Stay Organized: Your Quick Guide to Working From Home

If you are already running a business, it is all the more obvious on how we need people to effectively run and grow businesses.

It's all the more important now to understand how we leverage all the resources in our hands and work efficiently with the new work from home regime.

Although, it wasn't an easy start for me to work from home, while continuing the new normal, I have compiled a list of few items that will has helped me through the first few weeks and may even help you as well.

1. Fix your routine: I am a early morning person and start my day early on. I do take in some coffee, review the emails that came in overnight, and watch some quick the news.
2. Stick to your work start time: If you normally leave the house by say 8 am, so now that there is zero commute time, you can start with your home office and begin your day at 8:30 AM.
3. Stay Connected: During the workday, stay in contact regularly with your co-workers. Since this is shaping up to be the ‘new normal,’ in order to be effective in your job you will need to collaborate with others. Be it via a phone call, email, or a chat session with team members.
4. Keep your Focus: Being at home has its distractions, regardless of the distraction, it is important to focus on your work desk. What have been working for me is compiling a daily list of ‘need to do’ items. Although work-related distractions will inevitably happen, you will at least have your daily short list of items to bring you back to the tasks at hand.
5. Keep a fixed work space: Ideally, remote employees would have a dedicated office and even two computers, one for work and other for personal use. But not everyone has this flexibility. Instead, fix a desk and some peripherals only for work use.
6. Schedule Breaks: Know your work policy and routine on break timings and take them. If you're self-employed, give yourself some time to walk away from the computer screen and phone. A lunch hour and one or two 10-minute breaks seems to work well.
7. Show up to meetings: You'll definitely be part of atleast one of those video conferences and conference calls, but it's always a good idea to sometimes attend optional meetings too. Always make sure that you are heard of when at meetings a simple "Thank you" during the close of a meeting will go a long way toward making your presence known.
8. Know when to end: While working from home you can always have the tendency of working a little longer and get more done. That is a perk right? But don’t over do it. By that, I mean if you noticed the time crosses your work time, you may want to cut back a bit. Ideally can set an alarm and stick to the schedule.

Hopefully these tips will help you get through these challenging times. In the meantime, stay safe and get to work!!

CEO Simmtronics. Sharing my insights and journey as I worked along the growth of a leading manufacturer of motherboards, tablets and more.