Physical and mental presence can at times be completely different things. It may so happen that you are sitting at your desk but your mind is roaming somewhere else.
It can be anything, you may be thinking about a home repair, your pending assignments, or something else.
Take another scenario: suppose you are eating at the kitchen table with your family but your mind is preoccupied with the proposal you need to finish. This is not healthy in the first place.
So, this makes the transition from work mode to personal mode all the more necessary.
While working from home, you need to make conscious efforts for these transitions as there won’t be any change of context cues.
So, here are some ways that will help you in such transitions without you getting distracted:
- Have a start work routine
Plan on a routine about how you start your day. As in, there must be a list of essential activities that you perform before settling to do your work.
The cue can be anything from washing your dishes, turning off the lights all around the house, getting a cup of coffee or something else.
Whatever works for you, try to do those activities, in the same way, each day. This will mentally prepare you to start your work.
- Make a plan
Jot down a plan for yourself so that you can increase your productivity and clarity for work as well as other things.
This includes knowing at what time your meetings are scheduled, deciding on your projects, and the set of tasks you intend to do. Also, you wish to have some plans for the evening hours.
Organizing everything according to a schedule will help you get a better hold on things without getting overwhelmed.
Most time people tend to make these plans are in the morning or before going to bed. You shall choose whatever suits you better and make a habit to follow it.
- Prioritize your communication
Naturally, your personal and professional communication can overlap during your work hours or after hours respectively.
But what you should try to do is prioritize your communication according to context. During the work hours, when you want to focus on the job, lessen the amount of personal communication.
One way to do that is you pick some fixed time during your work hours to attend to such calls or messages.
And similarly, during your after-hours do the opposite i.e. attend to work-related stuff only if it is of utmost necessity.
This will not only help you invest your time in the right manner but also help you keep your mental balance.
- Set a wrap-up routine
To ensure that you are free in the evening. You need to have a wrap-up routine that you start at least 30 minutes before you intend to end work.
This can be, doing a final check of all the critical emails, going through your task list to check in the essentials, or deciding something to do later that day. For instance, you may decide to review a proposal for half an hour starting from 8 pm.
This specificity is to prevent clouding of your thoughts without proper clarity. This will allow you to mentally disconnect until 8 pm and also feel free after the set objective and time are over.
In such uncertain times, things may often get difficult because you need to make intentional efforts to focus on something. But if you are willing to follow the above-mentioned tips then things just might get productive and clear.
