Home Office: 7 Tips, Tricks for Working From Home Like a Pro During COVID-19 Lockdown

Keep your phone quiet and far away, unless it’s your work device.

By Bhavin Turakhia

Working remotely can be enormously satisfying and productive, but sometimes also challenging. For first-time telecommuters, Bhavin Turakhia, CEO and Founder, Flock (a team communication app and online collaboration platform) recommends some tips and tricks to make working from home productive.

Prepare for multiple distractions
Family, children, OTT platforms, neighbors, etc., cannot avoid all distractions. So get ready for distractions and set common sense limits. Set aside large portions of your day for work and tell your family why it’s important to stay focused. Keep your phone quiet and far away, unless it’s your work device.

Start your day early, comparatively
Overcome the torrent of distractions later in the day by starting work as soon as possible. Simply starting a task in the morning keeps motivation levels high and helps you stay focused throughout the day.

Pretend you’re in your office
Pretending to be in the office helps you start or continue productive habits, like daily chores, and keeps you focused. Set dedicated hours for work, connect with teammates on collaborative platforms, schedule and make video calls, do whatever you do in the office, as much as you can. You will soon find much more time.

Plan your day: create a to-do list
Just think of the hours you want to set aside for work. So you want a list of things to do at those times. Do it at the end of the day for the next one.

Take multiple breaks
Set an alarm for eating on time, having a cup of coffee, or just stretching your legs, so you can stay active throughout the day. Set reminders to take a short break every hour. You’ll likely ignore it sometimes if you’re in the middle of something that needs to be finished or on a call, but it helps make sure you don’t sit in a corner all day.

Save meetings for half a day
Early mornings should be saved for your best work. Setting meetings in the middle of the day means you can continue to be productive for the rest of the day. Also, when you take meetings in the middle of the day, you can take an immediate nap right afterwards.

Spend time on video calls
Working from home means losing jokes at the office and after work parties, or colder conversations. Connecting through a quick video call with a teammate (or two) every day to talk about their respective days can go a long way. Perhaps a morning call will help you understand how your teams are located throughout the day.