How to Concentrate Better when Working from Home

June 17, 2021 12:00

 

Written by Tara Chloe

With the recent news that work from home (WFH) is still the default mode, most of us will find ourselves at home, and unable to return to the office. Despite the gradual re-opening of the economy, the Government had advised continuing with working from home until further notice to reduce the spread and circulation of the virus. 

WFH can be challenging for some people due to several factors. It is not what everyone can do, especially if they tend to focus better in the office or find it easier to communicate with colleagues face-to-face in the office. 

Here are some of the factors which make it hard to work from home:
- Difficulty communicating and disseminating information across with colleagues
- Difficulty in juggling between home and work responsibilities
- Lack of concentration at home due to home environment or atmosphere 
- Easily getting distracted as not being used to the traditional setting

However, these can be overcome easily and here are some ways to overcome the difficulties faced while working from home.

 

1. Define goals

An organisation as a whole or a specific department or team may first define their goals for the lockdown period. What would they like to achieve and how they can achieve it together while working from home. What is the role that everyone should take to achieve the goals? With this, it would be easier to map out a plan and ensure that everyone is headed in the same direction. 

 

2. Effective communication system

The next step would be to set up an effective communication system to centralise all information. This could be tricky as there may be many employees in the company or team. However, there are some useful platforms that can bring everyone together. Popular video chat platforms, such as Google Hangout, Zoom, Skype or Microsoft Teams; apps for sharing information include cloud services such as Google Drive, Dropbox or Microsoft Cloud; chat apps for information and communication may include WhatsApp and Telegram. 
 

3. Creating a cosy and conducive atmosphere

Setting up a home office is beneficial for a conducive, easy to focus and concentrate kind of environment. You may use inspiration from posts on ‘Instagram’ or ‘Pinterest. Anything that makes the atmosphere cosy or whatever floats your boat. 

Having a conducive environment increases work productivity and concentration. It is important to ensure you have the right furniture, lighting and space because you will be spending close to 8 hours a day at your home office.

 

4. Make a list

It is important to make a list separating your home and work daily responsibilities. Some will struggle juggling these two. It is recommended to people to make a list in order of the most important to the least important. You could also try to make a daily timetable, fitting in both work and home responsibilities.

 

5. Take breaks
Taking a short break in-between is essential and vital to boosting productivity. All work and no rest can affect health in a bad way. Research has shown that a break time of 17 minutes is ideal to recharge and boost productivity. This excludes lunch breaks. In fact, there are some companies that have specifically designed nap-pods (For example; Google, Facebook and Huffington Post) for the employees at work to encourage a short break. According to research, this has managed to boost their employee productivity at work.

With these tips, hopefully, it would help you better concentrating when working from home. It is normal for people to try and experiment with whichever methods to find out what works for them, as different people have different preferences. Thus, it is essential to find the method which works best. 

Hope that our readers will be able to survive the soft-lockdown and be able to work at home smoothly!

 

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