When you’re used to going in to work every day and then there is a sudden shift – such as what we are experiencing with this Coronavirus – things can get a little, well unproductive, if you’re not careful. Many of our readers are young professionals that are used to a regular schedule – getting up in the morning and getting ready, driving to work while they listen to their favorite podcast, arrive at work and have a cafecito, get working, drive home, and enjoy their evening – if they have kids, it gets a little more complicated than that amiright? We don’t have kids yet, but we have nieces and nephews ? We also have a lot of readers that are entrepreneurs and are used to working from home- but- are now overwhelmed with everything that’s happening and forget how to be productive, we were there earlier this week so we had to remind ourselves to be calm and take advantage of this pause and return to our ways so we can be productive! If you’re entrepreneur, specifically a photographer, check out this blog post 5 things we’re doing for our business during the coronavirus outbreak
So, what you came for, work-from-home productivity tips, and here they are, how we stay productive working from home. If you’re in a rush, skip to the bottom of this post for the quick and easy summary ?
- Set Daily + Weekly Goals – Realistic Goals! There was a time where the weekly goals we was setting were simply too big to be weekly goals! We had to really analyze what is possible for the amount of time we are going to dedicate to these weekly goals – you’ll see in just a few minutes how we divide up our day. At the end of the year when we are making resolutions for the new year and evaluating the previous year, we make a list of goals we want to hit, then under those big goals, we list things that need to be done throughout the new year to accomplish them- that’s where we pull from for our weekly tasks, then break those even further into daily tasks. Before we started doing this, we were just a mess of We wish and We want, but this past year in 2019, we decided to really focus and create a solid plan, so this is what we did. Now, we know what you must be thinking— that is way too much to do and it is, but hear us out… Once you do this, you will gain clarity on what you want to do whether that is in your career or business. We put our daily and weekly goals on a small dry erase board on our fridge so that we can see it EVERY DAY – every day they are staring at us, waiting to be crossed off, its a motivation every time we see it – and we’re close to the fridge pretty often!
- Split up your day – This is an idea that we first heard on The Creative Rising Podcast by The Youngrens. Basically, Erin talks about having focused time, flow time, and flex time. We loved this idea and modified it a bit to fit our needs. So, for us, we divided up our 24 hours as follows:
- 8 hours : Sleep – non-negotiable!
- 6 hours : Flex – this is a time we can use as we please, we can choose to work if we have to, but we also won’t feel guilty about using all or some of these flex hours on something else like going on a date night or spending time with Kelvin, or binge watching Netflix, you know you do it too! No judging.
- 5 hours : Flow – during this time, we are focused on working IN our business, responding to clients, planning sessions, editing, shooting, anything that requires our immediate attention
- 3 hours : Focus – this time is PRECIOUS and we don’t trade it for anything else! This is the time where we are uninterrupted, working ON our business to produce growth. This can mean watching educational videos, updating our brand messaging, improving systems, things that as Erin describes are “important, but not urgent”
- 2 hours : Personal time – As a husband and wife team, we see each other everyday for the entire day and while we absolutely love working together, these 2 hours are our own – we choose to use these to do whatever we want to do related or non related to work, home, etc. I (Meivys) use this time to workout, journal, care for our plants, read, and self care such as mani pedis, facials, spend it with family, go to the pool, or even sleep in a little longer.
- That equals to 24 hours, now we must admit, this doesn’t always happen this way, but the 3 times of the day that are non negotiable for us are sleep, flow, and personal time. We have to make sure to take care of ourselves and our clients, once that is scheduled, we can then accommodate for the other things.
- Use a timer! – Guys this is absolutely the most simple yet incredible thing you can implement to stay productive. As we mentioned above we split up our day, but after our day is categorized, we need to add in the things we are going to do within each of those categories, so this is where the timer comes in. If we know that during our focus time of 3 hours, it will take 30 minutes to write out the scripts, 30 minutes to get ready, 45 minutes to film, and another 45 minutes to edit, and 30 minutes of cushion time, then we will make sure to set the timer before we begin any of these specific tasks so that we don’t take longer than we should for each part of the process to create our video. Not sure about you guys, but we work well under pressure and having that timer on and visible helps us be more productive and focus solely on one thing at a time versus doing a bunch of little things – because let us tell you – MULTITASKING is not productive, but that’s a whole ‘nother topic!
The quick and easy summary:
- Set realistic goals for what you will accomplish each week and each day.
- Split up your day into categories – Sleep, Flex, Flow, Focus, and Personal – for a more detailed description of each go up to point 2.
- Use a timer so that you can focus on just one thing at a time.
We hope you take some time to implement these 3 productivity tips as you work from home this week and however much longer this craziness will last. Let us know if there is anything else we can do to help, serve, and support you.
XOXO, David + Meivys
M Suarez Photography
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