How to effectively work from home

It’s an odd time at the moment thanks to the havoc caused by the virus COVID-19. The past week has seen an unprecedented number of workers being told to work from home.

The Traverse team also are working from home for the foreseeable future, which got me thinking… who better to ask for advice and tips on working from home and remote working than the Traverse community, made up of bloggers, creators and freelancers!

We reached out on our Facebook group to ask for our community’s recommendations on how to most effectively work from home and this is what they said:

Header image by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

Create a home office

My top tip is to create a separate space for you to work from if possible – it’s important to have a mental boundary between your workspace and your chill space. – Julianna, The Discoveries Of 

Get dressed, shower and set up your office somewhere in the house! – Sophie, Sophie’s Suitcase 

It’s really important to make sure your work setup is right. In offices they spend a lot of money on desks and chairs and HSE assessments but when you work from home it’s too easy to end up slouched on the sofa or hunched over your laptop in bed. If you can, get a proper desk and chair with proper back support. Obviously not everyone can do this through, so if you can’t the main thing to avoid long term back, neck and wrist damage is to change your position regularly – rotate between the sofa, the dining table, wherever – and take frequent breaks. – Bella, Passport & Pixels

Maintain your routine

Have a good morning routine & start every day with a clear mind – not touching anything digital until you start your working day will help massively with this. Write a list of priorities for each day & stick with them, use tools such as Trello to plan out projects & tasks. – Kelly, Destination Addict

Get dressed… I never sit down at my home desk wearing my pyjamas. It’s easy not to bother about to way you look if you are self-isolating as nobody sees you, but from my experience, the productivity will be affected if you don’t treat your work the same way as you would usually do at the office. And you wouldn’t go to work wearing pyjamas. – Joanna, The World in My Pocket

Before I go to bed I make sure I have an up to date “to-do” list for the next day. That way I hit the desk ready and don’t waste valuable morning productive time planning! – Heidi, Kitchen Talk and Travels

Wake up at the same time every day, have a routine for daily work tasks, and make a list of everything you accomplished at the end of each day. It will help you hold yourself accountable for getting things done and motivate you to continue working through any distractions. – Julie, A Lady in London

When you find it hard to get up in the morning, because you have no boss/team waiting on you, schedule phone calls early in the morning, so you have to be ready for them! I also sometimes schedule an almost-finished blog post at 9 AM or something like that, so I have to get up before that to make sure it doesn’t publish unfinished! – Nienke, Travel Tester 

Take care of yourself, both physically and mentally 

Keep moving. Exercise from home (there’s plenty of YouTube videos or apps). Meditation with Headspace app is good to help with anyone feeling anxiety. Darren, Darren Meredith

I would say (especially in the situation we are) keep social media time to a minimum! Also to increase productivity, stay active, exercise from home if needed and take breaks. It’s exciting to think you’ll have more time to work as you’re saving time on commute etc but a burndown is more likely to happen if so! 😄Lavinia, Continent Hop 

Try to keep a healthy diet. We know first hand how easy it is to nosedive in junk food but it’s important not to skip fresh vegetables and fruit when working from home. A healthy body is the path to a healthy and, most of all, productive mind. Maria, Its All A trip To Me

Establish boundaries and reward yourself wisely… 

Establish work and personal life boundaries from the offset. Have specific work hours and stick to them. When your work day is over, shut your laptop and close your virtual office to ensure a healthy life balance. Sima, The Curious Pixie

Do NOT reward yourself with TV mid-day. This will lead to you watching more and more and getting out of the work zone! Keep rewards to something less addicting. Kate, Adventurous Kate

Find a good playlist or ASMR video to listen with headphones in if you really want to focus. I usually go between my chill Korean playlist on Spotify or a 2+ no talking ASMR video in YouTube when I need to focus. – Samantha, There She Goes Again