Hi everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful long holiday weekend! I can’t believe it’s already almost Friday already. Mine was amazing. Two of my girlfriends were in town from LA, and we were able to hang out poolside to celebrate Memorial Day! It was so nice.
Most of you may know that over the past 18 months, I’ve worked from home for myself. I’m constantly having to be self-motivated and have learned how to be productive while working from home. Without this motivation and skill set, I wouldn’t be successful (or even able to work for myself!). Today I’m diving into how to be more productive at home!
Check out my work from home series! These tips will help you work from home more seamlessly than ever!
How To Be More Productive At Home
Productivity is the key to success! Guaranteed if you sit down with successful people that you know, they’ve learned the key to productivity. Whether you’re working from home or just developing a morning routine and creating better time management, being more productive is vital. Today I’m talking about tips on how to be more productive at home!
Use your Phone Apps!
Don’t expect to go from A to Z in productivity on day one. It’s a learned skill that takes time to develop. Plus, productivity doesn’t have to be done alone! There’s a few things that have helped me, and below is a list of my favorite productivity apps and tools.
My first tip is to organize your iPhone apps! Recently I spent about 30 minutes organizing my apps by importance, and then by color. It might sound silly, but it significantly helped me know where everything was. I also created folders for similar apps (such as ‘Social Media’, ‘Navigation’, and ‘Music’). I also deleted apps I wasn’t using much. Keep reading for a detailed list of my favorite apps and tools!
Tips to Being More Productive At Home
Being productive at home shouldn’t be a daunting task! It takes time and energy to get organized, but once you’re there it’s simple steps to stay productive!
Below are my top 5 tips to being more productive at home!
- Create a daily schedule
- Creating a daily schedule starts helps build structure and routine.
- Every morning when I wake up, I make my coffee, feed the dogs, and sit down to create my daily schedule.
- I have a notebook and an agenda that help me stay on track! I also lean on my Artful Agenda to keep me in line.
- Have a morning routine
- And be sure to make a healthy breakfast! I love eggs or oatmeal with fruit. It gets your brain working and helps start the day right!
- Prioritize
- In order to be efficient with time management, here’s how I prioritize my day:
- List out your tasks
- Identify what’s urgent (due dates) vs not
- Determine the effort it’ll take (I usually start with longer projects first)
- Write it out
- Work in breaks and give yourself free time!
- In order to be efficient with time management, here’s how I prioritize my day:
- Set up a designate work area
- Whether you have a designated home office or a smaller space while working from home, be sure to have one dedicated work area. This will help you separate work form home and you’ll have much more productive days!
- Reward yourself!
- Once I finish a task, I reward myself with something! Whether it’s a break, or heading to grab coffee from a coffee shop, I always be sure to pat myself on the back when I get things done!
Be sure to read my post on How to Beat Boredom at Home.
My Favorite Productivity Apps and Tools
Here’s the list of my favorite productivity apps and tools:
Artful Agenda
Artful Agenda helps me organize my day, week, and month! I can also create custom lists, weekly goals, meal tracking, water intake, etc. I don’t use all of the features, but I love that I have access to them. Artful Agenda also syncs directly to my google calendar! I actually like both, and it’s nice that if I jot an event down in one, it syncs to the other.
Having Artful Agenda helps me significantly with time management! I’m able to keep myself staying on task, while working in some free time to reset. I consider myself to be a busy person, but I often get side tracked while working from home. My overall productivity levels are much higher and I’m able to stay focused with a daily agenda!
My referral code is RM71452 if you decide to download the Artful Agenda App. It’s also compatible on your iPhone and in a web browser!
Keeper Password Manager
One of my favorite productivity apps is Keeper Password Manager. It’s a free app that stores your passwords safely. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve forgotten a password, and it’s been a huge waste of my time and energy trying to figure it out! I’ve been locked out of important apps and websites, because I forgot my login. I highly recommend downloading this safe app! It’ll definitely help keep staying on task and with overall productivity.
Keyword Notes on Mac
I’m an Apple girl, I just love my MacBook and iPhone! If you’re not, that’s totally fine, because there’s comparable apps on your phone and computer. With that said, one of my most used apps is Notes. The Notes app easily helps me stay productive! Often times I have ideas or things I want to do later on, that don’t necessarily need to be in a calendar. For example, yesterday I thought of several blog post ideas, so I jotted them down in Notes. Rather than losing focus on what I was doing, I was able to just jot down the ideas and open them when I was ready to start writing.
Notes also syncs from your phone to your computer. So if I jot it down while I’m out and about, I can access it back on my computer when I’m back working in an office.
Microsoft Office – Excel
As an Independent Contractor, I’m solely responsible for handling my income and expenses. My first year of doing my own taxes, I was completely unorganized. I wasted so much time and my stress levels were so high! After that I learned how to keep it organized, and excel has been the best spot for it. Now when it comes time for quarterly taxes, I don’t lose focus or get stressed, and there’s no wasted time.