How To Work From Home In 2023: Tips For Productivity & Wellbeing


Work from home has been accepted and fruitful all around the globe. Many companies have adopted this working modelOpens in a new tab., and people simply love it. For those of you who are just starting your work from home, or would like to upgrade the experience, you should know how to make your home office more productive. Besides that, your home office should also support your well-being. So, let’s see how you can improve this experience. 

Prepare the Room

Your home office should be tailored to suit your work and your well-being. The first thing is finding the room or simply upgrading and adapting the existing one. You can start with refreshing walls, installing air conditioners, and fresh plants. Besides air conditioners, room insulationOpens in a new tab. can also help prevent too much heat from building up through the roof of your office and the entire home, saving electricity bills. This can create a comfortable room temperature where you can work without being annoyed and distracted by constant heat or cold.

Set Up the Desk

As you will be spending at least 6 hours at your desk every day, you have to make sure your working station supports your body properly. You should consider the ergonomic factors of your desk setup. You can make small tweaks at the workstation to support your posture. Make sure you can comfortably rest your feet while your arms are in a neutral position on the desk and keyboard. Your screen should be exactly at your eye level so you are not straining your neck and eyes, and your lower back should get proper support from the chair. Once these elements are taken care of, you can sit comfortably, in a healthy way, and avoid bad posture and pain in your back and neck while working.

In addition to ergonomic equipment, you should still make an effort to maintain good posture. You can achieve this by taking frequent breaks and getting up to stretch out. You can take a small break every half an hour to stretch your legs, back and neck. This will help your blood circulation and muscle strain can be avoided. 

Try To Limit Distractions

We all know how easy it is to get distracted while working. There are days when endless spreadsheets and documents are simply boring to us. This leads to looking for a distraction, and that can put a damper on your productivity. If you’d like to increase your productivity while working from home, you should try and limit distractions. 

This is where insulation can help you. Outside noise, traffic, people, and even your family members in the other room can distract you. And insulation can provide an extra layer of noise cancelation. Additionally, you should consider taking the TV out of the home office, so you wouldn’t be tempted to watch what’s on TV. Also, when we want to procrastinate, we often get tempted to do the chores during working hours. You can avoid this by cleaning up the day after, or before your working hours start. 

To further boost your productivity and promote well-being, you can play some soothing music in the background. There is research that shows that music can help boost your mood and reduce stress, while it performs your cognitive performance. 

Set Boundaries with Your Household

When we work from home, it is often easy for others in our house to forget that we are working. Your family members or roommates might forget that you need to concentrate which can result in too many distractions. To keep those relationships healthy and minimize the disruption, you will have to talk to them about setting boundaries. You can nicely explain that even though you are home you still need to work and that you need peace and quiet for that; or at least no barging into the room. 

If such a resolution is not possible, you can try other things. If the situation allows it, you can modify your working hours and other responsibilities. Talk to your manager and communicate such changes to find a perfect solution for your home office working hours. 

Introduce a Routine

To stay productive, you need a routine. You can start by planning to start your day off right by getting ready for work. Even though you don’t have to look amazing since you’re working from home, it is a good idea to ‘get ready’. Instead of working in your pajamas, you can change into something less comfortable and get on to the daily hygiene routine. Only then go to your home office to start working. 

This will help your brain make a difference between actually working and relaxing at home. It can send signals to your brain that it’s time to wake up and get productive. Plus, this small morning routine can help you balance out your personal and work life.

Create Your Schedule

A clear schedule can help you stay productive, and save you a lot of stress and feeling overwhelmed. When working from home, you have the freedom to organize your day and workload, and how you’re going to complete the tasks. You can easily use just a simple notebook to create a schedule for each working day. On the other hand, if you’d like something fancier, you can find several amazing templates online and start planning. 

You can even go a step further and organize your entire dayOpens in a new tab.. Plan when you’re going to go to sleep and when you’re getting up. Also, plan your meal time, and when you’re going to start working and add those breaks into the schedule so you can take care of your mind and body. All this will help you stay organized and seize the day and use your time most efficiently. 

Stay Connected

It is often easy to feel like you are not connecting with your coworkers when you are all working from home. To stay on top of everything, you should utilize various tools and communication software. See what your company already uses – Slack, Skype, Teams, etc, and create rooms and private chats that can help you keep track of everything. 

Additionally, you can all schedule private and business meetings to vent, organize tasks and so much more. Communication is important, especially if everyone is on a remote work model, so make sure to get your messages across. 

Celebrate Your Wins

Working from home takes an effort to stay motivated. To help yourself stay motivated and productive, you should introduce celebrating your wins. If you’ve been dealing with a long and tedious task, once it’s done, celebrate it! Even if completing smaller tasks needs celebration, don’t overlook doing it. Small prizes you give yourself will keep you motivated to complete every next task. So, give yourself a break, get a treat, or do anything else you love right after a stressful day at work has been finished. 

There are many ways to make your working hours productive. If you are working from home, you can utilize online tools and your room to help you stay healthy and motivated to work. Start by organizing the home office, and set some clear boundaries with the rest of the household. What’s left is to organize your working hours. Create schedules, rely on that Google calendar, and stay in touch with everyone you’re working with. All these elements will help you manage your workload much easier, and more importantly, keep your well-being intact. Plus, organizing can help you minimize stress because it eliminates chaos and getting overwhelmed by everything. 

Steve Todd

Steve Todd, founder of Open Sourced Workplace and is a recognized thought leader in workplace strategy and the future of work. With a passion for work from anywhere, Steve has successfully implemented transformative strategies that enhance productivity and employee satisfaction. Through Open Sourced Workplace, he fosters collaboration among HR, facilities management, technology, and real estate professionals, providing valuable insights and resources. As a speaker and contributor to various publications, Steve remains dedicated to staying at the forefront of workplace innovation, helping organizations thrive in today's dynamic work environment.

Recent Posts