Hi. Before we start, I want to ask how you’re doing. How are you doing? The answer doesn’t need to be ‘good’. It could be ‘I’m okay’, ‘I’m trying my best’ or even ‘not well’. Given the current climate that we’re in, a lot of us have been forced to realize a new sort of normal that we’re not used to and it’s 100% acceptable to feel outside of your comfort zone. After years and years of fantasizing over the “working from home” option, many people are now being forced to work from home. Only to come to the conclusion that it isn’t as exciting as it seems. We’re all trying our best to do our part of social distancing and staying at home, but it isn’t as easy as it sounds, looks, or seems.

After spending the last 2 years of my career working from home, I’ve experienced all of the ups and downs that there is to both living and working out of the same space. Added to the fact that I do all of this within a 660 sqft and it’ll sometimes feel like I’m working out of a prison cell. But through it all, I’ve managed to identify a handful of ways to not only keep myself motivated, but on task, productive, and best of all, excited. If you’ve finally had it with your working from home situation and are slowly feeling like you’re ready to lose all composure, then read on to find out how I keep my cool. It sometimes feels like I’ve been literally training these past 2 years to social distance!

FaceTime, Zoom, Skype, Whatsapp Video are your best friends.

One of the first things that I noticed when I began working from home was the significant decrease in socialization that occurs. In an office setting (even if you have a private office with a closed door), you’re surrounded by colleagues and you have the privilege of striking up a conversation at any given time that pleases you. However when you’re isolated at home alone, try as you might, you won’t be able to have a physical conversation with anyone else because there is physically no one around you to talk to. If I’m honest here, I broke down and cried a few times the first 6 months that I began working from home. I couldn’t bare the isolation and loneliness that came with not working in an office with others, but remember that you’ll eventually adjust to it.

It was a really strange feeling to be silent all day, everyday, the first few months that I adjusted to working from home by myself. Being totally and completely isolated is definitely not healthy for the mind, so thankfully we have technology help us through this. Take time out of your day to FaceTime, Zoom, Skype, or even Whatsapp video call your friends. I’m sure that they’re feeling just as lonely as you are. Whether it’s a regularly scheduled video call everyday at the exact same time with the exact same people, or you rotate through different people at different times of the day, know that you’re not alone and most people also crave the socialization and will want to talk to you too.

Background Noise is Always a Back Up.

If you need to get a lot of work done and can’t afford to be on a video chat with your friends, consider calling up your colleagues and working alongside them. Not only will you be able to keep each other in check and on pace, but you’ll also be able to keep each other company. It’s almost like you’re working beside each other all over again, except you’re separated by a screen.

And if that doesn’t work, I love to turning on a rerun show (ie. Friends) on the background that you don’t need to pay attention to. Having background noise often helps with the loneliness and makes it feel like you’re surrounded by others—almost as if you’re recreating an office setting. I prefer TV shows to movies because there is usually more dialogue than thematic music, which is more similar to the background noise you would experience working out of a coffee shop.

Music can be an option too, but I’ve found that my addictive personality gets pulled into the lyrics and beat of the music and then I end up getting distracted.

Routine, routine, routine.

I cannot stress more that having a routine will save your sanity. When I first started working from home, I was the laziest that I could possibly be. I would stay up till 5 AM, and then go to sleep only to wake up at 3 PM, only to have wasted the entire work day. If your work doesn’t require you to work with a team and can be accomplished alone without frequent check-ins to higher ups, then it can get extremely easy to slack on your regular routine and become lazy.

Before you go to sleep each night, take out a piece of paper and jot down exactly what you want to accomplish the next day. Set goals for yourself, and then set your alarm. Wake up as you would, if you were to go into work, and then get yourself ready as you would as well. Make sure that you begin working at the exact same time that you would if you were in the office in order to get your mind going and working normally. Having a routine will not only keep you mentally healthy, but will save you from becoming lazy as well. The same thing goes for everything else in your regular everyday routine. Have your morning coffee, take lunch at the same time you normally would. We’ve lost all sense of normalcy during this trouble trying time, so the least you can do for yourself is to retain your normal schedule. That never has to go out the window unless you allow it to.

Get Dressed Like You Normally Would.

Working in PJs is not conducive. Period. I don’t know about you but I get waaaaay to comfortable in my PJs and have never been quite able to get as much work done as when I’m appropriately dressed up for a work meeting. After you wake up in the morning, get yourself ready and dressed as if you were going into work. You don’t necessarily need to put on as much makeup and prep to your skin and hair as you regularly would (now is a great time to give your hair and skin a much deserved break!), but make sure you still look presentable. When you’re put together, you feel much more productive and confident. When you’re dressed lazily, you’re setting up expectations for yourself to get comfortable and lazy.

Even on days when I don’t have meetings, events, or appointments, I still try to dress relatively presentable when I’m home all day long to keep myself motivated.

Plan Out Your Meals.

