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Working Lady -Productivity

8 Top Productivity Tips for Work from Home Moms

What productivity tips work for work from home moms who must now manage their homes and their work from home jobs? This is a question many working women ponder as the world slowly but surely adjusts to the new reality of remote work.

Due to COVID-19 shelter-in-place orders and social distancing measures, more brands are joining the work from home movement. Already Google, Facebook, Twitter, Shopify, Amazon, Royal Bank of Scotland, and many others are embracing remote work and allowing their staff to work from home, some indefinitely.

With COVID-19 job losses in the US reaching north of 40 million, the worst since the Great Depression, many are glad to still have a job, even if it means learning to work from home for the first time. 

In this post, I’ll be sharing eight tested and trusted productivity tips for work from home moms to help them achieve optimum productivity while maintaining the fragile work-life balance.

Here we go.

8 Productivity Tips for Work From Home Moms

1. Start a Morning Routine

A morning routine, whether good or bad can set the tone for the rest of your day. Lack of one is a bad routine in itself. It could be one of the reasons why you have many unproductive days. Something as simple as daily fitness exercises can go a long way.

By deliberately documenting a morning routine you’re taking the first step towards a more productive day. According to a MyMorningRoutine study involving 343 participants (56% female, 44% male), the average bedtime is 10:57 pm, wake-up time is 6:23 am with 7:29hrs of sleep on average.

Because a good morning routine starts from the night before, you can adjust your timetable to allow sufficient time for sleep. This is because adequate sleep is proven to boost health, positivity, and productivity. Sleep deprivation, on the other hand, can cause irritability and cognitive impairment.

2. Draw a Timeboxed To-Do List

One of the most important morning routines ever is drawing a to-do list. It helps you avoid daily distractions and maintain focus throughout the day. A study by to-do list expert Sasha Cagen found that 96% of listmakers say their lives are better with to-do lists, with 86% enjoying the process.

A further 83% of respondents prefer handwritten lists. They feel more accountable since lists are in their handwriting, plus they feel a sense of achievement from manually crossing or checking off tasks. These days, tools like ToDoist, Habitica, Things, Tick Tick, etc, can automate listmaking. 

Take it a step further by using timeboxed to-do lists like:

TO-DO TODAY

  1. Wake up, Brush [6:00 am]
  2. Morning Devotion/Meditation [6:05 am – 6:35 am]
  3. Morning Chores [6:40 am – 7:00am]
  4. Breakfast [7:05 am –  8:30 am]
  5. Start Work [9:00 am]
  6. Review Yesterday’s To-Do List [9:05 am]
  7. Complete Spillovers [9:10 am]
  8. Check Email [10:00 am], etc.

The list above is an example of a timeboxed to-do list, incorporating a morning routine. This is one of the most important productivity tips for moms who work from home. 

3. Show #2 To Your Hubby, Kids and Solicit Their Help

Another key productivity tip for moms who work from home is asking for help when needed. For working singles, this is a non- issue. However, for working mothers, it can make the difference between productivity and unproductivity. 

Depending on household size, being a work from home mom can be doubly stressful. Leaving home chores behind, the commute to work, friendly banter with colleagues, lunch breaks, and such perks make office work attractive for some. Most of these are missing when working alone from home.

In addition, home chores, husband, children, in-laws, and pets may all bel home, thanks to lockdown. The thought of combining it all with your day job in the same space can be overwhelming. Share your to-do list and enlist the help of your husband or children with some home chores, or hire help where possible. 

4. Delineate Your Workspace

Given all the help you’ve enlisted in #4 above, you can now focus on your workspace. If your office layout is productivity-friendly, aim to replicate the same setup at home. The first step to achieve this is by clearly delineating or demarcating your workspace.

Here’s another productivity tip for moms who work from home. Choose a quiet area, preferably one with a door, nearly zero footfall, and free from distraction. This will tell members of your household (including your pets) that mom means business. More importantly, it will tell you that you mean business.    

You can also experiment with multiple locations within or outside your house that allow you to work. Using DeskTime, Kristine Spure found the productivity levels of employees working in different office setups as follows; open office 85.8%, closed office 89.3%, and cubicle 91.9%. So, find what works for you and work with it.

5. Deliberately Design Your Workspace to Look Like an Office 

After demarcating your office space, you should proceed to design it as best as you can. As mentioned above, aim to replicate or improve on your office design if it makes you more productive.  

There are many pocket-friendly home office designs to inspire yours and cut costs this lockdown. Home Designing shares 51 interesting home office designs here. You can get the necessary office supplies from Amazon or other online stores to beautify your office.

Where possible, bring along some of your personal effects from the office. Things like your favorite wall hangings, artwork, artefacts, indoor plants, music collection, etc, can help to beautify your home office and recreate the ambiance of your office.  

6. Recreate Your Regular Office Routine

A well-designed home office together with an established office routine can lift your productivity levels. Itemize every activity you would normally carry out before, during, and after your normal 9 to 5 job, and aim to replicate same at your work from home job. 

As far as productivity tips for work from home moms go, this is one of the most essential. Start by going to bed early the night before, waking early, brushing, working out, bathing, dressing up; crossing off your entire morning routine, and making the one-minute commute from the bedroom to your home office.

Once in your office, declutter your work desk and organize your entire workspace to promote productivity. Check to confirm that your hardware like your PC and headphones are working properly. Set the temperature to favorable levels. Studies show that 53% of employees are less productive when it’s too cold.

