Who wants to sit in traffic when you can sleep in instead and still be at work on time? Many companies are now using the concept of home working as a business strategy.
It sounds a great concept going to work in your dressing gown, or having to walk only as far as your home office to go to work
Avoid the major problems
The joys of home working can also lead to major problems with the dangers of productivity being impacted by the distractions so readily at hand, like the contents of the fridge, or playing with the kids, or catching that soap that is on mid day. The other end of the scale is working too many hours as there does not seem to be a cut off point.
Six keys to taking the “Home” out of home working
To avoid these pitfalls and make working from home a success there are some simple but effective techniques that can be used:
- Start by ensuring that you work office hours as if you were at the office. It is so easy for the start time to slip, and the cut off at the end of the day to never quite happen, or worse the getting started can drift later and later into the morning
- Treat the work hours as if you were at the office which includes baring the family from interrupting, avoiding answering the house phone or checking the house mail. It is good to set rules for family members of what is acceptable as an interruption.
- Ensure you don’t try to juggle work and home. If you try to make the dinner whilst preparing that key report it could just mean getting gravy on your laptop.
- Avoid the concept of “I’ll go out now and make up the time later”. This means breaking in to family time or trying to work in the evening when you are less productive.
- Make sure you don’t use household chores as a displacement activity when you are faced with that hard to start report you should be writing.
- Make sure you are well stocked up on office supplies. It can be too tempting to visit other stores whilst popping out to the local Staples, even worse if there is a café nearby.
Keeping to these simple keys can make working from home the pleasurable experience it should be.