Comfy as it seems, home office can be quite a struggle for many of bout-to-become professionals. In journalism, as much of communication happens throughout the Internet, it is common that many companies don’t have a proper office, so they hire writers to work from home. Nevertheless, this practice requires a lot of concentration work out since is ten times easier to get distracted being so close to our bed or having nobody to watch over your neck to see what you are doing. Having endured those times between comfortable and production, here are some tips collected from casperians to help you out:
1. Don’t schedule any appointments in the middle of the day. If you are hired to work 6 hours straight, then you must do it right. The time you spend going to a certain place and returning from it may be a lot longer than you expect – manly because of São Paulo’s traffic – and you will have to work till late at night to finish off what you have started.
2. If you have trouble concetrating, try to measure your limit. Start the clock when you start producing and as soon as you notice you had your focus disrupted, stopped and see what you’ve got. If you want to extend this period, try to have a 2 minutes break every 10 minutes of total concentration for four times, then add up five minutes to the 10 before and repeat the process on and on.
3. Always have a bottle of water on you and a mid-day snack. When we don’t eat properly our brain slowly shuts down from lack of energy. Besides, when you start gettting hungry and don’t eat, you are just getting yourself a ticket to distraction.
4. Change your clothes to work. When you get home, change your outfit to a cleaner one, but never use pijamas or clothes that make you too comfortable and on the verge of sleeping. They must be comfy, though.
5. Never work in your bed. Sometimes, writing on your lab sat down in your bed may work, but it won’t last long. If we are not harsh at yourself, you can easily slide down and sleep in no more than 5 minutes.
6. Have a clean table. You don’t have to go full OCD about it, but tidying your desk up is a valuable tip so our eyes don’t see mess and your brain gets motivated. Messy has a sense of house duty you must do, so you will always be reminiscing what is coming for you. Move the mess on your desk to you bed, so you won’t see it and neither lay down, as your nest will be occupied.
7. Stay aware of which social media is your drug – that one that once you are in, you’ll just keep falling – and get rid of it somehow. Hide your phone, as in for apps, or delete all of them for a period of time (be aware of old softwares that can’t recover the apps). Log out of your youtube account, for instance.
Hope this 7-tips article taught an advice you didn’t know already and may try to apply on your daily home-office routine. If you have any other suggestion, leave a comment!