By Kelly Cho|September 22,2021
Being a successful remote employee requires discipline, above all else. Now that COVID-19 has forced us away from our offices and working from home has become the norm, we don’t have a choice but to make sure that we remain as productive as they usually are, without sacrificing short-term or long-term well-being.
Let’s go over a few tips for working from home:
1. Pick a Dedicated Workspace
When we all started working from home, we quickly put together makeshift spaces to get work done. However, now that working remotely has become the new normal, it’s imperative to set aside a dedicated workspace in your home.
You’re more likely to get distracted when working from home. Maybe it’s a TV blaring in the background, kids playing in another room, or even family members having a quiet conversation near you. A dedicated workspace allows you to block out everything else for a while so you can focus and get work done without losing concentration. So, create a dedicated home office space, and treat it as an office.
We’ve come up with a few home-office setup ideas to help get you started!
2. Separate Work and Home Life
Often when you’re working from home, the line between your work life and home life tends to blur. However, keeping them separate for the sake of work-life balance is crucial.
Not only can an imbalance result in you spending fewer hours with your family even though they’re in the next room, but it can also lead to burnout that will impact your productivity. The easiest way to draw a line is to demarcate clear work hours (after discussing it with your employer) and stick to them.
3. Keep a Clean Desk
Clutter on your desk will always hinder your productivity. Of course, clutter here means unwanted things like wires strewn across your desk, for example. If your workspace is set up in an easily-visible location, you might want to make sure it looks clean.
However, for a traditional PC + Monitor setup, reducing the number of cables past a certain point is near-impossible. Here, you can leverage products like MSI’s Modern AM241, AM271 and AM242 series AIO PC. These computers come built right into a sleek, gorgeous display that you can just plop down on your desk. Plug in, connect your keyboard and mouse, and that’s it! Enjoy a minimal desk setup that doesn’t sacrifice computing power.
4. Ensure Top-Notch Voice/Video Conferencing Quality
Communicating with our teams, clients, and other stakeholders was easy when we were all face-to-face. However, we still can’t compromise on one critical aspect of getting work done – communication.
While a shoddy mic and camera setup would suffice when you were only occasionally joining meetings from home, it just doesn’t cut it anymore. A reliable voice and video broadcast is an integral part of working from home, and you must pick equipment that allows you to be ‘present’ remotely.
For example, MSI’s Modern AM241/ AM271 series AIO PCs offer an external Full HD (FHD) webcam, and Modern AM242 series comes with a built-in webcam. All of them support MSI Sound Tune technology to improve your virtual meeting experience. While the FHD webcam ensures a sharp and crisp video feed, Sound Tune in MSI Center filters out unwanted noise from other team members’ mics – allowing you to focus on their voices for more effective communication.
5. Consider Multi-Monitor Work Setups
There’s nothing like having lots of screen real estate that spans across multiple monitors. But, unfortunately, only the people who use multiple displays genuinely understand the massive productivity boost they unlock.
For most professional work, you’re bound to be juggling at least a few applications along with several browser tabs at a bare minimum. With two or more monitors, you can have tons more information sitting side-by-side without limiting your experience in those applications. In such cases, you can avoid navigating between open applications using ‘Alt + Tab.’
Powerful Business Desktop PCs like MSI’s Pro DP20Z and PRO DP130 facilitate the use of multiple screens without a hitch. They feature up to 2 or 3 display output ports that allow you to connect 2 or 3 displays with ease!
6. Follow a Morning Routine
Yes, you’re at home. The urge to just roll off the bed, have a quick coffee, and sit down to work is understandably quite strong. However, following a proper routine allows you to be more productive throughout the day and get the job done faster. How?
‘Get ready for work’ even at home.
No, you don’t need to dress up before sitting down to work (though some do find it helps them get into ‘work mode’). Instead, you just follow a regular morning routine as if it was any other weekday when you’re heading to work. It’ll help you kick into gear so much faster and will boost productivity.
7. Eat Healthy and Drink Plenty of Water
Watching what you eat has always been important. But we’re so much more likely to indulge in junk and empty calories when working from home compared to the office that it now warrants special attention.
Try eating a balanced diet; avoid too many empty calories and excessive refined sugar throughout the day.
8. Take Sick Days When Unwell
Although this might seem like a ‘duh’ tip, the urge to work through a mild illness because you’re at home is a strong one. Research shows that remote workers take fewer sick days and are more likely to work when sick. However, working through an illness can prolong/worsen your condition, necessitating a much more extended leave of absence in the near future.
If you’re not well enough to ‘go’ to your office that day, then you aren’t well enough to work from home either. So rest, recover quickly, and only then, get back to work!
Working from home is tough. Although it seems like it should be easier, it’s just not the case for many. However, following these tips should make your Work from Home experience much smoother in the long run!