How to Boost Your Efficiency and Work Rate While Working From Home

While growing up I thought being an Entrepreneur or working from home is so easy and cool, so I always wished to work from home. Well, I've grown to know enough that it is not all rosy, and it gets worse when you don't have a few measures put in place.

Has my wish to work from home changed? No! But in this blog post lies what has been helping me and will help you make working from home more effective.

1. Create a Conducive "Study" Environment

As much as it's your home, there's a big difference between your 'Study' and 'Living room'. Don't make the mistake of thinking you can work with your television, kids(if married), or friends around. Try as much as possible to make a separate place to work. A conducive one at that as it's going to aid your productivity.

2. Get a Stable  Source  of Power  and Internet Connection

This point made me remember a friend who was to have a meeting with a client he acquired online, and on that day, the power supply agency was bent on making him lose his job. All thanks to the generator.
So, if you're in the part of the world where the power supply is unstable, you might just have to make sure that an alternative is on the ground. Do well to make sure your network server is also one to bank on. You don't want to lose jobs as a result of this.

3. Get Essential Equipment for your Effectiveness

This should come with the first point but the emphasis should be laid again. If you want to be effective while working from home, you might as well get yourself things like an economic chair, laptop holder, a suitable table, a book rack, and other things.

4. Ensure that Food is Avaiable

This should be talked about with a microphone. Trust me you don't want to work when hungry, so do your best to make sure that food is always available, every time. You can make the food in batches and microwave it when needed and if that's not your way. Make sure you place orders even before you sense any move of hunger.

5. Put away all forms of Distraction

You might want to take away your phone when working if it's not needed. Trust me, replying to a single message that is not related to work from friends might lead you to see so many posts and before you get to know what's happening, the deadline is there ringing a bell. Anything that might seem like a hindrance should be taken away.

6. Take Breaks

You might be wondering if this is good advice or not, but in all you do, make sure to take breaks. You can set ten minutes every three hours to stretch your muscles, snack, grab water, or pace around the room. You need it. Take breaks at intervals.


Putting these few measures in place will most definitely help your efficiency and productivity while working from home. We are rooting for you.

Continued from the first part of this article series authored by Oyindamola Ajewole, it is glaring that the advent of COVID-19 brought in a new era to the global workspace. It practically unlocked diverse possibilities in the world of technology. New innovations were on display and ultimately, mind-blowing ideas and technology were brought into limelight, although they existed before. One of the possibilities that the lock down era brought into the limelight was the art of working from home, popularly called WFH. At the time, working from home was necessary to curb the spread of the deadly virus.

However, since the lock down, working from home is fast becoming a norm in our ever-driven technological society.

 

Everyone is trying to work from home to escape the unnecessary stress of going to work, but this has been faced with a great dilemma of low efficiency and work rate. 

But, how do you overcome this? It's simple, all you need to do is follow the simple tips that are provided below on how you can successfully boost your efficiency and work rate even while working at home.

1. Wake up Early

This is actually the first precaution one must take if you must have a productive day while working at home. You might be faced with the temptation of wanting to sleep more than necessary, you've to be disciplined enough to resist this.

Once you wake up early, you can have sufficient time to do your cleanups and other household chores before the time to commence work begins.

Resist the urge to sleep more, wake up early!

2. Prepare a-to-do list for the day/Planner.

Personally for me, this has been one of the best cheats. This helps you plan your schedule for the day and allocate time for each work that you're about to do that day.

 This would ensure that you keep track of your progress for that day. You can design the list yourself, it's advisable to place the critical works as the top priorities. As you finish each work, ensure you tick it immediately you're done, to keep your track of progress. This, definitely will keep you focused. 

Have a comfortable place to work.

This is really necessary, you can't attempt to work while on the bed, you might end up sleeping throughout the day.

Ensure that you have work-like environment with every necessary office material you need. Make your work place at home look decent as possible. 

Make it a place that is free from all distractions, ensure it's close to the original office environment.

When you're in such environment, it keeps in your mind the awareness, that you're still working. It's a motivation to work more on it's own. Have a dedicated workspace to this effect.

Dress up properly.

This may really sound strange and most people don't really bother about it. Try as much as possible to put on your regular office attire. Make yourself look presentable as much as you can. Casual dresses at home may give you a sense of too much freedom. 

While it is not necessary to dress as formally as you would do for work, a simple change of dress will signal to you, that it's time to work.

Take breaks during work.

Working tirelessly for hours will reduce your productivity. You can't afford to commit all your time to work, otherwise you'll not deliver excellent works. Your body most especially your brain needs breaks, to be rejuvenated and reenergized. 

You can decide to have a walk or do any other thing that seems convenient for you. 

But don't take too much of time during those breaks so that you'll not feel too relaxed and it'll become a bit difficult for you to resume to work. Some time management apps will also help you out on these e. g RescueTime, SmartBreak.

Limit your use of social media.

This can't be overemphasized, social media is a great distracting tool and can be highly addictive. 

You can only overcome this by self control(which is usually hard to maintain) or find your way around it by using some apps that restrict your use of social media. 

