During this time it is recommended to limit as much as possible the contact with the external environment. We thought it would be useful to come up with some tips on how to organize your work from home more efficiently.
Also, we have prepared a list of different programs, tools, sites, which will definitely be useful to you!
How to be well organized when working from home
1. Establish a routine
Even if you do not have to go to the office, the work you do from home must be organized, so that there is no distraction due to the familiar environment at home. To have an easier accommodation, try to maintain the same working hours. Make sure you do not neglect your sleep schedule, this is extremely important.
Before you start working, establish a list of tasks, which you then prioritize. We suggest using a tool for organizing tasks, such as Todoist. You can find more recommendations in the list at the end of the article.
2. Choose a place to work from
The fact that you are not in the office brings a change in your daily routine, so it is ideal to have a space at home to work. It is not advisable to work from the couch or bed, as these are associated with rest spaces, and your productivity may decrease. Arrange a specific place for you to use only to work. This does not have to be boring!
Here are some ideas on some work-setups at home:
3. Log off social media
Sometimes we don’t realize how much time we actually spend on social media. Although logging off does not seem like the best solution at first glance, you will see that you will be less tempted to check your social media “just for 1 minute” when you will need to log in every time for this.
If you find it a little extreme, we recommend a tool for measuring the time you spend on the Internet: RescueTime.
4. Communicate often with your colleagues
One of the challenges of working from home is loneliness. You should not let this get in the way of your efficiency, which is why we recommend that you communicate with your colleagues as often as possible. They probably share your feelings too, so it’s good to keep a close connection.
In the list below you can see some useful tools that help you in communicating with your colleagues.
5. Allow some time for yourself
Try to obtain a balance between personal and professional life. When you work from home, the line between them is thinner, so you should remember to take breaks, eat healthy, rest, and be careful not to overdo it. Also, do not forget to enjoy the fruits of your work.
As we said, we have prepared for you a list of 20 essential tools when working from home:
Google Hangouts Meet – text and video communication;
This tool can be used to keep the team close, to communicate quickly and efficiently.
Toggl – tracking time spent on each task;
Forget about manually timing tasks. Toggl does this automatically.
Planable – collaboration for those who work in social media;
Do you work on social media? Planable is the perfect solution to work with colleagues even if you work remotely.
Dropbox – file sharing between team members, cloud storage;
Does your team need to exchange files constantly? With Dropbox, you have the opportunity for all your team members to share files in real-time.
Trello – organizing projects and activities;
Trello is a tool for organizing both work projects and activities, as well as personal ones. It is easy to use and it relies heavily on a visual organization.
Evernote – organizing notes, ideas, reminders, lists;
Evernote allows organizing in one place the information of a team. Thus, it offers much greater visibility to projects, workflows, and deadlines.
Timeclick – time tracking and reports based on worked time;
Timeclick reduces the stress related to electronic timekeeping and makes different reports based on the information entered.
TimeAndDate – timezone conversion;
Do you work with clients from several countries? TimeAndDate helps you know what time it is in any city.
Textmagic – sending text messages from an email address;
Textmagic helps to improve communication with customers and online marketing by offering a service for sending and receiving text messages online.
Aloe Bud – self-care reminders;
It is very important that when you work from home you do not forget to take care of yourself. The application allows the setting of friendly reminders for different actions, such as water reminders, exercise, breaks, etc.
Buffer – management of social media posts;
Buffer allows connecting multiple social media platforms and managing posts for them from a single dashboard.
1Password – password management;
Do you have trouble memorizing passwords? 1Password is the solution.
i done this – organizing a team, managing their activities;
i done this helps to manage the activities of a team. Each member can complete their activities, receive reports, and the others are always informed about the status of the projects.
Stripo – building email templates;
With the help of Stripo, you can build and send mass emails. With a user-friendly design, Stripo is easy to use even by people who have no programming knowledge.
Grammarly – English text verification;
Grammarly is a very effective tool for those who want to check not only spelling but also other aspects, such as punctuation, word order, the meaning of sentences.
Kapwing – adding subtitles to videos;
Kapwing is a tool that allows you to add captions to videos online. There is also the function of automatically generating English subtitles, and these are quite accurate.
Hypersay – live presentations;
Hypersay allows having presentations, the share of slides, feedback sessions, translations and live subtitles, test sessions based on presentations, etc.
Bensound – royalty-free music;
Do you need background music for a video or slideshow? Bensound offers a large collection of royalty-free songs.
Anchor – creating podcasts;
If you want to do a podcast, Anchor is a user-friendly solution.
QR9 – QR code generation;
Do you need a QR code? Fill in the information you want to provide, and QR9 will generate a QR code based on it.