Productivity while working from home

As for personality traits, rather than personal comments, a home office worker needs to be self disciplined. There's no 'boss' hanging over you, and there's no shortage of distractions, like the kitchen, the TV, family members, the dog who wants to play, and even the housework. Someone who tries to look busy only when they need to will not do well at home. On the other hand, if you're tired of hearing about you co-worker's love lives, or lack thereof, home can be more productive and more comfortable. I'd recommend another phone line separate from the rest of the house, a dedicated office space, and some really good computer speakers.

 

There is also the problem about people thinking you are not really working if you are at home, so they will be inclined to ask you to do things they never would if you were at work. It's nice to have the flexibility, but you have to be careful to have some time left for work. I can eat up all of my time working on the house, boat, running errands, talking to family, and typing on PriusChat. This would be great if it only paid better.

Tom

 

The problem I've had is family members competing for the office space and computer time, leaving their detritus around, and messing up my stuff. At the office there are at least as many distractions but my desk space at the office is mine and mine alone.

 

i do my best grant/paper/presentation/report writing while at home alone- but i usually have all this stuff outlined and ready to write when i get there. unfortunately i rarely get the credit i deserve from the boss for working from home, but that's no issue if you ARE the boss

minimize distractions, if you're a checklist person MAKE ONE and allow yourself 5 minutes to watch the birds outside (or other enjoyable activity) each time you finish 25% of the list. stand up every now and then, and stretch.

 

Exercise. Surprisingly, working from home can be far more sedentary than going to work in a traditional workplace.

 

I was just thinking about this "working from home" thread, and a thought occurred to me: I don't so much work from home as live at work. Our building is in the commercial section of town, and it is zoned for mixed use, so we live and work out of a commercial building. It's much like the olden days when a shopkeeper would live above his shop. I may have to think of a new term for it.

Tom

 

tried it. and it was convenient for my first child to be home more with him. but at the same time, i ended up working a lot more to get the same thing done. frequent interruptions made it tough at times because some tasks i needed like 10 minutes to get into and i did my best if i worked uninterrupted until done. starts and stops would stretch a 2 hour project into 4 or 5.

did it for 10 months and then ended up going back only to be laid off 3 months later. at my present job i have child #2 who is just turning 9 months old this week, i work 10 hour shifts, sun, mon, wed and fri. having every other day off allows us to not use organized daycare. 3 different segments of our family watch my son and it has worked out very well so far.

 

I occassionally work from home, but much prefer to be in the office. I believe that a key to whether you are productive in a home environment versus an office environment is often the work that you do.

In my case, my time is split between being the guru to the rest of the company and writing manuals or other documents. Being the guru means that I need to be in the office - my day is just full of interuptions to be asked questions on a whole raft of topics. But when I need to get a document out, then I need minimal interuptions - I just cannot do this in the office. I actually find the best place for me to get this work done is in a hotel room. The guru work often requires me to travel and after you have been to any city for the upteenth time, the tourist time on a weekend has palled. So I spend my time writing.

However, to get back to the topic, when I do work at home, I make sure that the family knows - I am at work - do not disturb. I really like it when they all go out and leave the whole house just to me. I certainly try very hard to not do any household chores, but still find that I can very easily get distracted, and thus the productivity, which was the whole reason for working at home, goes down.

One of the tricks I use to keep that productivity is to set mini goals - I need to finish that chapter by 11am. Then, when I have finished, I will reward myself with, a short 10 minute task that has nothing to do with work. I think that when working from home we forget to take the necessary breaks - the office generally forces these on us, just with people stopping by for a quick chat. You need to ensure that you do take the breaks. This is what refreshes you and recharges the work battery for the next period. Combine this with setting mini tasks and the productivity goes way up.

 

Our consultants all work from home. I on the other hand, am the manager, so I am in the office, by myself quite often.

Working from home works quite well for our consultants, but they are beholden to their customers, so there is indirect oversight. They have to list their time by customers, so the work they do is reviewed by myself and the customer, after they get my bill. This doesn't leave much room for milking the clock.

Any computer related work can be done from home, as long as their are timesheet requirements that list out the detail of their work. An isolated home office is important for this to keep out distractions.

Our consultants enjoy the setup though, as it saves time and money commuting, is easier on our office internet bandwidth, and they are free to work their 40 hours a week whenever they and their customers see fit. They can work around things like dental appointments, moving their kids around, or even short errands, as long as they work their 40 hours, satisfy their customers, and achieve an 80% billable percentage.

GoToMYPC is a wonderful tool that has allowed us to expand our service outside of MN to the whole country and even Canada and Mexico.

 

One pretty important item i've found: Separate as much as possible your "work environment" from your "play environment" at home. If you have an extra room to set up as an office, you'll quickly become acclimated to going into "work mode" when entering that room, which should help with your productivity. If you're just setting up a laptop on your kitchen table, it's a bit harder for your brain to decide that you're there to work and not do something else. Plus, by setting up a room to work in you'll be able to eliminate most distractions - sitting at the kitchen table working, your mind might start to wander... "what am i doing for dinner tonight? oh, i need to go to the grocery... does that counter look clean?", that sort of stuff.