How to Improve Productivity When Working From Home: 3 Hacks That Work

Around 9 million people have begun working from home since the beginning of the pandemic. Employers worldwide have found that employees are looking for a more flexible schedule, but one thing that suffers when employees work from home is their productivity.

If you’re working from home but want to improve productivity, you’ve come to the right place. Below are helpful hacks to ensure you make the most of your new schedule and prove to your employer why working from home is here to stay.

1. Designate a Workspace

One of the main issues when working from home is needing a designated space to work. This is useful, especially if you become easily distracted by your surroundings.

Before you begin improving your productivity when working from home, the first thing you should do is choose a space where you’re going to do your work. Ensure the space is quiet and offers lots of natural light for you to use throughout the work day.

If it helps, let those you work with know that you will need peace and quiet during work hours to ensure you’re able to complete your daily tasks promptly. Places like Workspace Solutions can ensure that you select the right furniture and create a space that will set you up for success.

2. Reduce the Time You Spend on Social Media

There is nothing wrong with using social media when you’re taking a brain break, but it shouldn’t conflict with your working time. If you’re losing a lot of time by scrolling on social media, we recommend not logging into your accounts on your desktop.

This will reduce the temptation to scroll on social media because you’ve got to do more than change tabs. It also helps if you turn off any social media notifications that appear on your desktop until you’re done with the workday.

3. Create a Routine

When you’re looking for answers on how to be more productive, the next best thing to do is to create a routine. Even though you’re not going to the office, you can still get ready for your work.

Wake up each morning and ensure you eat a well-balanced breakfast, and get dressed before your shift is set to begin. This will help you get in the mindset of doing work and increase your overall workplace productivity.

Along with creating a routine, you should have a schedule that you follow. Think of this schedule as a checklist that helps you to finish work tasks on time.

Ways to Improve Productivity

Several ways to improve productivity in the workplace include creating a routine and searching for the right workplace furniture. Speaking of creating a space that helps you to focus on and get your work done, there’s only one place to go.

Contact Workplace Solutions and let us help you design a space that makes sense for the work you do.

Work From Home Hacks: 5 Ways to Be Productive While Working From Home

Working from home is becoming the new norm across America. There are 4.3 million people working from home at least half the time. As working remotely becomes widespread, it’s essential to know how to create a productive workspace.

Yes, working from home has its distractions. But there are ways you can avoid procrastination and stay focused during the workday.

We’ve listed five of the top work from home hacks guaranteed to boost your productivity. 

1. Don’t Work From Your Bedroom

Your bed may be the most comfortable spot in your home, but it’s not the most productive. The bedroom is meant to be relaxing. It’s a place for rest, so keep it that way.

If you continuously work from bed, your mind will associate your room with stress. If your brain thinks getting into bed equals working, you’ll find it more difficult to fall asleep.

Keep your bedroom as a sleep-inducing environment. Don’t bring computers, TVs, and other work materials into your room to keep a strong mental association between your bedroom and sleep.

2. Follow a Morning Routine

How you prepare for your day plays a significant role in productivity. Setting a morning ritual allows you to get into the right mindset for work. 

Do what you need to feel motivated and focused. Some tips for a work-from-home morning routine include:

  • Getting dressed (nothing fancy, but get out of your PJs!)
  • Brewing a morning cup of coffee
  • Eating a wholesome breakfast
  • Creating before work
  • Exercising or meditating before work

Maintaining a structured routine during the workweek can help you feel awake, alert, and productive.

3. Move Around

Don’t forget to get up during the workday. It’s easy to get absorbed in your work. But while you may feel like you’re being productive, overworking leads to burnout and errors.

Movement breaks improve your physical and mental wellbeing. Constant sitting raises your risk of depression, obesity, and heart disease. Breaks also prevent decision fatigue, which hinders a person’s ability to make choices and leads to procrastination. Small breaks during the day restore motivation, productivity, and creativity.

Set an alarm to stand or take walks during the day. Working from home means there are plenty of places to stroll around. Take a 10-minute walk around your yard, the neighborhood, or down the block.

4. Create a Productive Space

Working from home can be difficult because of all of the distractions. It’s fine to turn on Netflix during your lunch break, but keep the outside noise to a minimum during work hours. 

To keep yourself focused, create a productive workspace at home. Invest in an office desk. Make sure the area is well-lit and closed off from the rest of your home. Decluttering reduces your chance of getting distracted.

