Working From Home

robertbanking

Hello you very knowledgeable and wonderful people that make up these forums. I sincerely hope you are doing well today and you are happy.

I find when i am working from home, i work at home a few days a week doing website design, i find i jump onto my PC in a morning without breakfast, my meals get late like lunch and i just burnout at the end of the day about 7pm. I am not focused on one task either i seem to be doing multiple tasks throughout the day, but would rather limit my focus to one task a day. I kindly wondered please how i could structure things in a better way, to ensure my focus improves on one task at once and i try get my meals at better times please? Should i leave myself reminders, or can i kindly ask how you structure your day when your working and or working from home please? If anyone kindly had any advice on this it would be more appreciated than you may know.

I do hope you have a wonderful day and i send you my very best wishes. Take care and keep positive.  

Saver73

When I first started working from home back in March 2020, I found it difficult to get into a routine and often logged on early or worked late, took a lunch break at 3pm.  Initially setting reminders helped me set the structure of my day, having a short break for say 15 mins in morning and afternoon, breaking for lunch at 12pm or 1pm for at least 30 mins and away from the laptop, moving to another room or going out for a walk or in the garden, weather permitting. Setting start and end times helps too.  Now 3 years later my "home" days replicate my "office" days, the only difference being there is no commute on the home days!  I'd suggest planning your time to include breakfast and lunch.

Over time it does become easier but I think having a regular routine helps.

MSE_Laura_F

Sorry to hear about the burnout and focus issues @robertbanking.

For me personally when WFH, I struggle with the amount of sitting I do. I got myself a standing desk extender and now I break up the parts of my day by sitting or standing. Stand for one project, sit for another, stand for a meeting etc. I think it was around £60 on Amazon, but you could always use books and boxes to create a temporary standing desk instead.

I'm a fan of task management apps too. Some people seem to like the Pomodoro Technique and I know there are lots of free apps for that, but I prefer visual things like MagicTask which helps you create a task list, pick things to focus on at any one time, and plays animations and sound effects when you complete a task. 

So perhaps in order to focus on one task and remember to take lunch, you could keep things interesting my breaking the one task into mini sub-tasks, including a 'task' for lunch, and then gamify it by using a phone timer or a visual planner.

DullGreyGuy

Depending on how structured your day could be its a case of dividing the week up in your diary system so monday 8-10 is project 1, 10-12 project 2, 12-1 lunch etc.

It gets more complex if you do things like live support where you have to react when a ticket comes in saying a website is down etc but its about returning to plan as soon as possible and having sections blocked out for dealing with odds and sods 

The challenge is then following it. Most at my current clients have a lunch blocked out everyday and its rare that a meeting doesnt go in for at least half an hour each day (namely because its the one time everyone is free for an urgent meeting) A few cunning people put theirs later in the day though