Creating a Schedule and Routine While Working From Home

12 May Creating a Schedule and Routine While Working From Home

Whether you’ve made the switch to working remotely full-time, or are splitting your time between your home office and actual office, it’s helpful to have a schedule and routine for the days that you’re working from home.

Stick to Your Morning Routine

It can be easy to disregard certain parts of your morning routine, like changing out of your pajamas, when you’re not leaving your house to work, but sticking to your full routine is the best way to make sure your day starts off on the right foot. By implementing the same routine that you do when you’re leaving the house, you’ll signal to your brain that your work day is starting. 

If you struggle with a morning routine even when you’re not working from home, we’ve written a blog post that can help you out!

Set Working Hours

This is important for maintaining work-life balance. By selecting times to dedicate to your work, you make it easier to completely focus on work without distraction.

Setting hours also allows you to plan around meetings, childcare and appointments and prevents your work from bleeding over into your family or personal time.

Schedule Your Breaks

It’s easy to forget to take breaks when working from home because there aren’t as many natural interruptions from co-workers or in-person meetings. When you decide ahead of time how often you’re going to take breaks for things like going for a walk or eating a snack, you make sure these things actually happen rather than powering through your entire day without stepping away from your workspace.

Create a Dedicated Workspace

While working from your bed allows you to have the shortest commute possible, sleep experts say working in bed makes it harder for you to relax when it’s time to go to sleep. By getting out of bed and moving to a designated workspace, you’ll train your brain to associate this area with your job, which will help you to focus on work while you’re in that area and will allow you to relax when you’re in other areas of your living space.

Having an area that’s clear from clutter, organized, and calming can help lower stress and boost productivity during the workday. However, it can be challenging to find the space to create an office in an apartment or smaller home. To help you find some apartment office ideas, Redfin consulted Artful Agenda’s owner, Katy Allen, to get her advice on how to create a stylish and productive workspace – even if you’re low on square footage. Whether you’re renting an apartment in New York or a condo in Seattle, you’re sure to find a way to incorporate an office space no matter the size of your home. Check out Katy’s tip on Apartment Office Ideas for a Stylish and Productive Workspace.

Make Sure to Socialize

It can be easy to feel isolated when you’re working from home or to feel like you’re not as in sync with your coworkers. You can cut down on these kinds of feelings by being active in Slack, Teams or whatever software your company uses.

Additionally, while no one appreciates meetings just for the sake of having a meeting, sometimes setting up a phone call or video conference can help with any feelings of isolation and ensure every member of your team is on the same page.

Use a Planner 

By utilizing a planner, you can be your most productive self and maximize your efficiency, even at home. Here are some of the things you can use a planner like Artful Agenda for:

• Map out your morning routine: Add your morning routine to your planner so you feel motivated to do it.
• Setting your schedule: Plan out your start and stop times, arrange your breaks and add your meetings.
• Writing down your to-do lists: Organize the things you need to get done each day to help you maintain productivity.
• Planning your meals: Prepare for your meals in advance to simplify your day, whether you’re walking to your kitchen or going to eat lunch al fresco.  

If you’re still feeling lost about how to be the best remote worker you can be, we’ve written an entire blog post dedicated to helping you be productive while working from home.

Use Artful Agenda to help maintain structure in your schedule when you’re working from home.

Already an Artful Agenda user? Still looking for new ways to use Artful Agenda to help you out while you’re working from home?