If your boss has not already done it, ensure you have a regular one-on-one meeting to sync up on goals, targets, and progress. It is a valuable opportunity to get feedback on your performance and support for areas of difficulty. Do not meet if you have nothing to say; meet for a purpose. If traveling around the world is an option for you and your job, check out our favorite travel program for remote workers as an alternative to working from home. This is one of the biggest challenges of working from home, and it’s one of the challenges that remote workers face all the time. If you typically ‘break’ for lunch around noon, then try to do that at home (pending meeting schedules!). If you don’t typically break at all , then guess what – maybe you finally have time to step out for a walk, or cook a new recipe right over in your kitchen.

Check-ins can help to improve relationships and can ensure that all team members are on the same page. Because working from home is new to you, give yourself a few days to establish your routine. Are you most productive when you wake up early and workout? Or are you good with sleeping in and waking up just in time to get dressed, pour yourself a cup of coffee, and sign on to your computer? There’s no single right way to do this; it’s just what works best for you and your mindset. Without a daily commute, mandatory lunches, and the cost of office-appropriate attire, it may seem that working from home will peel some costs off your budget. The expense of setting up an office may include laptops, printers, internet service, cellphones, business cards, web hosting, business services, and software.

In this Psychology Today blog post, Professor Marylene Gagne provides tips on how to stay motivated while monitoring

Maybe it’s a makeshift workspace in the dining room, or perhaps you have an actual desk or office space in your home. You’ll want to avoid having to get up repeatedly to retrieve things you might need, as this will only cut down on your productivity. Not only that, almosthalf of workers say the ability to work remotelywhether full-time or part-time is high on their list of must-haves when they look for jobs. So by offering the chance to work from home and for employees to have a great work-life balance, you’ll also be attracting new talent. You’re working anywhere that isn’t the office—at home, the park, your roofdeck. That means you could be set up in a coffee shop, a co-working space, you might just be in a different office location of your company but still remotely located to your core team.

Our daily newsletter arrives just in time for lunch, offering up the day’s biggest science news, our latest features, amazing Q&As and insightful interviews. A study in the Journal of Organizational Behavior found that teams who met regularly for debriefs produced more innovative solutions to problems. Appoint somebody to lead the meeting, review recent work and brainstorm ways of improving. Even before quarantines and social distancing measures became the norm, researchers debated what remote working does to your mental health and productivity. So we conference-called leading psychologists to ask them how best to thrive in the shadow of COVID-19. Here are our top tips to stay happy, healthy and productive.

Don’t Let Distance Be An Excuse

Even if you ask them to avoid bothering you, they’re still going to move about the house in ways that may distract you. You are likely to feel more alert, more confident, and more organized if you work from a home office. Set yourself up with a comfy, supportive chair, a spacious desk, good Wi-Fi, and consistent workplace tools. This is mostly symbolic, but will also ensure you do not hear a dreaded ping from the other room.

• I say “morning routine,” but not everyone who works from home follows a nine-to-five schedule.
• Above all, remember, you need to balance productivity with self-care.
• Check in with others to see if they are experiencing the same problems, Ms. Kaplowitz said.
• If you add an external monitor, keyboard and mouse to the equation, your setup might start to shake a bit as you’re working.
• Make sure you keep up on a personal level, as well as a professional level.

One group of people sat at traditional desks, and the other group sat at desks that could be elevated. Put the TV remotes and/or your iPad in a drawer far away. No joke, I have turned on the TV “just for a minute” during lunch only to have it on in the background for 2 hours. As well as bolstering your long-term employability, lifelong learning is proven to improve how to work from home successfully happiness as well as cognitive traits like memory. And the literature is full of tips to help you learn more effectively. Now that COVID-19 has us all confined to our homes, we should all be doing the same as those Greek prisoners. Because as well as the health benefits and the regular dose of serotonin, getting a sweat on can also improve your work.

Minimize Distractions

Professor Sharon Parker explains how to regain your focus at work using proven techniques to improve concentration, and why we tend to fall for the “attention hijackers”. Professor Sharon Parker discusses how to go beyond simple connection between colleagues and build high quality connection with respectful engagement and task-enabling behaviours. Work plays a vital role in maintaining individual and collective health and productivity in this uncertain future. It’s easy to get a free quote for home insurance from Travelers in just a few minutes.

Feeling disconnected from their coworkers, some people struggle to maintain their usual productivity level and communicate efficiently with their company. If you have trouble sticking to a time limit for your breaks, set an alarm to remind you to get back to work.