This article was written by Mitchell Terpstra, a member of the Entrepreneur NEXT powered by Assemble content team. Entrepreneur NEXT is our Expert solutions division leading the future of work and skills-based economy. If you’re struggling to find, vet, and hire the right Experts for your business, Entrepreneur NEXT is a platform to help you hire the experts you need, exactly when you need them. From business to marketing, sales, design, finance, and technology, we have the top 3 percent of Experts ready to work for you.
Long before COVID-19 arrived, working from home (WFH) was an option for many, in theory at least, as long as their work could be reliably completed by phone or internet-connected device. The main preventative was trust: managers simply didn’t trust that employees would be as productive without the added accountability of watchful eyes and in-person check-ins.
Now that the great WFH experiment has been under way for six months, with more than 75 percent of office workers having tried working remotely at least one day a week, employers have a more accurate appraisal of just how well workers perform out of the office compared to in.
A recent survey of more than 1,700 small-business leaders is shedding light on how different industries are faring with the transition to a remote workforce. Not surprisingly, higher-paying, white-collar jobs in information and science sectors are reporting the least productivity losses or highest productivity gains. Meanwhile, industries that deal directly with physical resources, like transportation and warehousing, or offer face-to-face services like accommodation and food services, reported the greatest productivity losses.
Even if your job lends itself to a relatively smooth transition to working remotely, that doesn’t mean the WFH life isn’t without its own mix of unique challenges. Here are some of the biggest mental hurdles to being productive while working from home, and how to discipline yourself to overcome them. That exhaustion you feel after a day filled with video-conference meetings? It’s a real thing. Much like extended periods of reading or a long day of driving, video conferencing can sap large amounts of your energy, largely due to the constant strain on your eyes.
Brainwave research conducted by Microsoft shows that “overwork and stress are significantly higher in video meetings than in non-meeting work like writing emails.” Fatigue from trying to sustain concentration typically sets in around 30 to 40 minutes into a video meeting.
To combat this particular type of fatigue, consider turning off cameras if only audio is actually necessary—or, at least, turn off the self-view feature to reduce anxiety about your own self-presentation and the temptation to constantly check how you appear to others.
For team leaders, create a clear agenda for meetings so the first 20 minutes or so aren’t spent in directionless chitchat (although don’t forget that intentional socializing can be a good thing!), and build breaks into longer meetings so participants have a moment to recharge. Concentration tends to dip around the 45-minute mark.
The number one problem shared among entrepreneurs today is finding, vetting, hiring, and retaining expertise.
Distractions: Here, there and everywhere.
The modern workplace is largely designed to encourage focusing, facilitate collaboration, and eliminate distraction—your ad-hoc home office, not so much.
Sure, at the office, there's still water cooler talk all of the tempting websites and social media channels your internet-connected device can offer up. But when working from home, the temptation to distraction is compounded exponentially.
Why plow forward through your work tasks when you could knock out that tower of dirty dishes that’s been calling you from the sink? Check the mail? Walk the dog? Take a little break to stream whatever binge fest that work is currently interrupting? And this isn’t even to mention distractions related to who else might be sharing the household, like the kids trying to do their online learning.
You can minimize distractions and become more productive if you think intentionally about both your physical space and digital tools.
Set up a dedicated work zone in your home that’s reserved exclusively for work-related tasks. Declutter that space to minimize distractions. Psychologically, this can benefit you as well, as it can keep work-related stress from being associated with other areas of your home, like your dining table, couch, or bed.
Treat your distractions like carrots to motivate you. Since concentration tends to wane around the 45-minute mark, take a small break and reward yourself with something else you wanted to do briefly, like walking the dog. This can get your blood flowing and help you return to work feeling reinvigorated with a clear head.
Practice discipline digitally as well. Take a page out of your boss’s playbook and install site-blockers on your web browsers
