Common Work from Home Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
Many people love working from home and find it more productive working in a their study or prefab office than working in a typical office. No more commute, no funny-smelling office food, and the ability to tackle your working tasks when it suits you. Once you’ve got your home office set up with your efficient VPN and internet services (check out the Atlas VPN Review online to look into VPN services), you won’t want to even think about working in the actual office again. It’s easier than ever to get high-speed internet in your home. This is true even if you live far out in the countryside as there are many great rural internet providers there to help you get set up to work from home. On the other hand, it can pose its own set of challenges as well. If you do not take the time to set yourself up for success in a home working situation you will struggle to be productive. Therefore, today I am going to talk about common work from home mistakes and how to avoid them.
Mistake Number 1: Not Setting Boundaries
When you are working from home it can be easy to sit in your living room or your bedroom and work away but the issue with that is that you have very little mental separation from your work. Creating a negative work life balance. I understand that it is not always easy to set up the perfect home working setup. But if you do not take steps to create some separation between work and play you will be less productive. For some, this can be as simple as getting a special chair (such as those seen on https://serp.co/best/cross-legged-office-chairs/, for instance) that you only use when working, but for others this can take a few more steps to say the least.
You do not get the same kinds of boundaries imposed on you that you would have in an office. When we are at work we have managers and supervisors who are watching over us as we work to ensure that we keep on task but now that is all left to us to manage. The initial shift can be jarring for many because they now do not have the social pressure to stick to their task.
Some successful approaches to working from home without boundaries could be that you might approach the hardest tasks first thing in the morning to segment out your day. It all depends on what type of worker you are though, do what works best for you but layout clear goals that can give you points to structure your day around.
Mistake Number 2: No Work Life Balance
Because many of us are working and playing from home it can be challenging to completely switch off from work when you work and play in the same place. You could easily find yourself working much more than usual because you have snapped into work mode and lose track of time. The clear cut off time often prevented people from overworking. But now that ball is in your court.
If possible, try to create physical divides between where you work and play. A home office would be ideal for most in this situation, but I understand that is not the reality for everyone. It could even be that you sit in a specific chair in your living room when you work and move to a different chair when you play. The physical divide can help your mind can aid in enjoying your relaxation time a bit more.
Mistake Number 3: Not Communicating
It is great that from home there are often fewer distractions. This means you can crack on without the usual office noise pulling you away from your work. This can be the perfect situation for you to get a ton of work done. But do not forget to communicate.
One of the biggest mistakes home workers run into is going radio silent and not communicating enough. I can understand why. You want your work to speak for itself with the quality and quantity you are putting out but that does not mean you need to drift away from your team. We are all often parts of a bigger team and those relationships we develop with our co-workers and managers need to be nurtured. It can be something as simple as asking how their weekend was or a hello in the company group chat every morning. Do not lose sight of the positive social relationships you have in your workplace.
To conclude, working from home is both a blessing and a curse. It presents a new set of challenges for the modern workforce to get over. Setting the right boundaries and sustaining a healthy work life balance is critical to a positive home working experience. Keeping up with co-workers and managers is important for team morale and to reduce the feeling of isolation that can come from being home all the time.
