Coronavirus: Tips if you’re told to work from home

Set up a space to work in

Working from home can be difficult, especially if other people are living in the same household. My first piece of advice is to designate a space to work in. An office room, spare bedroom or even a nook in the living room will do nicely.

Don’t be tempted to cancel your childcare arrangements (if still available) just because you’re working from home. You’ll find it much harder to work if your kids are invading your workspace and (as lovely as they are) asking you a million questions per minute.

Having a work from home office will help with productivity. It’ll also mean you can shut the door or step away from your work at the end of the day, so it doesn’t negatively impact your home life.

Get dressed

It may be tempting to stay in your pyjamas all day and work from the comfort of your bed but trust us, it’s not a good idea! Get up, get washed and get dressed. Doing so will make such a difference to your state of mind and help you ease into work mode.

As a compromise, you can always wake up a little later. After all, there’s no travel time to worry about!

Set your working hours

If you’re not used to remote working, you’re likely worried you’re not going to do enough work. On the contrary, it’s possible that you’ll overwork!

One problem with working from home is that it’s easy for your time on-shift and off-shift to merge into one. If you don’t monitor the time or ‘clock-off’ properly, you’ll end up having no leisure time whatsoever and it’ll soon grind you down.

With this in mind, try and stick to similar working hours as you would in the office. Give yourself regular breaks and at the end of the day, close down your computer, shut your laptop and turn off your work phone. Working from home does not mean working all hours.

Remember to look after yourself

It might sound patronising to remind you to eat and drink. It’s just it is very easy to get carried away with what you’re doing. Before long, you’ve missed lunch and it’s been several hours since your morning cup of coffee. You’re cranky, dehydrated and no good to anyone!

If you’ve been asked to work from home during the Coronavirus outbreak, make sure you plan ahead and have plenty of food in the house. Do a quick meal plan so you don’t have to spend too much time rummaging through your freezer. Drink plenty of water to keep hydrated.

Keep in contact with your colleagues

Working from home can be lonely – especially if you’re used to being in a busy office environment.

While remote working isn’t an excuse to invite your friends round for a coffee, there’s no reason you can’t instant message, speak on the phone or hold a video conference with your colleagues. In fact, having their company, even in a ‘virtual’ form, can be comforting and help with your productivity.

Consider background noise too. Probably not your television, as that’s likely to distract you. But background music and white noise apps have been found to assist productivity for remote workers, so might be worth a try.

Do you have any Coronavirus work from home tips to share? Leave them in the comment section below.

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