The Productive Guide to Working from HOME
By: Anton Dymtchenko
Tags: Self Improvement, Freelancing, Organization, Productivity, Work

Strategies to be productive when your bed is 10 feet away

Illustration by Yours Truly

If the 20th century saw the rise of the employee; the 21st century is seeing the rise of the self-employed. Even if the latter offers a fair share of advantages over the former, it also includes new challenges.

Employees are usually required to show up at a specific time in an environment conducive to their work. Self-employed people are free to work whenever and wherever. While the employee builds her life around a determined work schedule, the freelancer can juggle every daily activity as she pleases.

Lack of initial structure in the life of aspiring self-employed creators is a main obstacle to the realization of their full creative potential. They have no obligation to wake up at a specific time, they don’t have a job to be late to and often their work environment is their own home.

That’s problematic.

When you work, sleep, eat, play and rest in the same place, the mind has much more trouble switching from “entertainment mode” to “focus mode”. The opposite switch is much easier. Also, the mind has trouble settling into a “calm mode” before sleep if its environment fosters all day stimuli.

After a couple of years in this situation, I amassed many hacks and habits into a productive guide to work from home. They go as follows:

Put your alarm clock out of reach from your bed

If we were looking for the archenemy of morning productivity, the “Snooze” button would be a strong contender.

First of all, snoozing doesn’t make you more rested. Quite the opposite. Instead of one spike of cortisol to wake you up naturally, the repeated alarm ring starts your day with a cortisol roller-coaster that increases your grogginess for the entire morning.

Not to mention, you are wasting time by snoozing. Those extra 10, 15, 20 minutes do not give you any benefit, they actually make you worse and they are spent unproductively!

Nothing helped me more to get out of bed immediately than putting my alarm in the bathroom facing my bedroom. Every morning, I had to get up and take at least 8 steps to turn it off. Once I made it to the bathroom I thought “well, I’m already here, might as well do my morning cleanup” and I did it (99% of the time).

If you can’t put your alarm in another room, just put it out of reach. Any necessary movement will help you wake up.

I recently moved to a bigger place where my bathroom is now too far away from my bedroom (I would have more chance waking up my neighbor by sticking to the same morning hack). So, I just put my alarm clock deep in my closet. When it rings, I have to stand up, get on all fours, crawl into my closet and reach over my laundry basket to turn it off.

Have a morning routine

After waking up for good comes the morning routine. There are tens of options for healthy things to do in the morning. Find which ones make you happy and ready for work.

I have begun every single day, for over 13 months now, with a cold shower. Stepping into a jet of cold water within 10 minutes of waking up will eradicate your sleepiness with one brisk shock.

Next, I savor a warm green tea to warm up; I meditate for 30 minutes; I do a 20-minute yoga session for my back and I finish with some light exercises (also focused on strengthening the back). Since, I mostly work at a desk or an easel, I need to keep my back strong and flexible.

After that, I reward myself with a nutritious Paleo breakfast and I go to my favorite coffee shop for a triple espresso. Chatting with the baristas for 5 minutes provides me with a social boost early on in the day. Thus, I am comfortable to isolate myself for a while and focus on work.

These are the habits that work for me. Some people journal; some people read; some people go for a run, but no one can have an all-inclusive morning routine as it would take 4+ hours to even start working. So, figure out what enlightens your early hours and stick to it.

Have a Plan

If you know what you have to accomplish in advance, you skyrocket the odds of being productive! Have a simple to-do list composed the evening before or early that morning.

I usually write down my to-do list during the 4 minutes it takes for my green tea to infuse (my pad and marker are always close to my kettle). Thus, during my subsequent mindfulness meditation, I let go of my “to-do-thoughts” with ease.

Have a Work Setup

I don’t have a “living room”. That room is converted into a space where I engage in work only.

Our brains subconsciously pick up cues from our environment. They are reluctant to focus in a setting also used for distraction.

If you don’t have many rooms at your disposal, take some tape and delimit a “work area” on the floor. If you want to go ballistic, use the yellow police tape. Do what is necessary to create a productive setup.

Which brings us to tidiness.

The less effort you need to start working, the more likely you are to work. If you walk into a chaotic, disorderly environment, you might as well turn around and do something else.

You must be able to work as soon as you sit at your desk, easel, electric saw, pottery wheel or whatever else you use. Prepare your work area the evening before. Clean it up, put everything in its place so you don’t have to look around for a tool when you need it.

It would be very easy for me to neglect the paint on my palette, leave my markers in disarray on the table and spread my sketches all over the room (trust me, I have done it in the past). But I know, as I walk in the next day, the cleanup will use most of my willpower.

So, at the end of the day, pop in a podcast, an audio book or your favorite album and arrange your work area for the day to come.

Take Mindful Breaks

As you work, concentration will normally decrease after a couple of hours, especially if you are sitting. At that point, you can keep working with a lower capacity or take a moment to reboot.

When I say “reboot”, I don’t mean jump on social media to see which one of your friends blew their entire savings on a trip to Thailand to take a couple of selfies on the beach. If your concentration is already low, that will annihilate it.

The best way to reboot, especially for knowledge workers, is to step out of abstract thinking and reunite with the body. I am more flexible in this area. Sometimes, if I feel my shoulders have gone forward through my work session, I take an elastic band and do some upper back strengthening. Sometimes I just like to make myself another green tea and taste it as I stare out of the window. Sometimes, I just take ten mindful breaths.

That is between work sessions. After 6, I usually take a walk to get some groceries or just to see what is happening in the historic center of my city. If it’s a weekend day, I will meet up with a friend or two.

Breaks work as long as they are mindful.

Reward Yourself

It is hard to see your progress when you work on your own. There are no bosses or colleagues to socially validate your work. You always feel like you could have done more. Yet, if you accomplished the 3 main things on your to-do list that day, you deserve your reward. Get that (small!) ice cream, that beer or that lavender kefir kombucha.

Allow yourself to relax: watch that documentary about the Beatles; listen to your favorite podcast; go to that show you wanted to see; read that erotic novel you sometimes feel guilty about reading. It’s okay. You were productive today. Being productive 100% of the time is impossible.

Set an Alarm for Bedtime

Part of being productive in the morning is going to sleep at the right time. Just as you set an alarm to wake up, set one 15 to 30 minutes before bedtime to remind yourself it is time to stop the stimulation, unwind and go to sleep. Remind yourself of all the great things you can accomplish tomorrow (as you hopefully did today) by going to bed at the appropriate time. If this is too rigorous, try sticking to it at least 5 days a week. Your body will thank you.