Tips for Leaving Your Problems at Home and Improving Productivity at Work
Guest Contributor: Paige A. Mitchell
In today’s society it is often difficult to separate our homelives from work, and vice versa. The ability to stay connected, both with work clients and friends and family, on a constant basis is blurring the lines between home and work productivity. There are many problems people may be facing at home, family obligations such as childcare or an aging or ailing family member that needs additional care, or even just the daily list of items that need to be addressed such as managing annual doctors appointments or scheduling regular home maintenance. If these items are constantly occupying your mindit will affect your work, so here are a few tips to help you leave your problems at home and improve your productivity at work.
Establish a morning routine
Being able to separate yourself from your home environment and jumping into work isn’t going to happen just because you walk into your office or sit down at your desk for the day. Have a set morning routine to help get your mind focused on work.
Whether it is leaving early and getting in some exercise prior to work, taking advantage of public transportation to check-in and catch up on emails for the day, or getting your first cup of coffee at the company coffee bar. Have a set routine that will help launch you into work mode.
Schedule check-ins
If you have a large stressor at home schedule specific check-in times during the day. Some of the examples listed above won’t stop because you are at work. But it is important to not let them take over your thoughts during the day if you want to increase your work productivity.
If you have a small child and are changing daycares schedule specific times you can call to check in on them. Have an ailing parent? Again, schedule specific check-in times or arrange for long-term care assistance to be there when you can't.
Re-work your to do list
Writing down a to do list every day is vital to staying on task. But try re-working your to-do list.Instead of writing down every small item you need to complete, try evaluating the top three most important items every day and write them down.
Focus more of your attention on these to help increase overall productivity. Having just three main things to focus on will also help you to cut off at the end of the day and leave work behind, getting you home to the items that need your focus.
Track where you waste time
If you are struggling with productivity you may want to throw your usual routine out the window and try new solutions hoping it will spur on changes. These new routines won’t help if you aren’t able to uncover the real problems affecting your productivity.
Try tracking your activities for a week. See where you are wasting time and getting stuck in ruts that affect your productivity. Track how many times you are distracted by problems at home and see how often your attention spent on those items really made a difference.
Forgive yourself
We are all human and we all have problems and stressors at home that will distract us from work. Accept that some days will be harder than others, and some days will be less productive than others. Don’t dwell on those days and instead focus on moving forward to help continue to leave problems at home when you head out the door to work every day.