I don’t know about you, but when I get bored, I like to snack. And when I reach for snacks, I’m not thinking about how healthy or unhealthy they are. I reach for the first thing that I’m craving and because I’m at home, I have access to anything that I want. Stop yourself and think about how you’d carry yourself at the office. Would you sit at your desk with a massive bowl of popcorn and work at the same time? Would you walk around everywhere with a glass of wine in hand while participating in a team meeting?

It’s easy to succumb to the urges of unhealthy snacking when everything is in reach. If you can, try to avoid purchasing any junk food so that they aren’t easily accessible whenever you have the munchies. Instead, try your best to plan out your meals the night before. Determine what you want to eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and hold yourself accountable to those meals.

Sure, you can lightly snack throughout the day but don’t go overboard with it. Set aside some baby carrots and dip, or a banana when you’re craving something sweet. This way you can avoid succumbing to your cravings and avoid developing an unhealthy diet.

Take a Break.

Don’t prove to yourself that you can work hard from home just by working all day long without taking a break. I’m sure that you took breaks while at the office, so you’re entitled to take a break at home too. You also have the luxury of cooking yourself a full meal from scratch so why not take a slightly longer lunch break and make something fresh for yourself instead of wallowing away at your computer all day long?

I’ve found that some of my breaks also include taking on a different task from my workload that allows my mind to think about other things. Maybe throw in a load of laundry, fold some clothes, wipe down all of your mirrors, or even get in a quick 20 minute workout. Whatever you do, allow yourself to take a break from your work so that afterwards you can return back to it with a fresh set of eyes. A fatigued mind never is never as efficient nor does it get much work done.

Set Goals.

That being said, don’t take too many breaks either. Each day before I begin any work, I like to create a list of goals that I want to accomplish throughout the day. This way I can keep myself on track and accountable for how much time is spent on work vs. breaks. Your goals don’t have to be overly lofty, or micro-managed either. Sometimes my goals are as simple as achieving inbox zero (ensuring that I’ve cleaned out and responded to all emails in my inbox by the end of the day), and other days my goal is to completely overhaul my media kit. Create a list of actionable items so that your mind has a relative schedule to adhere to.

Reward Yourself.

At the end of the day it’s important to acknowledge what you’ve been able to accomplish. Working from home for the first time ever is hard. It’s tempting to spend an entire day cleaning the place because you want to, or because you do it during a break and end up wasting the entire day doing it. It’s also easy to tell yourself that you need to accomplish more because you’re working from home and have so much extra time back to yourself that would have been spent on commuting instead. Reward yourself for what you’ve accomplished at the end of the day and then re-evaluate for the next day what tasks you need to tackle next.

Your reward could be a fun and extravagant meal, it could include listing what you accomplished in a journal, taking a nice hot and relaxing bath, enjoying a glass of wine, eating that cupcake, or even telling yourself “good job”—I’ve done it before, and it’s not as weird as it seems! It’s important to acknowledge your perseverance because it will keep you motivated to continue working the next day and onwards.

Stop Working at an Appropriate Time.

When you first start working from home, time seems to slip by and it’s easy to get caught up in your workload. You begin at 9 AM, and then look at the clock when it’s 8 PM only to realize that you’ve worked longer and harder than you ever have in the past. Don’t do that to yourself. Similar to how you need to reinforce yourself to get up at the same time every morning, it’s also important to clock out at the same time every night. Don’t overwork yourself because it’s an easy hill to slide down when you’re working from home. I’ve found myself saying “just 1 more hour”, only to catch myself 4 hours later, because this has 100% happened to me before. Give yourself a time to clock out and be adamant about it. Your work can pick back up the next day.

Be Patient with Yourself, and Allow Yourself to Adjust—Emotionally, Psychologically, Mentally, and Physically.

Everything that you’re feeling right now is 100% valid. Allow yourself the time to grieve the loss of normalcy. It’s okay to feel stressed. You don’t have to immediately bounce back and pretend like everything is normal and carry on with your new normal as if nothing happened. Because something did happen, and your mind is attempting to process it. Give yourself the time to adjust, and don’t punish yourself if it doesn’t happen quickly.

If you’re having a bad day, take it slow. If you even need an entire day off to just lie in bed and think, then that’s okay as well. We’re all handling this differently and it’s important to listen to what your body needs and to devote some time to yourself. So even though this my not necessarily be tangible thing to do in order to stay motivated, I still strongly believe that it’s an important practice to implement in order to create a healthier mindset for this entire situation.

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And there you go! My top 10 tips to stay motivated and remaining productive when you’re working from home. It’s a hard transition to make for many people, so don’t be to hard on yourself if you don’t find yourself as productive as you expected. Trust me when I say this that it took me almost an entire year to figure out how to balance my work and life since all of it happens in 660 sqft of space. Here’s to hoping that all of this is resolved as quickly and safely as possible so that we can all go back to our lives the way they were before. But in the mean, I wish you the best of luck. Stay safe! ♥️