pecks when he feels like it and relaxes when he deserves it.

But since teleworking has spread as a result of the health crisis, those who previously worked from the office and later from home they have changed many of their beliefs about this new way of to work. Teleworking is hard, very hard. Workers face all kinds of distractions in the "comfort" of their home, also facing the clash of their personal life with their work in the same place and time.

Losing control over telecommuting is very easy. Tasks pile up, overwhelming us and making us lazy in equal measure. Therefore, in order to avoid it, we are going to know some tips to telework and avoid the most absolute of work disasters.

1. Designate a workspace

It is essential to have our own workspace when we do it from home. Ideally, have the desk in a quiet area of ​​the house, a place where you can concentrate and that serves to separate your work life from your personal life.

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2. Do not work in rest areas

Many people believed that telecommuting was great because it allows you to work from the bed or the couch. This is one of the worst mistakes we can make while working from home. You have to make an effort to get out of bed, and avoid that the places reserved for rest become workplaces.

Laying out all day may sound interesting for the first few days, but after a while it will prevent us from getting to work.. In addition, with a high probability our back will hurt because one cannot work well from the bed and the sofa, they are not designed for it, but to rest relaxed.

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3. Establish clear work hours

One of the biggest risks of teleworking is having totally anarchic schedules, and I say this from experience. That is why you have to make an effort, set yourself a few hours focused exclusively on doing work tasks and warn people who live at home not to interrupt us.

We must set clear guidelines for the hours we work and preferably in the work area that we have specifically designated for this. You have to stick to a very specific work schedule, and notify people of interest such as our work team, family and friends, so they know when we are available for work and when we are personally available.

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4. Start the day with a routine

The morning is the most critical part of the day in the life of the teleworker. Between the time we get up, have breakfast, go to the bathroom and do other specific chores such as shopping, we can leave the morning in the blink of an eye.

It is inevitable that, from time to time, something comes up that we have to do in the morning that misses our schedule a bit. However, as normal, mornings are going to be normal and the best we can do is take advantage of them by making them part of our routine.

It is better to start the day with a routine, establishing tasks that give it structure. It does not have to be with work tasks, but we can dedicate it to doing housework, exercising, learning a language online or going for a walk. The point is that the mornings are stable. And very important. Get up at the same time and get dressed as soon as you wake up.

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5. Basic task management

One of the problems with working from home is motivation. Unlike when it is done in an office, working remotely costs more because we do not have colleagues or face-to-face bosses to motivate us to do basic tasks.

It is difficult to maintain a good level of self-motivation, for that is essential to establish plans for the next day and make an effort to fulfill them. A very good recommendation is to start each day prioritizing the most important task on the to-do list.

6. Prioritize the most difficult

If we start doing what is more complicated and time consuming, the better. The more challenging the task we complete as soon as we start our workday, the more motivated we will be to do the rest that we will see as a piece of cake. So we will not postpone things and the rest of the work we will do with fluidity and dynamism.

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7. Follow fixed routines

One of the things people most envied of telecommuters back in the days of the old normal was flexibility. Being able to do things when you wanted was one of those advantages that teleworking was believed to have.

It is really a positive aspect if you know how to manage, but since human beings need some preparation and order in their lives, it is best to follow fixed routines. Not preparing for what may come unexpectedly during the day will create chaos.

8. Divide the day into blocks of time

Human productivity varies over time. We cannot spend 8 hours working without a break, but neither can we dedicate only 5 minutes at a time to doing our homework. The best thing is to work in blocks, adaptable to our ability to concentrate and manageable according to our needs. Dividing the day into easily manageable parts will help us a lot to improve productivity teleworking.

The normal thing is that our concentration begins to decline after 45 minutes, although there are people who are able to work quite well for 2 hours in a row. Whatever our productivity period, once we have finished it, even if we have work left, his is get up and distract your mind for about five minutes to start the next block with strength recovered.

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9. Avoid using the phone

Not only at home, but also in the office, it often happens that we check the phone over and over again, distracting ourselves. When we are working, it is not the best time to use the mobile. The best we can do is turn it off but, if for work reasons we cannot, leaving it in silence is also an option and notify our contacts of what our working hours are and that if they have to call us for something banal, better outside of those hours.

10. Restrict the use of apps

Related to the previous point, to avoid falling into the temptation to gossip on Instagram or Twitter, what we can do is download applications to control the time we use them. There are all kinds of them, some being Sense and Offtime. With them we can control the use of social networks, establish daily limits and restrict access to any application that distracts us from our work.

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11. Force yourself to rest

Working from home all day can be very exhausting and frustrating. Teleworkers have the problem that it is very difficult for them to physically disconnect between work and private life, since both occur in the same space. On top of that, as work stretches like bubble gum, it happens that those who work from home barely take 100 realistic steps a day, those necessary to go from the bathroom to the desk and the kitchen.

To avoid this, we must force ourselves to take a break of at least half an hour between sessions., and dedicate an hour to eat every day. When we are resting, we can walk around the house or go for a quick walk around the block and relax a bit.

12. Staying physically active

Exercise is essential to maintain a healthy lifestyle and perform not only at work, but in every other aspect of life. There is enough time in the 24 hours of the day to do a minimum of 20 minutes of exercise, even if it is lifting water bottles like dumbbells. If we can take a walk or go to the gym, all the better.

Relaxation is also very important, especially for our mental health. Yoga, meditation and similar practices will help us to be more productive teleworking, in addition to not feeling so much stress for our work duties and, as an addition, it will give us the feeling that we are very productive people in all aspects of the life.

13. Take care of what we eat

Another fundamental aspect to be healthy is to eat well. When working from home it can happen that, having the refrigerator at hand, we turn to it to manage the stress of work. This means that many are the ones who get quite fat in the first months of their life as teleworkers. That is why it is so important to eat healthy and control what we eat, without dieting but avoiding eating garbage. In addition, a very heavy digestion will harm us if we work in the afternoon.

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14. Ensure safety

Even if we telework, we can be exposed to occupational risks. Our home becomes our office during the hours we work and, even if it is It is difficult to think that accidents that occur in the office happen at home, that possibility may fit. That is why we must ensure our safety by making a list of all occupational hazards that occurred in the office and that can occur at home, in order to avoid them.

15. Communicate with colleagues

Communication is very important in the workplace, especially if we are working at home. Many teleworkers ignore this aspect, which causes them the feeling of isolation that can progress to depression, something that will not only affect your productivity but, obviously, your mental health.

That one does not work in an office does not mean that one cannot establish contact with his co-workers, interacting with them so much for topics related to employment as well as to get to know them a little more and even meet them from time to time in person.