Working from home has its benefits, from your favorite furry “co-worker” to being able to make lunch in your own kitchen. But the danger of working from home is that you lose focus or find that your environment isn’t a productive one.
As people around the globe transition to working from home and travel agents increasingly run at-home businesses, there are ways to ensure you form good work from home habits to stay on track and accomplish your business goals.
Make a Schedule
Schedules are our best tool to create structure. Not only are they a great way to start each workday, they are extremely useful for keeping good habits outside of work. Try creating a daily list of tasks to complete, taking into account meetings and other obligations. Alternatively, some people prefer to create the task list at the end of a workday, so that it is ready for the next morning.
Cultivate Focus
For many remote workers, home is a quieter, more controlled environment. Fewer distractions mean longer periods of uninterrupted focus as well as increased productivity and efficiency – though, this is certainly not the case for parents sharing a workspace with young children!
While at-home distractions exist, they tend to arise in the form of household chores, personal tasks, other members of your household, and habits tied to your home. Going into your dedicated office or workspace will help with curbing some of these disturbances during business hours.
Being 100% focused on your tasks over the course of the day creates a “job well done” satisfaction, which will make it easier to disconnect when the end of the workday rolls around.
Noise-cancelling headphones and white-noise can quiet distracting sounds in an environment. Some people find focus playlists helpful, but this will be different for everyone. Find something that helps you settle into work and achieve a greater focus.
The concept of deep work is a topic in and of itself, but we can steal some of Cal Newport’s tips to help us effectively work at home:
- Schedule time in blocks.
- Stick to your schedule or daily task list!
- Create your own deadlines to finish tasks.
- Limit checking and responding to emails to specific time blocks.
- Eliminate digital distractions by turning off notifications and setting yourself as “away”.
- Take distraction breaks instead of interrupting blocks of focus
Overworking
Overworking can be easy when working from home, because you don’t leave your work behind when you end for the day. While it may be okay occasionally, it often leads to burnout, and producing poor quality work.
Try to adopt the concept of committing 100% to the present – which means during the workday, focus on work. This also means unplugging at the end of the day, so you can recharge your batteries and take care of other areas of life. Remaining faithful to this boundary will make work more fulfilling and give you the satisfaction of a healthy work-life balance.
What work from home habits have worked for you? Share them with us below or tag us in your social media posts.
Are you interested in starting your own home-based travel agency? KHM Travel Group is a leading host travel agency helping people start and run their own independent travel businesses. For more information fill out the form to the right or give us a call at 1-888-611-1220.