Working from home can be a big transition, so with this in mind CoRE Educational has put together a list for being productive whilst working from home.

Self care

This still applies when working from home, its important to cut yourself some slack, as the transition may make you feel anxious, lonely, isolated and definitely frustrated when it isn’t as easy as it seems.

Take scheduled breaks – you wouldn’t work for 8 hours straight without a break in the office so don’t be tempted to over work yourself whilst at home. Try setting regular alarms to remind you too take a break especially when your working from a screen.

Don’t eat lunch at your desk or any working environment, it isn’t a break if you’re still facing your emails and paperwork. Breaking up the day like this can boost productivity and moral.

Protect your time and your work space

Many managers have this concern about their employees working from home, they worry that they are watching Netflix or doing the ironing. However people tend to work harder from home as it is hard to switch off once you have completed your working day and its harder to “leave” the work behind.

Protecting your work space is critical to ensuring your are productive whilst working from home, talk to the members in your household and establish ground rules during your working hours, it is best to work on the assumption that anything that can interrupt you will interrupt you. So making sure you cannot be disturbed is a blessing! A simple “Do not disturb” sign can help with this.

Hands free head sets, I couldn’t work without mine! It is great for cancelling any back round noise you might encounter they also work great for conference calls.

Communicate

Just because you are not in the office doesn’t mean you are not part of it, Keep up communication with colleagues frequent and up to date with any and all progress you make. There is no such thing as over communicating. Make sure your colleagues know your remote working schedule and they have up to date contact information so colleagues and managers know how to reach you.

Ensure you have a system for sharing documents such as Google Doc’s Box or Dropbox to share files, don’t just scatter your documents across emails and your personal hard drive consolidate this will make communication and accessing files between colleagues much easier.

Keeping up moral

Dress and groom professionally, as tempting as it is too work in your pjs! It doesn’t put you in the right frame of mind when working professionally. Your morning prep routine plays a large role in the determining your mindset for the day so keep it professional. Keep in contact with your colleagues seen as you wont be able to take part in the water cooler chat doesn’t mean you cant interact with them as you would if you were office based. Getting feedback from colleagues, mangers and customers on your remote working can boost your moral and give valuable insights into how to improve your work.

Most importantly remember you are still a valued member of the work force team.

Here at CoRE Educational we want to assist in anyway we can with remote working during these uncertain times we are facing. If you require remote IT support for your school, business or simply hardware to allow your employees to work from home we can assist.

To contact our account manager please call Abbygail on 0330 22 35 229 or email abbygail@coreeducational.org.uk or enquires@coreeducational.org.uk