Tips to Stay Productive

🎧 I've recorded these tips to share with my team but thought it might also be helpful for other folks out there. Check this quick audio at https://cutt.ly/QrUgiWv.

🗒️ Transcript

While working remotely, as we all do, it's very important to stay productive most of our time. And I'm speaking not only about our main job but also some side activities as well. So, I thought it would be helpful to share some of the things I do regularly to keep myself productive while working from home or office.

The first one is quite obvious, write lists. When I have a lot on my table even if it has nothing to do with work, it tends to clutter my mind. My first reaction is to write out lists of all of the things that I need to accomplish to remove them from my brain and have them in another place instead. It's also nice to have a visual of the things that I need to accomplish and I find that I'm much more likely to get them done when I can see them listed out. Some of the tools helping me creating lists are my beloved Moleskine and Wunderlist app (currently Things). This is probably my biggest organization tool for projects that I currently use. I list out my projects and then list out every step task that needs to be done to complete it. The third one is Evernote to primarily keep links and handing notes for further usage.

Point number 2, focus on one task at a time. There's a chance that we all work on several projects during the day. A good tip here is to group them into tasks and work on them individually. If you try and think about every single thing that you need to accomplish all at once, then you'll get nothing done. So, instead, try looking at everything based on deadline and priority and only work on one thing at a time.

The third tip, work away from home occasionally. For overall benefits, I find that leaving the house can be a very good thing. I will typically spend a few hours working at a local coffee shop and bring the laptop along. Another option is a co-working space which is a shared workspace with other work-from-home types.

Tip number 4, take breaks. I probably spend 30 minutes or so on my lunch break before going back into my office. I try not to eat in front of the computer or at my desk mostly because I want to take a mental break from whatever I'm doing.

The next advice is to try to work in a distraction-free environment, whatever it's supposed to be.

And the last tip is to stop working, right now 😃When you're at home it can be easy to work all day long. And that what I do, unfortunately. But I do my best to stop working altogether in the evening. I also try to keep myself away from doing any serious work on my laptop while relaxing at the end of the day. Our brain needs to rest and take a break.

These were my tips to stay productive while working remotely.

See ya! 👋