How to become more productive when you work from home during coronavirus epidemic? Fruitful ways to stay productive when working from home during coronavirus epidemic.

Work from home is an option most businesses have started adopting in the ongoing bid to curb the coronavirus outbreak. There are about 115 cases confirmed currently and has been one death in the UK.

Google, JP Morgan and Twitter are some of the large companies released Covid-19 contingency plans to UK-based staff, which include compulsory working from home.

It is believed that keeping employees further apart from each other can reduce the chance of group spread. It also avoids the opportunity for the virus to be caught during a commute or in communal office spaces.

Although the government hasn’t yet advised all businesses to follow suit and adopt remote working, Prime Minister Boris Johnson in his speech on Tuesday has said enforced home working could be an option if the situation worsens.

It isn’t an option for some workers. But what is the best way to maximise productivity for those who might find themselves sent home in the coming weeks? How will they maintain good physical and mental health, and not spend all day in the pyjamas when working from home? Know it below.

What are the perks of work from home during coronavirus epidemic?

• How to distinguish between work and home mode

One of the significant perks of working from home is slowly moving from bed to the sofa five minutes before you start. It can also be your biggest challenge.

Never forget that you are there to work. So, set yourself up in the right manner. Wake up on time, get dressed and brush your teeth at the start of the day instead of sitting in your pyjamas for eight long hours. So, Switch from home to work mode.

You can do something physically to make yourself ready for the day. Maybe it’s walking around the block, making a special tea, or lighting a candle at your desk. No matter what it is but do it without fail to create a strong association in your mind.

• Be realistic about what you can achieve

Working from home in a wide, open day can feel full of possibilities. One hundred forty-five things on the to-do list? No problem! Don’t fall into the trap of getting over-ambitious. Instead, be realistic and then possibly achieve more than you set out to. Then, you feel satisfied, rather than feeling disappointed you didn’t do everything.

Choose three to five things to do and aim to get the majority done before lunch break. Most people slow down in the mid-afternoon and having a lot in the list will give you the momentum to power through.

• Work in short bursts

When you are in the office, your day is get split by everything from meetings to lunch breaks and even toilet breaks. But when you sat at home on your own with no face-to-face interaction planned it can be easy to work for long, unbroken periods.

When we are in the office, our day is usually broken up with meetings. Although it can be frustrating, they divide the day up and create natural chunks of time. In contrast, the days at home can be very unstructured.

Impose structure on yourself to be more productive. For instance, working in 45-60 minute chunks of focused work followed by a short break. It can be an effective way to break the day up and maintain your concentration levels.

• Don’t forget to take breaks

It can be extremely challenging to tear yourself away from your laptop if you are worried people might think you are slacking off. But that doesn’t mean you should not take breaks. Just because you are feeling comfy at home, it doesn’t mean you don’t need a proper break.

Leave your desk for lunch and take benefit of being at home. You can walk the dog and blow the cobwebs away for half an hour in the afternoon. Then, you will return feeling refreshed and more productive for the rest of the day.

It also includes ensuring you make time to make proper meals and drink water regularly, instead of snacking continuously throughout the day and then crashing in a sugar slump at 3 pm.

• Manage distractions

Being in the office atmosphere gives us a limited number of ways to get distracted. But when you start working at home, you may easily get distracted.

There are plenty of potential distractions when we work from home. So, proactively handle things, which might interrupt your focus.

Keep them limited to do in the short breaks in between the chunks of focused work. As a change of scene, we need to give our brain a break. And it is the perfect time to put a load of washing on or empty the dishwasher.

• Be sociable

Unless you are self-isolating, working from home should not mean that you will not leave the house at all or don’t see your acquaintance for two weeks. Ensure you still keep up social interaction.

If you are a person, who will miss your colleagues when you work from home, build opportunities for socialising into your day. Try to call your colleagues rather than constantly email or Slack messaging.

If you really struggle to apply yourself, try virtual ‘body doubling’. Connect with a colleague via a Skype video call but both work ‘live’ on your project rather than chatting.