Many employees are finding it difficult to work from home amid the coronavirus outbreak. With millions of people working remotely for the first time, many are finding it difficult to manage a workday that now includes distractions such as child care, domestic tasks, and in-home entertainment alternatives such as TV and radio.
According to a new Glassdoor survey, nearly 1,000 American employees were asked about their top concerns when working from home between March 11 and March 13, 2020. Roughly 32 percent of employees say watching TV is a major distraction when working remotely, followed by 27 percent who say child care is a major distraction.
“I believe that everyone who works from home is under a lot of stress,” organizing and productivity expert Julie Morgenstern tells CNBC Make It. ”[It is easy] to become engrossed in the news, to panic, to worry about elderly relatives, or to worry about yourself, thinking, ‘Do I have a scratchy throat?’ There are so many emotional issues.”
Morgenstern and productivity expert Laura Vanderkam offer advice on how morning routines, effective time management, and child-care schedules can help you maximize your workday at home to help you stay focused despite the constant distractions.
Implement a self-care morning routine
When working outside the home, it is simpler to stick to a schedule that involves getting up, leaving the house, and arriving at work at the same time every day. Morgenstern explains, “That framework definitely kept you focused.” “It kept you energetic and moving,” she says, which is why she feels that having a morning ritual, even if you work from home, is important for productivity.
“You should take the first hour or two, depending on what time you get up every morning, for self-care,” she says. She explains that the time you would typically use to commute to work every day can now be used to exercise, journal, meditate or listen to music. Morgenstern recommends devoting 15 to 20 minutes of the morning to some form of self-care practice if an hour is not possible. According to research, having time for self-care is essential for dealing with stressful situations.
One study found that taking the time out for physical fitness can help to improve your brain function, including your memory and problem-solving skills, which help you to stay focused throughout the day.
“I highly recommend everybody starts their day with an at-home exercise,” adds Morgenstern. “We’re not getting out of the house, right? So you’ve got to get your blood pumping and this is a form of self-care.”
2. Avoid TV and household chores during the workday
When working from home, it’s easy to get distracted by the TV in the background and domestic duties like washing and dirty dishes. Though it may be tempting to get a head start on some of these duties during the workday, Morgenstern believes that switching gears from one area of your life to another may be a tremendous productivity killer. While many people believe they can multitask effectively by watching TV while working or folding laundry while taking a conference call, research from the University of Southern California shows that multitasking actually reduces productivity because it takes your brain extra time to switch mental gears between tasks.
“Keep the boundaries,” says Morgenstern. “You should do your work during your workday and only stop for self-care. That’s it. Do not do household chores.”
Self-care, she explains, includes activities like eating lunch, checking in with your family, or taking a small break to walk around your neighborhood for fresh air.
3. Effectively manage how you respond to emails and messages
Because face-to-face engagement is not an option when working from home, extensive contact with your coworkers is essential. This implies that for many employees, hundreds of emails and Slack messages frequently interrupt their workday.“One thing you should know is that there is a distinction between being sensitive and being immediately responsive,” Vanderkam explains. “You can check messages often while yet having some time that is message-free.”
4. Create a schedule for your kids
With millions of parents juggling the responsibilities of work and child care at home, Morgenstern and Vanderkam believe that creating a routine for your children is critical to having a good workday. “If your children are of school age, they can be mostly self-directed for at least part of the day,” says Vanderkam, who lets her children perform online schoolwork between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m.She explains that as a mother of five children ranging in age from baby to 12-year-old, adhering to this morning plan has been critical to getting a lot of work done early in the day without interruptions. Vanderkam says she occasionally introduces “safe screen time” for her older children after lunch to keep them engaged with their gadgets while she focuses on ending the workday.
For parents with younger kids who don’t have school work, Morgenstern suggests planning ahead of time the activities you want to put in place for your children, as well as carving out a set time each day for when you want them to eat lunch and take a nap. This way, she says you will be able to better organize your own focus time for work. If you work from home with your spouse, Vanderkam suggests adopting a rotating schedule to help organize your day, especially if you have a toddler or baby. This might entail one person rushing through their job needs in the morning while the other person cares for the children.
Then, once the afternoon comes, Vanderkam says you can switch roles so that each person can dedicate a certain amount of hours solely to their work.
Morgenstern, who was a single mom and now has adult children, says being organized is important for any working parent who is trying to balance the demands of child care alone. “Make a list of every potential distraction,” she says. “Then proactively figure out what you can do to diminish, eliminate or minimize the chance of that distraction happening.”“It doesn’t have to be flawless. That is something I want to emphasize,” adds Morgenstern, who has previously worked with Amazon and The Oprah Winfrey Show staffers to help them plan their workdays. “Even a sloppy timetable offers you a sense of what you’re going to accomplish ahead of time,” she explains. “Because ′′if [you] make things up as you go along, [you] will waste half of the day wondering, ‘What do I do now?’”
