Introduction
Due to COVID-19 most of us are now working from home. It may be difficult to stay as motivated as you might be in a workspace environment. In this article, I will try to give you tips and advices and how to keep your motivation high, how to schedule your day and how to be efficient.
Create a workspace environment
Well, as I just said, be at home may make you less motivated. So first thing you may do is to create your own workspace environment !
- Find a peaceful corner and setup your computer desk as close as it is when you are at work.
- Dress up like you were at work. It can sounds silly but I can garantee you that you won’t be as focused if you stay in your night clothes.
- Keep yourself to regular hours ! Your boss and colleagues will be able to reach you, and it will create a healthy daily routine.
- Very important : unplug your time – The problem with home office is that you may want to always perform one more little task and at the end of the day, you will have worked too many hours. It could also affect your personal or social life.
- Avoid distractions and multi-tasking. A nice exercice is to create a “distractions list” each time something interrupts your work. You will see that emails, chat, social media, personal stuff are not the only things that can stop you working.
Follow a schedule and stick to it
Now you have your workspace environment you need to organize your day to be as close as possible to your “perfect day”. And if you reach 70% of your goals it’s not that bad. The next day you will try to reach 75% of it.
Here are some tips you can follow :
- Decide the day before, when you will be available to your personal time and when you will be completely dedicated to your work.
- Personal time is also dedicated to take care of your health. Do sport, walk during phone calls, eat healthy food, sleep at leat 7 to 8 hours a night…
- Keep your room clean and in a perfect order.
- Expand your knowledge during free time – Your mind will be sharper and then you will more efficient
Efficiency
Priority is the key
To be efficient, you need to know your daily and long term priorities.
For example, I like to start my day with the tasks that need a lot of focus like developments, incidents analysis, projects etc.
I basically use 2 methods to know what I should do.
Short term priorities :
I use the 80/20 rule (also called the Pareto Principle) as soon as I start my day. It says that in any pursuit, 80% of the results will come from 20% of the efforts ! So to be as efficient as you wish, you need to identify the most important 20% of your work.
Long term priorities :
For long term priorities, the Eisenhower Matrix is really helpful :
Try it tomorrow, you will see how easy and stressless it can be sometimes. 🙂
Get your “easy to-dos work” for moments you fill less focus
You probably have easy (so boring) tasks you do every single day. If it can’t be delegated or automated (like reading your emails, cleaning old documentations, fixing minor issues etc.), just keep these tasks for your less focused moments. This way, you will stay efficient all day long.
Break tasks and break your time work
Another great tool you can use is the Pomodor technic.
Here is how it works :
- First, take a task and break it in smaller tasks
- Then, choose a task and total time to work on it
- Set a timer to 25 minutes
- Work on the task for 25 minutes by avoiding all distractions or multi-tasking
- Take a 5 minute break
- Start again
- After 5 Pomodoro, take a 20 minutes break.
Motivation
Even if you know your daily priorities, you won’t be able to be efficient without motivation. You don’t necessary need to get inspired or motivated to take action. You should instead focus on getting started. That’s the only motivation you need to have – wheter your are motivated or not.
In my opinion, that’s the main difference between efficient people and very efficient people. Have a goal and take actions, now !
Work your ass off, there is no magic pill. Arnold Schwarzenegger
Say “no” / Ask for help
Finally, don’t forget you are not alone ! You can say “no” if you think you have most important things to do or if you are not the person that suits the best the task. Schedule meeting with colleagues and work together ! It will consolidate the team spirit and make things done !
