Working from home offers a double-edge sword: the freedom of using your time without the eyes of your co-workers and possibilities to get astray from your professional duties. While others thrive in this arrangement, others fall prey to distractions.

To avoid this, you must take the initiative in making the remote work setup efficient for both you as an employee and your employer. Stay in focus while working from home through these eight steps:

1. Create a Calendar

The very first thing to do is create a calendar. You have to plan how you are going to spend the next few months. Being not in the office tends to make you forget of dates, some of which are important. Your calendar should include the deadlines of your tasks, appointments for meetings, and even holidays to look forward to. If possible, you should also include your tasks for each day to track your pace. Update it in case of necessary changes.

2. Know the Best Time to Work

Working from home only changes the place where you fulfill your tasks, but your schedule for each day remains the same. Some hold dayshift jobs while others have nightshift jobs. However, if you are a freelancer or an employee with flexible schedule, you have a different kind of motivation at work.

You may be an early bird that starts the morning on your job right away. You may also be the person who does the job on the afternoon. Or you are that night owl who is very much active when the neighborhood is asleep. It’s important to know the best time for you to work because it’s when your focus is at its height.

3. Make a Daily Schedule

Now that you have identified your best working time, the next thing to do is structure your daily routines. Create a schedule when the work will start and end, covering the service hours you need to render. It’s the same timeline you follow during an office work. And this is essential to set boundaries for your work and personal life for each day.

4. Take Breaks in Between Work Hours

Like dates, working at home makes you forget about breaks. You don’t have co-workers to call you for lunch or bio breaks. The line between work and break gets blurred. Sometimes, it gets mixed up, meaning you eat your lunch while working. However, the schedule you created should include breaks. You have the freedom to take a walk, eat your favorite food, or rest from the screen radiation. Breaks reduce stress and should be taken advantage of to avoid burnout.

5. Create a Conducive Home Office

Remote work enables you to work anywhere else in the world. However, if you intend to stay at your place, having a personal workspace helps you focus. Better to have a workspace away from noise and other distractions.

6. Inform Your Family About the Setup

Filipino culture lets anyone, regardless of age, live with their parents and family for the rest of lifetime. So, if you stay with your family for a work-from-home setup, it’s best to inform them about how your work days will turn out. Orient them about your schedule, rest period, and whatnots, so they can adjust whether they can knock on your door or break into your Zoom meeting.

7. Set a Limited Time for Distractions

More than family members or housemates, what really messes up a working schedule is self-discipline. No matter how organized your list of to-dos for each day, it is useless without you sticking to it. Work from home offers freedom and distractions. Television shows, Netflix, various games, and the like drown you in pleasure and forget your priorities. Your mobile phone also contains a lot of apps such as social media apps that pops notification now and then. Giving in for one time can keep you distracted for the rest of the day.

It is recommended that you should block the websites that offer little or no purpose to your productivity. On the other hand, depriving yourself from these platforms can also build up stress. Allot from your scheduled breaks a short period for these activities and set timer for the consumption length. The key is moderation.

8. Stay Active

Another disadvantage of working from home is the tendency to stay inactive. You lost the opportunities that force us to walk, commute, or sweat. Physical activities serve huge importance not only to our health but also to our productivity. The more we are physically active, the more our bodies can take the days of work. Don’t sit in front of your computer all day, and then go straight to bed when everything’s done. Take a brisk walk around the neighborhood, or do home exercises to keep your body awake and strong.

Manage your time wisely for work-and-life balance

Working from home is here to stay. Since we are all adapting to this arrangement, don’t be hard on yourself if you get distracted sometimes. However, you should aim to manage your time wisely and get the balance of two lives (personal and professional) under the same roof. Set boundaries to stay in focus.