What's new

Working from home

settinggoals321

New member
When working from home, when I have several things to get done, I have always found it really helpful to do a little bit of work at a time. This sort of advice would greatly depend on a person's schedule, how much time a person has, how much work, etc. But for me, I find time to do a little bit of work at a time. I set specific goals for myself and make sure I meet them. When those goals are at a smaller scale or are spread out throughout the day, it can make the work feel less intimidating. Plus, if you get some of your goals for the day done quickly, you might feel encouraged to do a little extra. For example, if you had to read a long book or document, try and set a goal for a certain amount of pages to read per day (if your schedule allows for this). That way, if you finish your reading goal for the day, you might feel motivated to keep going, as reaching a goal can create confidence. Spreading the work out into smaller portions throughout the day or week is something that I have found to be really helpful, especially for larger projects and when working from home.
 

Daedalus

New member
A lot of information here to try to absorb.

I'm new, semi-forcibly entered into the freelance game. I really feel like it'll be a good fit for me, as I tend to dabble with a lot of different skills. I'll be coming back to this thread regularly.
 

John S

New member
Another great topic. I am in the process of transitioning to remote work so all of the ideas are very useful. I worked from home years ago but not online. There many things I still need to refine and thanks to all of these suggestions the process should go smoother.
 
S

sunshinegal

Guest
When working from home, when I have several things to get done, I have always found it really helpful to do a little bit of work at a time. This sort of advice would greatly depend on a person's schedule, how much time a person has, how much work, etc. But for me, I find time to do a little bit of work at a time. I set specific goals for myself and make sure I meet them. When those goals are at a smaller scale or are spread out throughout the day, it can make the work feel less intimidating. Plus, if you get some of your goals for the day done quickly, you might feel encouraged to do a little extra. For example, if you had to read a long book or document, try and set a goal for a certain amount of pages to read per day (if your schedule allows for this). That way, if you finish your reading goal for the day, you might feel motivated to keep going, as reaching a goal can create confidence. Spreading the work out into smaller portions throughout the day or week is something that I have found to be really helpful, especially for larger projects and when working from home.
Enjoying reading your suggestions! Something that is helpful for me is the “pomodoro” approach—25 set minutes of distraction free work followed by 5 minutes of changing to another task. You can also do this in a 50-10 or other format. I also try to limit email checking, etc.
 
A few posters wrote about time management issues --- and how you can spend hours in front of a screen which is unhealthy and can often lead to low productivity. I got this idea funnily enough from watching The Good Doctor about an autistic man doing his medical residency - good show and it shows a lot of autistic 'tells' and his solutions. One autistic trait is obsessing and hyperfocusing . He beats it by putting a timer alarm on things. I'm not autistic, I don't think, but am prone to hyperfocusing and, paradoxically, piddling or 'fritzin off' . So when I set to do a task, I run an egg timer on my desk or alarm on my phone if away. This gives the activity an end time and a kind-of deadline. It helps. Try not to Snooze bar it. OK, my timer just went off, ciao.
 
I liked the post about breaking up tasks to smaller components. I read about this years ago and the writer called it the Swiss Cheese method. He got projects done by doing small tasks , poking holes, in the bigger project and thus, piecemeal, getting all done. Updike is quoted saying that writing a novel is like driving a road at night, you can only see as far as your headlights...but you can get all the way there that way.
 

epalmer

New member
This is really weird - but when I work from home I always have put shoes on! Otherwise, I find myself getting too comfortable and just wearing shoes makes me feel like I’m ready to go and down anything. I used to think that was really uncommon and I told a friend who said she did the same thing. She also told me there had been research showing most people are more productive when they put shoes on rather than when they are barefoot.
 

Top