Your Guide to a Productive Work-from-Home Environment

While working from home requires a slightly different approach to being in the office every day, rapid advancements in technology have made this increasingly easier. Now more than ever, it is important to have the tools to ensure an effective at-home work environment so your business can carry on with productivity in a secure, collaborative, and innovative way.

Whether you are new to working at home or a WFH veteran, here are a few tips to help you brighten your experience:

Share Goals and Connect Daily

Collaboration is equally as important inside the office as it is outside it! While it can be challenging to connect with your team when you are not physically with them, remember that working from home means physical distance only. Work closely alongside your team and keep all communication channels open. What does this look like in practice? It means reaching out to your colleagues — whether it is through regular instant messaging, weekly or daily one-on-one chats, or video calls. Take a few minutes out of a meeting to check in, keep updated on tasks, and see how your team is doing.

Employ Boundaries

Show Company Spirit

It is still possible for teams to work remotely and maintain a positive, unified culture. A great company culture is not about location, it is simply about caring for the people you work with and helping them grow and exceed. As long as you stay proactive and communicative, you can do this from anywhere.

Translate in-office social activities to an online environment with virtual happy hours, celebration of the team’s accomplishments, lighthearted conversations, or daily laughter. These strategies add fun and inspire normalcy and comradery, going a long way in creating a “we’re in this together” mentality that makes adjusting to changes a little easier.

Establish a Quiet, Dedicated Workspace

Moving to remote work and being away from your desk does not mean productivity should decrease! When you’re fielding calls from customers or trying to collect on unpaid accounts, multi-tasking or distractions can create a problem. It can be easy to fall into the trap of thinking that working from home means working from your couch. Instead, if you have a free room to set up a desk and chair, that’s a great place to start. If you don’t have that type of extra space, get creative! Create a dedicated workspace that separates work from the areas of your home where you relax.

Create a Self-Care Ritual

When you work from home, know your morning and daily habits are likely to change. Paying attention to the self-care aspect of your day is as critical to your mental health as it is to your physical well-being.

Start by creating a morning ritual to help you wake up and get ready to tackle the day. Take a shower and get dressed, and set a time to be at your workstation. As tempting as it may be to stay in your pajamas, it could slow your transition into a constructive day. Ensure that you also take time every day to eat lunch, move around when you can, or maybe exercise or walk the dog! It’s great to get a lot done every day, but it’s also important to take care of you!

Identify Your Working Hours

If you are new to the working from home environment, knowing your working hours is important! Just because you’re working from home, doesn’t mean you should make your own hours, especially in collections. Try to create a schedule for your day that sticks as closely to your company’s hours as possible, and pay attention to it!

Over the past several weeks and for the weeks upcoming, we will all continue to learn innovative and creative ways to manage working from home.

When navigating a remote landscape, we learn when to work, where to work, and how to balance work life with personal life. Billfire is here with the tools and resources to support you and your business.