How to work from home: Useful tips

Due to the current coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, most of us are working from home, which comes with many new challenges that we have to deal with. We have compiled some useful tips to help you work as efficiently as possible from your home office while maintaining a good work-life balance.

Proper office space 

If it’s possible to set up a separate office in your house or flat, do so. It doesn’t need to be an actual room with closed doors, but you should be able to work there in peace and quiet whenever necessary. At the same time, you should also feel comfortable and design your workstation in a way that it’s economically sound – proper desk chair and lighting, adjusted monitor height etc. This will prevent you from crouching and squinting and getting a backache quicker than you can say “COVID-19”.

Technical requirements

Technical requirements – absolute must-haves if you want to be able to work efficiently from home – are: a laptop or desktop computer, an additional screen, a printer and a headset as well as proper internet connection and the right software (communication tools).

Keep your personal and professional life separate

If you have a company laptop, use it when you work from home. Only switch your personal laptop or desktop computer on in your free time. This will help you to properly separate your professional and private life.

Get yourself an electronic signature 

Just like everyone else, employees who work remotely need to draw up, edit and save documents such as requests, orders or contracts. Since these documents are only legally valid after they have been signed, a software that enables you to digitally sign documents is essential when you work from home.

Wear your work outfits at home

Even if you don’t see the point of wearing your work outfit when you’re not even in the office, it’ll probably get you into the right mood and keep you motivated throughout the day.

Stay focused

Gadgets such as smartphones, communication and instant messaging tools like Outlook, Microsoft Teams, WhatsApp or Slack are going to be your constant companions, but they should be switched off or at least ignored while you’re concentrating on a task.

Structure your day 

It helps to clearly define when you want to work – ideally at a time of day when you are going to be most productive – and to really stick to your schedule. Also make sure to structure your tasks to get into a routine.

No one needs to be constantly available, which makes it ever so important to clearly define and communicate when you’re “at work”. Make sure you also officially call it a day – and then really stop checking your mails and answering work calls.

Write to-do-lists

To-do lists are going to help you to be more productive; tasks can be divided into “high priority tasks” (with a deadline) and “low priority tasks” (without a deadline).

A break is a break

Even if you’re working from home, you’re still entitled to regular breaks – ideally after an hour’s hard work. Likewise, your lunch break should be a lunch break and not an attempt to try and cram in as much housework as is humanly possible.

Centralised storage space

When you’re working remotely it’s essential you can quickly and easily access any kind of information as well as organise and save everything in a centralised storage space. Quick access to relevant folders or documents is an important step in making working from home as efficient as possible.

Keep in touch with other people

Make sure to keep in touch with customers and colleagues, ideally face-to-face. This is especially simple with video chat or messenger apps. You could also share your office hours with colleagues, so everyone knows when they can reach you.

Save your work in the cloud

Cloud storage services such as Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive can save you from losing all your documents (ranging from “finished-long-ago” to “why-on-earth-do-I-always forget-to-click-save”) due to power cuts, for example. Apart from being life savers, these services also make it really easy to share documents with colleagues and customers, be it lists, presentations or spreadsheets.

You work in the real estate industry and your employees work from home? You’ve always wanted to get additional support, like real estate management software?

You are interested in digitising tasks and the communication between your customer service  team and your customers by using a tenant management system? Then contact us today for more information at contact@idwell.com. Our cloud-based software is available 24/7 and on the go.