I'm really glad
Image courtesy of Megan Leigh Acosta.
Working for home can be challenging for a lot of folks who are used to working in a regular office setting. There is a real temptation to skip real pants (or wearing pants at all), stay up late, and binge watch Love is Blind (guilty). But folks, for the past six years, I have been working from home in some capacity! I even INTERNED from home while getting my Masters in Social Work all while running a full time photography business. You can totally make this work for you by setting yourself up for success from the get the go.
With a little gumption and a little bit of planning, you’re going to surprise yourself at just how productive and fulfilling it can to be work from home.
So put on some non-pajama pants, grab a cup of coffee, and let’s get some ‘ish done. Let’s dive on in with the best way to get started. Setting up a morning routine for your day!
1. When your alarm goes off in the morning (yeah dudes, you gotta set an alarm), get your butt out of bed and turn it off. Start off the night before by placing your phone OUTSIDE of your bedroom so you need to get up to physically turn it off. Or you can go straight up rogue and use an analogue alarm clock. If you are flashing back to high school, relax. You are a grown adult now, and you can handle an old school alarm clock. The lack of devices in your bedroom is gonna help you sleep a whole lot better at night anyway.
2. Shower. Brush your teeth. Do your hair. If you wear makeup, put it on. Wear deodorant. Keep at your morning routine! Make coffee. Meditate, journal, pray, eat breakfast, work out, whatever. Do the things that make you feel like a real human being before you start your work day. There is something so satisfying about getting all dressed up and no place to go. Monday morning and bright red lipstick? Don’t mind if I do. Wednesday afternoon and I’ve got a cute dress on with false lashes? Oh heck yes, I feel amazing. Casual Friday with jeans and my favorite Wisconsin sweatshirt? Uh, yesssss please. Get dressed and follow your morning schedule, you will feel a lot better!
3. Turn off social media notifications and have set times to check social platforms. BE BRAVE AND BOLD MY FRIEND. You do not need Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram blowing up your phone with notifications every two minutes. Yes, this absolutely does apply even if you are running your own business. I sit down at scheduled times of the day and check my social media for work and for my personal life. I do not respond to general questions until I have that scheduled time…and I sit down at my computer when it is time to respond. Answering questions or catching up with notifications on my phone is not in my best interest. I can type much faster on my computer keyboard. Typing on my phone is a pain in the butt to do and makes me less productive. Set some boundaries, folks. You can do it!
4. Business hours are a real thing. Stick to them. Hi. Hello. Hey. My name is Kate, and I am a recovering workaholic. Although I say that in a fairly light hearted tone, there was a point about three years ago where I worked myself into a literal sickness. Mentally, physically, and emotionally. I was train wreck. People could contact me at all hour of the day (I let them do it), and I was horrified to make someone “wait”. Lemme tell y’all a little something something. People CAN wait unless it is a TRUE emergency. Business hours apply if you don’t have a brick and mortar business. Business hours keep you sane, okay? Use them. This gives you the structure to turn off at the end of the day and the permission to leave work in your “home office”.
5. Wherever you are choosing to work from, make that a work zone for your work hours. More than anything I miss my studio space in Columbus because I could walk there from home, shut the door to my studio, and really feel like I was at work. When you work from home, that isn’t as easy to do. My best advice is to set up a space in your home that is a work only zone. Resist the urge to work only from bed. Set up a station in a quiet part of your home (if possible) that is tidy and clutter free. Shoot, work in a closet with your laptop in your lap, and your butt on a pillow if that works for you. Just make it feel like a separate space that is dedicated and AWAY from your home duties.
6. Take your dang lunch break, ya hear me? We all can get lost in a workflow. And those states of work feel realllllly good. But like, you need to eat, drink water, and pee. You think I’m kidding, but y’all need to ask Joe what he asks me when he comes home every day. He says, “hey Kate, did you eat lunch today?”
And I sheepishly look at him while stuffing a Larabar in my mouth and chasing it down with an almond butter packet.
Not. Kidding. There are plenty of times where I get in the zone of a work flow and it feels like I can’t stop. Maybe you’re rolling your eyes, but guys, it’s the truth. There is something that is so freeing about being able to work unrestricted that makes me feel much more focused than if I am in a traditional office.
Set an alarm. Eat your lunch. Chug some water. Get some fresh air if you can. Take. A. Break. You’ll feel much more refreshed when you come back to your work space. Oh yeah, and when you take a break, leave your phone and social media out of it. Take this time to do restorative tasks that fuel you, not drain you.
7. Work in time blocks. Set a timer for 20 minutes to start off with and work on ONE task. Multitasking is a big fat time suck. It doesn’t work. Our brains cannot concentrate on more than one thing at a time. When you start your task for 20 minutes, work on that task for ONLY 20 minutes. See how much more productive and efficient you will become. Trust me. As an entrepreneur with ADHD, this hack has been a life saver. My brain literally cannot focus on more than one thing without a burning smell coming from my ears (kidding, but it is difficult). My mind needs some constraints and a time limit to get things kicking into high gear. Bonus: The more I use this technique, the more my concentration improves and the longer I can focus for.
8. Be realistic about what you can get done in a day. You cannot get all of your work done AND wash the dishes, AND clean the bathroom, AND bake cookies, AND fold laundry. Just because you are at home, doesn’t mean you suddenly have more hours to get things done around the house. Housework and work are separate. Don’t get me wrong, you should put your dishes from lunch away, and you shouldn’t leave your crap all over the house, but you don’t need to become a domestic goddess or god all of the sudden because you work out of your house. Dedicate time to chores after your work is done, or ask your family to pitch in. Don’t even bother feeling guilty about it either. If you were at your regular office, and you asked your kid to clean the bathroom when they came home from school, you wouldn’t feel like crap about that would you? Nope. You wouldn’t. Think of this the same way.
9. If you have kids old enough to understand this, or a partner that can help out, tell them you are at work until your day is done. Shut your office door. Try and make this work so you can have a productive day. If your kids are littles and you need to work whenever you can work, cool with me. That works. If you don’t have a partner or additional help with your family, I get it. You gotta make some concessions. PS, can I email you a gift card for Post Mates? You sure as hell deserve it.
10. Quittin’ time is FOR REAL. When you are done for the day, be DONE for the day. I unplug all of my drives, put my computer into sleep mode, vacuum my office, kick the dogs out, and shut the door. I like to do a quick clean of my workspace because the Golden Retriever hair is plentiful, and this is something I used to do when I worked at a tanning salon eons ago. I’d clean up after the day was done. Pick up. Take out the trash. Make sure everything was restocked and wiped down for the next day. It helped me feel like my day was coming to a close, and I LOVED that feeling. Okay, please don’t go tanning for a myriad or reasons, but take that experience of shutting down for the night to heart. You will feel so much more complete at the end of the day and organized at the beginning of the following day.
Alright my working at home warriors, what do you think? Were these tips helpful? Are you ready to tackle your day?
Let me know in the comments! I’m here for you!
