I previously explored some of the bad habits to avoid when working from home including spending the day in your pyjamas. Once you deal with those bad habits, there are some key things that will help you be as productive, fulfilled and as happy as you can be from working in this space. Now here is three ways be more productive when working at home.

Set Boundaries and Routines

When you work from home, there's so many distractions. Your partner, your kids, the neighbours, people calling, television on in multiple rooms and that cat which constantly crawls over your keyboard, always hitting return! (Noting that you love your cat very much)

The one bit I want you to focus on, which I found highly useful, is the start your work day routine.

What do I mean when I talk about this?

Normally, you'll leave home, you'll get on the bus, you'll get in your car, wherever you need to go, and you arrive at work. So your brain's already been sent a message, work time has started.

But if you're rolling out of bed each day, just rolling over, still in your jim jams onto the laptop, that can be a bit of a problem.

So, you need to focus on the way you start your ‘work’ day and the shift that needs to happen from pyjamas to productivity. This will send a message to your brain that you've shifted from this home space, into the workspace, even though you haven't left the house.

Some things that can work really well.

• It might be putting on some music.
• It might be doing a quick five-minute meditation.
• Maybe getting your coffee right at your desk.
• Going to sit out in the balcony for a 10-minute relax before you get into work.

And if you can get outside, go for a walk around the block or do a little bit of exercise, that’s an easy way to break the routine so when you come back in the door you're ready to go, and in the headspace for work.

Finding your work from flow

As you know, things at home are a little less structured than at work

So, what's your working from home flow? It’s going to be a little bit different to that with the one which you have when you're in the office.

And because there's so many distractions when you're working from home, you need to find what's the correct flow and the correct way of working for you throughout the day.

What I found really useful is working 25-minute blocks and having a five-minute break, which has got nothing to do with work at all. Now, we're all different so you might do 30 minutes, 45 minute or two hours. Whatever it is, find the right time for you, put on a stopwatch and and be strict on it.

And the great thing is, when you have that break at home, you can do some exercise, which you can't do at work. Do star jumps, push-ups, sit-ups, crunches or dance to "Saturday Night Fever". Whatever your things is, be strict on it. Schedule it into your day, and you'll find it'll make a really big difference.

Celebrate the little wins

Especially at the start of Covid and lockdown, there wasn’t a lot of positive news. Which is why celebrating the little wins each day is important. This should be a universal principle, Covid restrictions or not,

Because working from home can be such a different and challenging environment, it's really easy to focus on maybe what didn't work out so well. So each and every day, celebrate those little wins, even if it means you had half an hour of hyper-productive time without distractions, or you managed to check in on three or four of your colleagues and make sure they were okay.

In the end of the week, you can have 10 things you can be really proud of which will also keep your spirits high.

Note, this doesn't have to be alcohol every day (maybe Friday and Thursday being the exception…..)

So hear are those three things again you can do to build some more joy, success, and productivity into your day.

• Have a great starting your day routine.
• Experiment and find the flow which works for you best.
• Each and every day, celebrate those little wins.

At the end of the week, you're going to feel really great and that can only ever be a good thing.

And don’t forget to smile! You can read more on how to bring more joy into your day here