7. Generate Your Own Engagement 

According to Gallup’s State of the Workplace Report, 85% of employees are not engaged or are actively disengaged at work. This results in a whopping $7 trillion in lost productivity. This is partly why some employers are concerned about work from home productivity among remote employees.

Productivity tips for work from home moms will be incomplete without this. As a working mother, it is important that you find new and creative ways to create your own engagement while working from home alone.

The new normal (working from home) comes with new stressors for newly remote workers. This can stem from difficulty adjusting to remote work, as well as having to bother about your personal cybersecurity to learning how to set up and use new collaboration software, etc.  

8. Interact With Colleagues

 

Building engagement is central to work from home productivity. Another key way to boost engagement while working from home alone is by interacting with colleagues. Workplace communication and interaction play a critical role in improving workplace productivity. 94% of respondents in a survey say video conferencing increases their efficiency and productivity.

It is even more important that you do this while working from home alone. Not only will it curb feelings of loneliness and abandonment, but it also reassures you that you’re not alone in this. You should also seek to learn how your colleagues, especially working mothers, are coping with maintaining productivity. You can do this over popular social networks your colleagues use.

Also, by adhering to your company’s unified communication protocol you can get the right information when and where you need it. This can strengthen work-related interaction with your colleagues, improve engagement, and boost productivity.

Conclusion

Staying productive at a day job and with your home chores is tough. Use these productivity tips for work from home moms to achieve greater productivity:

  1. Start a morning routine
  2. Draw a timeboxed to-do list
  3. Show your to-do list to family members and solicit their help
  4. Delineate your workspace
  5. Design your workspace to look like an office
  6. Recreate your regular office routine
  7. Generate your own engagement
  8. Interact with colleagues

 

7 Top Habits of A Super Learner

In the competitive world, we are in, learning has a lot of benefits; be that in a workplace, school or even in life.

Every one of us would have at some point in life, heard about learning through experiences in life.

Those are long term lessons; however, I would like to focus on the short term learning—the new concepts we are introduced to in school, college or at a workplace.

Why is being a super learner critical? Learning means improving your knowledge about something and getting updated; this really helps you to stay ahead of others. Particularly for students, learning comprises of new ideas, thoughts, concepts and a full arena of the unknown and unfamiliar.

However, mugging up everything from your books or being a “book-worm” does not make you a super learner.

This practice results in you having a short term memory for a small period, and you cannot even be said a learner if you are doing this.

You learn not only to reproduce it in an examination paper but to apply that in future when necessary.

They Take Notes 

It is useful if you can learn and understand concepts while listening to them. Taking notes make this process of looking much more beneficial as you have to write something sensible and also in an organised manner rather than the stream of floating ideas that get passed on to you through listening.

Moreover, the notes are also helpful for future references. For an examination or even while you are at a job. The most significant benefits of note-taking are it improves your concentration and organisational skills, increases your creativity, promotes active learning and boosts comprehension, making you a super learner.

They are curious & love to explore

The best thing about super learners is their curiosity to learn about new things. They are always enthusiastic about knowledge and keep on asking questions to broaden their intellectual growth. You can also find such people searching and exploring to find new information and ideas related to any relevant topic, on which they are interested in. They gain a lot of knowledge, keeps themselves updated and stays ahead of their companions through this exploration and eagerness.

They teach others what they know.

They help others in learning and teach them what they know, being a super learner and super friend for their companions. This is not only beneficial for others but helps them to be thorough and perfect in their knowledge and understanding of concepts. While explaining something, it is easy to recognise the gaps in our knowledge and to get a better organisational ability. Sharing knowledge through teaching also improves communication skills, self-confidence and leadership ability.They are very methodical.

You have to be systematic and organised to be a super learner. Learning random topics or concepts without being able to recognise the connection between them or not learning in order can result in utter confusion and chaos. While following daily routines too, it is essential to be methodical. You can schedule a time table or set a proper time for different tasks, making them accessible and useful. This helps in time management and increases your focus as well as concentration.

They are open to new opportunities.

In addition to their curiosity in learning and exploration, super learners take up challenging and new opportunities. They consider these as learning through experience and make them confident also. It does not matter if you win or lose while trying and exploring new opportunities; it will always come with some lesson and experience for your future.

They learn, take the certification, get new degree outside of their fields.

Read How to Get Real Estate License

A single google search can teach you the concept you are trying to learn very quickly, you need to have the right mindset of kind of search and willingness to grow and learn to master this skill.They try to remain healthy.

Super learners always take care of their health.

Being healthy is essential for physical and mental growth. They follow a fit and proper diet, including the right amount of water to keep a balance in their mind and body.

As learning is mostly about intellect and mental development, super learners make sure that they get adequate sleep and rest along with their learning time.

Doing exercises and practising yoga will also help to increase focus, concentration and mind development.

They take breaks and Rest well.

It is essential to take breaks so that you will not get stressed. Continuously sitting in front of a book or learning does not help you to stay focussed.

However, if you relax a bit for some time, take a coffee break or do something to entertain yourself, you will experience a relief from stress, and it helps a lot for your brain too.

It is always preferred to use potential time in learning rather than wasting long hours without any use. Efficient learning requires relaxation and intervals in between to keep you focussed and intact.