Make your home office more productive by decorating the area. Scented candles like rosemary, lemon, mint, and cinnamon improve focus. A few plants in your home office can increase productivity by 15%.

5. Always Log Off

Working from home does not mean working around the clock. Your work may be home with you, but you must continue to maintain a healthy work-life balance.

Set an alarm to remind you when the workday is finished. It’s easy to get wrapped up in your work and continue through the night. But overworking leads to fatigue, errors, and lowered productivity.

Log off and stay away from your work until it’s time to begin again. Don’t get into a habit of answering emails or jumping onto your computer after-hours. Give your brain time to relax and reset so you can be productive the next day.

Discover More Work From Home Hacks

With more people working from home than ever before, it’s essential to know how to set yourself up for success. From knowing where to work to create a productive space, there are different ways to stay focused when working from your house.

Follow our blog for more productivity tips so you can be an efficient remote worker. 

6 Helpful Tips for Working Remotely: How to Stay Focused When You’re Working From Home

More Americans are working from home each day. As technology advances, more workers can perform from the comforts of home. This is especially true as the coronavirus wreaks havoc worldwide.

In fact, over 8 million Americans are telecommuting. This accounts for over 5% of the U.S. workforce. This trend comes as no surprise given the many benefits of working remotely. Employees save time and money on their commute, while businesses can reduce overhead expenses.

One of the biggest challenges of working from home is staying focused. Read on for 7 helpful tips for working remotely. Explore pointers that will help you maximize productivity while teleworking.

1. Establish a Dedicated Workspace

Many people envision teleworkers on the couch with their laptop. This is an easy way to become distracted. Instead, you should establish a dedicated office space away from distractions. For some, this is a separate room that serves as an office. It has a traditional office desk with equipment like a printer and filing cabinet.

Some may not have the square footage for an office room. However, you can still clear a space that is strictly for your job.

2. Shut Out the Distractions

In order to stay focused, you need to eliminate any distractions. While it may not be possible to completely shut yourself away, especially if you have children at home, giving them a craft or something to focus on will allow you to get some work done. 

In addition, you should turn off the television. The TV is sure to catch your attention and distract you from work.

3. Silence Your Cell Phone

Your cell phone is another potential distraction. Many Americans use their cell phone during work hours to take personal calls or check social media.

This activity is an absolute impediment to productivity. You can resist the urge to use your cell phone by silencing or turning it off altogether.

4. Use Headphones

One important tip for focusing is putting on headphones. This way, you can block out noises from the outside world.

It may come as a surprise, but many Americans are productive while listening to music. Studies show that music can actually sharpen your focus during work.

5. Take a Workout Break

Sitting at your desk for an 8-hour day is physically and mentally draining. If your work schedule allows for it, try to fit in a workout in during your lunch break.

This is a great way to break up your day. You will return to work in the afternoon with fresh energy.

6. Get Dressed

Some envision teleworkers checking e-mail in their pajamas. However, this is a mistake in terms of focus and productivity.

Getting dressed in the morning gives you a sense of purpose. It removes any stigma of laziness and injects fresh energy into your day.

Tips for Working Remotely – A Recap

You can work more productively at home than in the office. You will not be distracted by chatty coworkers and save time on the commute.

Tips such as establishing a dedicated workspace and silencing your cell phone goes a long way. If you enjoyed this article about tips for working remotely, check out our blog for more great content.

5 Office Design and Furniture Trends for 2016

office furniture and design trends 2016

Today’s workplaces need to do more making it mandatory that office furniture and space design continues to evolve. Big influences on both are the ways we communicate, the ways we work, and the role that technology plays in both of these. There’s also a demand for more “lifestyle” feel to offices and a continued emphasis on an office space being “green”. With that in mind, here are 5 of the top office design trends on our radar:

