6 Ways to Manage Your Time And Yourself When Working From Home

I've officially been working remotely, from home, for just over one year now.

No more office, no water-cooler chatter, 3rd-floor conference room meetings are history and no morning traffic.

It sounds like a dream come true on the surface, but I'd be lying to you if I said it was that perfect. It was a real chore to get used to all the things I didn't have each day.

Working from anywhere has many benefits, but the most challenging part about it is making sure that you're getting a good amount of work done without being unproductive.

Some of the biggest challenges when working from home is limiting distractions (like walking the dog six times a day) and making the most effective use of your time.

But look, let me jump right in and share the top six things that helped along this new path over the last year.

1. Set a New Work From Home Routine

An attractive perk of remote work is that you no longer have to do your job 9–5 and can schedule when you want. However, this can also be an opportunity for distractions. If you don't set and commit to a personal schedule, it may be harder to track time, productive hours, or actually work too much.

Having a routine or schedule is an excellent way to ensure your time is spent efficiently and appropriately.

What I did.

Truth time here. I sleep in every day now. OK, I don't stay in bed and flounder; what I did is I pushed my days back 1–2 hours. Instead of a hum-drum 9–5, I usually start around 930'ish from my home office, and right after dinner, I may work another hour, two at the max.

2. Scrutinize Your Time

It's difficult to know where to tighten up if you don't have a real sense of how you spend each day. You may have a vague idea, but the only way to know for sure is by performing a time audit.

Without the usual rhythm of an office or traditional workplace, it's genuinely challenging to grasp where time actually goes.

A "time audit" may look something like this. First, you create lists of all the times throughout your day that you spend doing different work-related tasks (ex. phone calls, email replies, client follow-ups) and for how long per activity (ex. 30 minutes spent checking emails). For each time period in your daily schedule, you have to consider what comes after it - when does one activity end and another start.

What I did.

I'm pretty literal, so I grabbed a pen and paper and wrote out how I spent the PREVIOUS day "at work". The reason is I kind of felt if I did the current day, I might cheat just a wee bit. Once I wrote out these time chunks, I was able to see where my inefficiencies lay.

3. Give Yourself Breaks

It is important to schedule breaks into your workday to focus when you need to and not burn yourself out.

Whether you work at a desk or your kitchen table, it's going to be a matter of keeping your wits about you, so you must step away from work, even if it's for something as mundane as putting dishes away for ten minutes.

What I did.

I'm neurotic with timers. I'll set my timer for sixty minutes, turn off distractions and sink into work. Once it goes off, though, it's all about me. I'll step away for ten minutes, and yes, I'll even put away the dishes. These types of hourly micro-breaks have been immensely helpful for me.

4. Plan Small Tasks For The Micro Time Blocks

Here's what I mean. Sometimes I'll set that hour timer and then whip out my task or work in forty-five minutes. Since the time block is set aside for work, I'll use the remaining time for microtasks.

Examples are organizing my Dropbox files, replying to some work-related social media inquiries, or even something as simple but essential, as organizing my desk. The more significant point is to make sure they are work-related, in any case.

What I did.

For me, I'm inundated with emails. So when I set that one-hour timer, I also shut off email. If I finish the task in, say, forty minutes, I'll spend the remaining twenty reading and replying to emails. They're almost always short, quick, and easy microtasks.

5. Axe The Multitasking

Everyone has an opinion on this, especially my wife. I'm a believer in one task at a time. Focus and knock it out. She likes to throw 3–4 balls in the air and juggle them.

Multitasking is tempting because it seems like a time-saver, but it takes up more of your brain than you realize and can cause mistakes. Working remotely or at home may mean that if a ball drops and an error is made, you're all alone. That's the main reason I refrain from multitasking in this environment.

What I did.

One task at a time. Period. It may be one task for the day or one job for the hour, but I stand firm in not juggling too much at once.

6. Stop When It's Time To Stop

The most challenging part of #WFH or remote working is that it's so easy to keep going. It may feel like a badge of honor to do one more thing, to answer those last few emails or edit that one final draft, but the fact is all it does is take away from a healthy balance.

I was guilty of this until the day I realized that it wasn't just me working hard and missing out, but that it was also impacting the time I spent with my family. Plus, when I did that time audit back in step two above, I realized I had been skipping my workouts to get more work done.

What I did.

I honored myself, my time, and my family. There's no trophy or award for the person that works the most from home, so I stopped when it was time to stop. Enough said.

To Sum It Up

Working from home or working remotely can be as marvelous as it sounds. It's not without its pitfalls and hazards, however. Of course, the biggest one being that it's just too easy to keep on working.

The trick to maintaining a healthy balance between work and life isn't a timer or some new app. It's you.

Honor yourself and those sacred moments before anything else.