Working from home tips

Top tips for working from home

about 4 years ago by Claire Smith

​With much of the population having to adapt very quickly to working from home, we’ve put together our top five tips to help you make it work:

1. Spend some time creating your office environment

Not everybody has the luxury of a home office to transfer everything to, so create yourself a designated working from home area where you will be most able to work productively. Try to remove any distractions from your immediate surroundings and make sure you’ve got everything you need where you need it – e.g. power sockets, chargers, stationery. Are you near a window? Seeing Spring start to arrive in the coming weeks will be a positive mood booster.

2. Try to stick to a daily routine

We recently introduced structured day plans for the team at MorePeople and now, more than ever, these are important to help you get through the day. Losing the daily commute means that we can hopefully all get more sleep into our lives, but still make sure that you are getting up in time to get showered, dressed and fed before arriving at your desk at the usual time. Taking a lunch break at the same time as you would normally will help to keep some routine for when we come out of the other side. You should also have a short break in the morning and afternoon, but try not to get distracted by housework or what’s on the telly. Plenty of time for those later!

3. Make sure you do some sort of movement every day

With uncertainty about how long we’ll be away from the office, it’s important that you stay active. Get out for a daily walk or run (on your own) or take part in some of the many online workouts that are everywhere right now, anything from gentle yoga to a full on HIIT circuit. Exercise is a great way to support your mental health and, let’s face it, we should be able to find time for it now. Maybe it could replace your usual commute home from the office?

4. Keep talking

Video conferencing and group chats are fantastic, but you still can’t beat a one-to-one conversation with your colleagues. Office banter might be limited for the time being, but be sure to keep-in-touch, particularly with the colleagues that you perhaps don’t have to speak to in order to do your day job. Why not make it your aim to speak to somebody different from the team each day? Everybody will be dealing with this situation differently, some calmly taking it in their stride and others just putting on a brave face. It’s important that you’re open about your feelings, but this is less likely to happen over a group video call.

5. Don’t let the emergency biscuits take over!

Finally, we all need some comfort in our lives right now and I’m sure we’ll need to reach for the biscuit tin from time to time, but try to make sure you’ve got healthy snacks in the cupboard as well. Fresh fruit, nuts and cereal bars are much better for both your health and productivity levels. Having said that, we just heard a great tip for finishing your working week with a smile – set up an online meeting for last thing on a Friday afternoon and use the time for virtual team drinks and a chat!