Relate with your coworkers virtually.

Working from home can really get you lonely despite having your family members around you because they may not really understand your work.

Try and have many interactive discussions with them, It goes a long way in encouraging you.

Set down rules.

Nobody likes rules, but it's highly essential for growth. Set rules for yourself and family members to avoid unnecessary distractions.

Carefully observe the cause of what's likely slowing down your pace of work and choose rules that are best applicable to you to tackle it. 

In conclusion, working from home is fun, if only you can maximize it well. Using the tips given above will help you boost your efficiency and workrate even while working at home.

Thank you 

There is so much joy that comes with getting a remote job -  it's like you winning a lottery. However, the joy may be short-lived if you discover that 24 hours is never enough because you never or rarely meet up with deadlines, and even when you do, your work isn't good enough. If you face any of the challenges above, you just stumbled on the right article to help you.


Working from home requires a level of self-discipline and a conventional work ethic. Sometimes, remote workers spend more time working than on-site workers. However, many remote workers have not been able to manage this well. A lot of factors are responsible for this. If you are a remote worker, or you hope to be one someday, pay keen attention to the subsequent paragraphs to know what factor(s) affects you, and how it can be managed.

Factors Affecting Your Efficiency and Work Rate When You Work From Home

Factors affecting the efficiency of working from home are numerous. However, I will be explaining just three for this article. They include:

1. Lack of Self-Discipline

For you to achieve any rate of success, you must be disciplined. You have to be in charge of yourself, what you think, say, and do. Do you procrastinate? Do you assume that you can always yield the same result even during a late start? Do you allow the workload to weigh you down resulting in you not starting to work on your project on time? Well, if yes, these are the signs of a lack of self-discipline. If this habit is not controlled on time, you are likely to have it affect not just your work life, but also other aspects of your day-to-day life.

2. Individual Personality

You must understand the kind of person you are. It is paramount to know what works for you, what makes you function well, and what hinders your efficiency. When it comes to the workspace, various individuals function differently, depending on what works best for them. A practical instance is an individual with a melancholic temperament. Such an individual would always aim at perfection and would not work alone to achieve the perfection he or she yearns for. On the other hand, a sanguine would rather work collectively, because that is the only way they achieve effective results. They are more sociable and effective with people. Now, it is up to you to determine what works best for you, until you do, you are likely to keep wallowing in the uncertain pool of inefficiency when working from home.

3) Home and Environmental Distractions

The first two factors can be said to be within your control totally, but this factor is not entirely within your control. This is why you must pay keen attention to these forms of distraction. In the home, if you have a family, the distraction multiplies. Sometimes, in the home, there is a need to do house chores, overlooking and ignoring them won't always work out for you. Imagine wanting to start your day at work and you can see or smell a pile of dirty dishes? Sometimes you have to babysit. Some other times, you don't have a particular working space. Your environment also plays a huge role in how distracted you get. If you live in a noisy neighborhood, chances are that you will not always be on time when it comes to your work report. If you want to be a remote worker, you must be intentional about the kind of environment you live in.

Managing These Factors and Boosting Your Efficiency and Work Rate

The solution to a problem begins with identifying that problem. Now that we have identified three factors, how do you think they can be managed? The paragraphs below have something to tell you.

1) The truth is, no matter how disciplined you are, sometimes, unforeseen activities come up. This is where your sense of priorities and time management comes in. On your time management list, you must always work on activities that are important and urgent first, followed by activities that are important but not urgent. You should learn how to prioritize what comes first and what isn't worth your time at all. You have to discipline yourself enough to let go of those things that are unimportant and not urgent. This way, you would see that even when cases of unplanned engagements pop up, you would have enough time to spare. Also, imbibe the dictum, "You Can Do Today, What You Want To Do Tomorrow," to curb procrastination.

2) Your personality also matters. If you enjoy working alone, then being a remote worker should not be a problem. You only need to focus on some other factors that will hinder your efficiency. However, if you have a personality that enjoys connectivity, you have to be more conscious of how you go about your remote work. One thing that might be of assistance to you is calling up a couple of your colleagues, having virtual sessions with them from time to time, and motivating yourself to "Do What You Have T Do Until You Can Do What You Want To Do."

3) Home and environmental distractions can be managed. I know a couple of remote workers that pay monthly for study centers. They go there to work and come back after they are done working. Well, if this will increase your financial burden, you can decide to discuss with your family members to reduce their not very important activities around the home, enroll your kids in extracurricular activities during the day, etc. For the noise coming from your environment, you have little or no control over that, so you might decide to get a sort of material that you can fix into your ears to limit the amount of noise that goes in. Always note that "There Is No Situation That Can Not Be Managed."

Conclusively, ensure to have a positive disposition of getting your work done. This is the only factor that can propel you into the extra miles which will aid your work efficiency. Give fewer excuses on why something can't be done. Seek solutions and act on them. Consistency is key, and only the consistent ones win. I hope you find your way to achieving a good and effective method of working efficiently from home.