Our Guide to Time Management
While our staff has been working from home, we have become familiar with adjusting our schedules for maximum efficiency. But there are various challenges that come from working at home as well. It’s harder to remain accountable for your own schedule if you aren’t accustomed to self-management. Here are our tips for managing your time effectively, and getting the most out of your workday.
Create your dream environment:
Working from home means getting to set up your workspace to your own preferences. Like to work in well lit rooms under giant piles of blankets? What about working at your kitchen table with a bowl of fresh grapes or salty chips? Working from home means you work your way. So determine what environment makes you happiest, calmest, and more productive, then make it happen.
For more tips on how to work effectively from home, visit our blog at
How to Efficiently Work From Home
Keep a To-Do list
Keeping a detailed list of tasks that you need to complete is an excellent way to manage your time. It’s helpful to keep a checklist and cross tasks off as you complete them to remain on schedule.
Set time limits
When planning out your schedule, its best to look at the tasks you need to complete and determine how much time you should ideally spend on each task. Some may take longer or shorter amounts of time than you anticipate, but by pre-planning your schedule, you will be able to accomplish more tasks.
Stay Motivated
This list from Mind Tools has wonderful resources on how to stay motivated during the workday.
- Motivate yourself. Self-motivation techniques can help you to boost your confidence, think positively, and set clear goals.
- Minimize distractions. Which distractions tend to affect you most? Maybe you get caught up doing household chores or suffer interruptions from family or friends. Beating these distractions could be as simple as shutting the door!
- Reward yourself. Find ways to make each task more enjoyable and rewarding in itself, as well as giving yourself “treats” when they’re done. For example, allow yourself your favorite specialty coffee for completing a task successfully.
- Control your social media. Think carefully about which notifications to keep on, and which to mute until later. Allocate time slots for checking your phone. And, if you’re still struggling, see if tools like Freedom® or Cold Turkey Writer™ help you to control your time online.
Use apps
Apps are a great way to manage your time, by keeping track of productivity with graphs and visual aids.
Focus Keeper- Time Management
“It’s all about focusing your work efforts in timed 25- minute chunks, with a 5- minute break in between each burst of activity.”
Calendars- Stay Organized
“Calendars allows you to manage events both online and offline. Thanks to the unique interface you can move events simply with Drag & Drop, navigate quickly between dates, change event time and reminders rapidly with custom keyboards.”
Productivity- Daily Tasks
“It includes a comprehensive set of effective tools that will boost your productivity and motivation, and help you accomplish your most meaningful goals and desires.”
