The Dev World – Sergio Lema

From the COVID pandemic, working from home become more usual. But now that things have come back to normal, companies don’t trust anymore the work from home.

Still, you can be as productive as working from the office.

The thing is to know how to be constantly focused and avoid distractions.

In this article, I list 5 tips that I do to maintain a high level of productivity when working from home.

Put Away Your Phone

The phone is nowadays the number one distraction device.

Put it as far as possible.

It’s too easy to take it and scroll for a minute or two watching news or social media. But it’s never a minute or two.

The solution is to put it as far as possible from your workstation.

Activate the “No distraction” mode to silence all the notifications. If it’s an important notification, they will call you.

Finally, set a time limit (5 or 10 minutes per day) for the most useless applications (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok…). Those applications are the most time-consuming. They are built to keep you on the screen as long as possible.

Work In A Dedicated Room

Never, ever work from the coach or the bed.

The best option is to have a dedicated room.

If this can’t be done, almost prepare a table as far as possible from all the distractions. Far away from the TVs and the food.

Have a dedicated and comfortable chair, because you will sit there for more than 8 hours.

Prepare Side Tasks

When I work from home, I have some dead times: waiting for an answer, waiting for a project to compile, waiting for someone to read my comment…

When working in the office, I don’t wait for a colleague to answer a message, I go directly speak with him.

If I have these dead times, I’m more prone to check my phone or do the laundry.

I always have 2 or 3 side tasks. Tasks like reading an article, answering some non-priority emails, or writing a script to automate something.

These are tasks that don’t require a lot of effort or concentration. These are tasks that I can start now, and continue two hours later.

Prefer Calls Over Chat

Working from home is for introverts. For people who want to work alone, and don’t have to face other people.

Still, some problems, most of the problems, can be solved quickly by talking.

I’m an introvert, that’s why I force myself to call whenever two sentences are not enough to describe a situation.

When I call my colleagues, I get the answers quickly, I explain myself better, and the response time is shorter.

For Delayed Work, Give Full Context

I’ve been working with people in different time zones for a moment now. What’s hard in those situations is that a single conversation by chat can take several days.

When I ask for something, I must always give full context. I must give all the possible details to be sure there is no ambiguity.

The same happens for delayed work. When I prepare a task for somebody to be done in a few days or weeks.

If there are not enough details, the assignee will come back with more questions and the conversation will last longer.

Conclusion

Working from home requires a lot more organization and concentration. Because there are a lot more distractions.

Still, working from home is a big advantage as I don’t spend time on public transport and spend more time with my family.