collaboration furniture

  1. Encouraging collaboration
    The move away from traditional individual offices toward open spaces continues. The best use of the open spaces is to have furnishings that can be converted to serve multiple purposes and inspire different types of collaboration.office cubicles and workstations
  2. Respecting privacy
    While an open, collaborative work environment can encourage teamwork and creativity, sometimes privacy is needed. Office furniture designers are coming up with creative ways to make furnishings and accessories easily transform to create more private workspaces when needed.office furniture
  3. “Lifestyle” enhancements
    Amenities like outdoor spaces or in-office coffee lounges are on the rise. The goal is to make the workspace an enjoyable place to spend time and to encourage cross-team conversations and collaboration. Many manufacturers are making outdoor furnishings and lounge-type seating that are laptop-friendly to encourage workers to sit and stay awhile.office technology
  4. Technology
    A well-functioning office must have the infrastructure to support the bandwidth and telecommunication needs of the staff. Effective office design also calls for well-planned access points and a layout to support future technology needs. Desks and work areas are being designed to make it ever easier for workers to “plug in” (and just easily “unplug” and work from somewhere else).environmentally friendly office furniture
  5. Environmentally-friendly
    Energy efficiency and sustainability are expected features for many office spaces. Office furniture companies like Allsteel, Global, and Gunlocke have an environmental commitment to sustainable business practices including the production of furniture that is longer lasting with an efficient use of resources. Some companies and organizations go even further and promote their earth-friendliness to define their identity and attract talent. They make sure that not only are their spaces and furnishings constructed in earth-friendly ways (such as LEED certified construction), they also offer perks such as bike storage or public transportation vouchers for their employees.

The emphasis for office furnishings and space design in 2016 is flexibility and responsiveness to each workspace’s particular needs. Want to bring your office into the modern age? Visit the Workspace Solutions showroom and speak to our seasoned furniture and design professionals — we help our clients work smarter!

Press Release: Announcing New Fort Wayne Office Furniture Location

For Immediate Release:

Local Office Furniture Sales and Design Company Announces New Fort Wayne Location

Workspace Solutions moves to improve efficiency and better serve growing client base.

Workspace Solutions Office Furniture Store Fort Wayne

Brent Stoller & Mike Hunter in front of the new Workspace Solutions Office Furniture campus in Fort Wayne. New location opens mid-September 2014.

Workspace Solutions of Fort Wayne, IN announces its plans to relocate and consolidate from its current two Fort Wayne office furniture locations into one facility at 2200 Production Road. The former Vera Bradley Headquarters building will contain all of Workspace Solutions warehouse and showroom facilities now located at 919 Coliseum Boulevard North and at 256 W Main Street in Downtown Fort Wayne.

The family owned business, currently owned by Brent Stoller, president and Mike Hunter, vice president, began operations in 1978 at the current Coliseum Boulevard location as Eastland Sales, offering used office furniture and equipment. In 1996, the name was changed to Workspace Solutions to better reflect the store’s evolution to offering full service office planning and design, and to selling new product from the top manufacturers of office furniture, such as AllSteel, Hon, National and others.

“We’re excited to get all of our Fort Wayne staff back into one facility,” says Stoller. “We’ve loved being downtown since our purchase of Business Furniture Outlet in 2006, but the 2 locations have created certain communication and logistical challenges.”

Workspace Solutions is one of the few office furniture stores in our area to offer a public showroom for both their new and used office furniture. “We’ll continue that tradition in our new location,” says Stoller, “We’ll showcase our furniture in groupings where you can see how it all would fit together and look in your office, conference room, or lobby. And, all of that in a beautiful professional building that much better reflects the business we are today.”

Another important consideration for Workspace Solutions in this move will be quick access to I-69 & US30. According to Hunter, “We have crews on the road every day, and being closer to the interstate will allow us to become more efficient and to better serve our clients.” Workspace Solutions uses its own trained installation team and own fleet of delivery trucks. They have designed and installed offices as far away as New York City, Los Angeles, and even Hawaii, but their focus continues to be Northeast Indiana, including the Indianapolis, Warsaw, and South Bend areas where the company has satellite sales offices.

All 16 Fort Wayne area employees will move into the new facility, and no jobs will be eliminated according to Stoller. In fact, we already have plans to add more staff as our business has returned to pre-recession levels, and is growing past that to the next level.

“Our primary business plan has always been to exceed our customers’ expectations, and to fashion our business to best be situated to accomplish that. We needed a better, centralized location to do that, and that’s why we’re taking on this project,” Stoller said. “It’s a big project, but a major office move is the type of thing we often perform for our clients.”

Both the current Workspace Solutions locations will remain open until the move is accomplished, and all inventory is sold or moved. A giant “Moving Sale” is anticipated in each current facility. The move to the new facility is schedule for late September, 2014

About Workspace Solutions

Workspace Solutions is a Fort Wayne family-owned business providing office furniture sales and installation, as well as office layout & design with satellite sales offices in Indianapolis, Warsaw, and South Bend.

Contact:
Brent Stoller
bstoller@workspacesolutions.com

Mike Hunter
mhunter@workspacesolutions.com

Workspace Solutions
(260) 422-9537
www.workspacesolutions.com

 

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