While it’s the pandemic that has popularized and made the working from home culture mainstream, this lifestyle had been gaining ground over the years. Today, more companies have embraced remote work, and this has seen more employees working from the comfort of their homes. If you’re working from home, these tips will help you make your remote work experience more worthwhile.
Carve Out a Dedicated Workspace in Your Home
You need to set up a quiet and comfortable space for your work. Ideally, you should create a designated space that’s separate from your living space. You should use the space for work only or for other productive activities. This way, you’ll train your mind to respect your workspace, so that every time you’re in the space, your mind will switch to work mode.
Also, other people living in your home — spouse, children, roommates, or relatives will also respect your separate workspace. This will help you focus on your work assignments with little to zero distractions. Resultantly, your work productivity will be enhanced. Two-thirds of managers agree that employees who work remotely boost their overall productivity significantly.
You May Need a Home Renovation or a New Home
Remote work lifestyle is here to stay, so you may as well set up a permanent home office. Having realized this, most people are renovating their homes to install a spacious and dedicated home office. Others are selling their homes to buy a bigger house.
If you opt to sell your home, consider how much time it will take to close the deal, especially if you need to settle fast. When using a traditional financing option for a home, it would take you 30 to 90 days to actually close on the property, after accepting a buyer’s offer for your home.
Other options like selling your home for cash may be a faster alternative. If you don’t have space in your house for a home office, it’s worth finding solutions early because you may be working from home permanently.
Have Sufficient Home Internet
When you’re working remotely, you must have a reliable internet connection with fast internet speed. You’ll need to stay connected almost 24/7 on some apps such as Zoom, Slack, Trello, Microsoft Teams, Google Hangouts, Skype, and WhatsApp. It’s likely that you’ll need to upgrade your internet solutions because you’ll need higher bandwidth than your current one, now that you’ll be transmitting and receiving more data.
Besides enhancing your internet, you should also invest in data security. In the modern enterprise, data transmission and storage security is crucial for any organization. Typically, your employer should ensure that you’re well set up on data security given the rise in cyber-crime. If you’re self-employed, you must also ensure that your client’s data is secure. Some precautions you may take is avoiding public Wi-Fi hotspots and securing your home Wi-Fi.
Don’t Kill Your Social Lifestyle
While you’ll definitely have to reorganize your overall lifestyle, your social life doesn’t have to take the biggest hit. You may feel content with online interactions you make with your colleagues on remote platforms, but you’ll need more than that as time goes. You need to set aside some time to connect with your friends outside your home office environment.
If you don’t make a concerted effort to plan for social activities, your home office may be the deathbed of your social life. You want to avoid this because you may soon begin to feel claustrophobic from being home alone and doing the same routine. Simple social outings like coffee dates with friends should do the trick.
Remote work lifestyle is quickly becoming part of the new normal. When you’re working from home, the above tips will help you improve your remote working experience.
