Digital transformation has brought about a humongous change in our day-to-day activities. Be it in our personal lifestyle or professional lifestyle, it is evident that digitalism has made things easier than before. On the work front, with the advent of work progress monitoring tools, thanks to digital growth, work from home has now become possible. As there are two sides to a coin, there is always a flip side to everything. How much of the digital benefits are being used productively? More specifically, how far has the digital transformation been effectively used to increase the productivity of work from home?
Work from Home – Strategies to Increase Your Productivity
When you work from home, it is common to encounter more distractive factors that tend to hinder the progress of the work. However, if you are carefully making the best use of this work-style, you can have the most fun-filled working experience. Let us take a look at the strategies to increase the productivity of the ‘work from home’.
Learn to Prioritize
It is essential that you prioritize the list of tasks that you need to complete on a daily basis. Make a note of the tasks to be completed for the day and try to estimate the approximate time required to complete each of the tasks. Since you are working from home, you have the full liberty to work whenever you want. This means you could start as early as 4 am in the morning or could work till 12 midnight after starting late.
When you have the liberty of working round the clock, you can take care of your personal works amidst your professional work. So, make sure that you set your target for the day, and give priority to the tasks that need immediate attention. Complete those tasks first and keep your immediate reporting manager posted about the progress of your work. This way, you can monitor your work progress and deliver your best.
Schedule your day, strategically
It is important that you schedule your day strategically once you set the task-priority. When you have a timeline to stick to, it is easy to complete the day’s task effectively. So, schedule your 24 hours in such a way that you have a proper balance between your professional and personal work. You could easily go astray from your work if you don’t have a proper work schedule. Therefore, make sure to schedule your day strategically in accordance with the day’s tasks.
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Reduce Distractions
When you work from home, it is impossible that you completely focus on your work from 9-5 as you would do at the office. You will have access to everything you’d do when you chill yet the demands of your professional tasks will ask that you complete them amidst your distractive thoughts. You could set a place where you will get the work-feel at home. Also, you can avoid having things that might easily distract you in the working space at home. This will help you to stay focused even amidst your distractions.
Multitask Effectively
When you work from home, you simply can’t avoid multitasking just like that. Even if you try to stop multitasking completely, you might end up doing extensive multitasking anyway. So, it is beneficial that you multitask effectively. When you need to take care of your personal work amidst your tasks, make sure you complete the tasks with top priority first and do prep work for the next task before you tend to your personal work. Then once you finish your personal work you will be able to take over from where you left. When it is hard to avoid multitasking, learn to multitask effectively.
Take Adequate and Quality Breaks
Taking adequate breaks is essential due to the fact that, if you are working at one stretch, you may not be able to deliver your best. Therefore take quality breaks in between your work. Hydrate, stretch, make yourself some coffee. Refresh your mind by taking these qualitative breaks, it helps you to be more productive.
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Have a Check over your Progress
At times you might feel that you’ve been working forever but may not have completed the essential tasks in time. In order to avoid this situation, you need to monitor your work progress as you may tend to lose track of time when you work from home. Set alarms to check your work progress from time to time. Also, once you complete one task, mark a check/tick mark over it so that you will know how many more tasks are still there to complete for the day. This way you can have a continuous check over the progress of your work.
Make Minutes of the Meetings for your Reference
When you work from home, the meetings generally happen over skype or other project management tools. During the meeting, make notes and prepare a minutes of the meeting. Make a list of main points and sub-points of the task descriptions. Note down the deadlines correctly. Clarify the points that you are not cent percent sure about during the meeting itself. This will help you to gain clarity of your task, frame your work timeline and keep track of your overall work progress for the week.
Work from Home Management – Tips to Team Leaders and Project Managers
Though the term may sound fancy and posh, there are real-time issues that hinder the overall productivity and efficiency of the work. Work from home tests the managerial skills of Team Leaders and Project Managers. Being a Team Lead or a Project Manager means that apart from your regular tasks, you need to motivate your team members to complete the task to the best of their efficiencies in the given time frame. And in the case of work from home, this task may seem a bit challenging, but it is definitely possible since ‘where there is a will, there is a way’.
Here are some effective tips to increase the overall productivity and efficiency of the ‘work from home’ process:
- Try to have a lesser number of meetings.
- Set realistic goals for your team.
- Create a healthy online work environment.
- Have a friendly casual call to know the progress of the work.
- Organize a bonus point system to motivate your team.
- Give your team the right tools to work from home, etc.
In addition to the above-mentioned tips, take into consideration, the above-discussed work from home strategies to increase the overall productivity and efficiency.
List of 10 Open-Source Tools for Work from Home
Thanks to the digital revolution, there are many open-source tools available in the market that are pretty useful for work from home. The below-listed are some of the most predominantly used open-source tools used for work from home:
The above listed 10 open-source tools are widely used pan globe to monitor the progress of the work and to facilitate work from home option with ease. There are more tools that facilitate the smooth running of ‘work from home’ work culture apart from the ones that are listed above. You can use any one of those in your office which will help you to make the best use of the ‘work from home’ option.
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Finally…
Change is the only constant as they say. It is evident that when you learn to adapt to change you get to survive and upon working a bit harder, you get to succeed. The current era that we are living in is the ‘digital era’ wherein the digital revolution forces us to get acquainted with not only new technologies but also new lifestyles and work cultures. Follow the above-discussed strategies and tips to make the best use of work from home option, and deliver your best.
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