How to structure your day if you work from home

Working from home used to have a bad reputation. People assumed you’d be dressed in your PJs sat on your couch watching Jeremy Kyle whilst replying to the odd email, but it’s become increasingly common across a wide variety of industries and it can be a very productive use of time. 

I’ve been a fan of Working From Home (WFH) for a while now. My daily commute can hit 4 hours, and to be able to reclaim that time really boosts my work/life balance. But it does take a bit of getting used to. 

So to help you get into a good routine, here’s a structure you can follow. 

Before Work: 

As tempting as it is, if you start the day with a lie in you’ll just find it harder to get started when 9am ticks round. Set your alarm and give yourself a pre-work task to do – like doing the laundry, popping to the shops for supplies or getting your daily exercise quota out the way! If you have a long commute you’ll be surprised at home much you can get done before you even start your actual day job 

Get dressed. I can’t stress this enough. Even if you don’t think you need to be on video, act as if you will be. Getting dressed is part of a routine that switches our brain into alert mode. It also means at the end of the day when your PJs go back on you’re more likely to sleep better. If nothing else it saves you being ‘that person’ in a penguin onesie in an unintentionally video-enabled call (thanks to my friend’s boss for accidentally providing that real life example) 

Start Work: 

Start work on time. Get your laptop out ready a few minutes early and get what you need as if you were in the office. Set up your desk for the long haul. This means a supporting chair and your laptop screen as close to eye level as you can make it. If you haven’t got an actual desk and are needing to re-purpose your kitchen table clear a designated work area and consider investing in a riser or stand if you’re WFH a lot. Ikea have some good affordable solutions to test out. 

Plan your day according to priorities. Imagine the day is over – what do you absolutely need to make sure you have done? Start with these tasks and either get cracking right away or look through the day to find a suitable gap. If you don’t have time to do it all – now is the time to say 

Block your day into chunks of time. Aiming for a 90 minute continuous flow of like-minded tasks then a 15 minute break or gap for checking emails. This is a technique proved by Gregory Ciotti and it works. Without interruptions from people IRL you’ll either find you can get more done or that you are constantly on chat/calls! If you’re the latter add time for interactions into your time blocks and stick to them.  

Having breaks: 

There are 2 dangers when you WFH. Having too many breaks and having too little. You’re at home and you can hear the washing machine has finished, the pets are demanding your attention, you really need to call up your insurance company and get that better deal… all of these things take just a moment but interrupt our flow. Plan these things into your day too. Controversial maybe, but I think most employers would acknowledge the need for a screen break and if you have a bit of time away from your desk at an appropriate junction, you’ll find it much easier to get back to focused work afterwards. You have lost out on the general chit chat that happens in an office. Yes you can be on calls, but in a dedicated conversation you don’t pick up on the little things so give yourself some time where you get your head away from work for a moment. And when it’s time for lunch or to finish up for the day don’t be tempted to put in a heap of extra time just because “I’m at home anyway”. Be focused on your outputs and put in the time where you need - but don’t view being at home so much a luxury that it means you don’t actually get back to the life part of work/life balance 

Snacking. Oh the snacks. The 2nd breakfast snacks, the morning snacks, the after lunch snack and the “it’s not quite 3pm” snacks…. Being at home means you have access to all the food. And what’s more its food you’ve chosen to buy so you like it all. Will power alone won’t stop the snacking so plan it out. Decide early in the day what snacks you will have and when you will have them. Seeing them all together will force you to limit yourself (because who isn’t horrified by 2 bags of Walkers, a Hotel Chocolat slab and mini Battenberg?). If you go over your allowance…. Well you’re at home so I suggest you finish work by getting your trackpants on and being prepared to sweat it out in an online fitness class! 

After work: 

Pack your work life away (or close the door if you have an office), get some fresh air and start to move into evening mode. Get changed into something more relaxed if you fancy, or reclaim the commute time with a home-cooked meal or by catching up with family and friends. Treat yourself to something you wouldn’t ordinarily have time for.  

WFH takes some getting used to, but there’s a reason it’s so popular and that’s because it works for both employers and employees. Focused time to work on tasks makes for a productive workforce who make smarter decisions. Think of your own reasons for why you can benefit from being at home more and weave them into a better Work/Life balance that benefits both you and your employer.