Many people struggle to stay focused as part of a remote workforce. When you are physically in the office you have nothing to do but work and your only distraction is typically the internet and your co-workers. When you’re working from home you can have several things that are distracting you, this can be your kids, the TV, Netflix, food, or simply the temptation of leaving your laptop and going to do something else. In addition to a lack of focus, many employees found that their mental health was negatively affected due to working home because of the pandemic. According to a study that was posted on Forbes 45% of people that worked from home said they felt that they were less mentally healthy while working from home. 97% of people said that vacation days were important for recharging even though they were working from home, which in theory should be more relaxing than going to work. Even though the pandemic is over many people are now working from home permanently or at least partially throughout the week. To help people that may be struggling with this issue, here are some tips on how to be productive working from home:

1) Have a good home office

One of the best ways to be productive and avoid distractions is to have a good home office setup. You don’t want to work where you watch tv or spend your leisure time because the temptation to do other things will always be there. Also, it can make it harder to forget about work if you are constantly doing your work where you spend your free time. Also, if you have a dedicated home office space you can deduct a portion of your mortgage or rent in tax time if you’re a contractor. The amount you can deduct is directly related to the portion of your home that is used as a home office. I would suggest hiring a Professional Organizer that can help you set up a good home office in your house to be more productive and then during tax time you can use an accounting service to get more tax deductions than you would if you didn’t have a home office.

2) Use the Pomodoro technique

This is one of the best production techniques that I have come across. The Pomodoro technique is a time management technique where you work in small repeated intervals (typically 25 minutes) with small breaks in between. By breaking up the work into small short sprints, you make yourself more efficient with the time that you are working and avoid procrastination. Typically you will notice when people study or work that they may sit down to work for 3 hours but they are only actively working for maybe 45 minutes out of that 3 hours. After about 45 minutes of work, people start to daydream, surf the web, work slower, and lose productivity. The Pomodoro technique is meant to help you focus so that you don’t waste your time.