The biggest challenges of working from home (and how to fix them).

Whether you began working from home pre-2020, were forced to mid-pandemic or have just gotten your first WFH gig (congrats) chances are that there are at least 5 difficulties that you have (or will) run into.

This isn't to scare you off or make you second-guess your decision but when you begin working from home, everyone tends to face some of the same problems. How much of an issue they actually are really depends on the individual.

Irrespective of which from this list you are rocking and which you are tanking on, we're going to go through the 5 most common challenges of working from home and what to do about them.

The 5 greatest challenges of working from home:

- Productivity: Getting things done.
- Distractions: How to stay focused.
- Design: Setting up your perfect space.
- Disconnect: Keeping necessary communication.
- Expectations: What you're responsible for.

Productivity - Getting Things Done

There may be times when you can sit, work like crazy and hit all of your “to do's” for the day. Other days you may not be as into it. It's as normal being at home and struggling to remain productive as it is as the office. The difference with trying to remain productive at home is that you have no oversight. There's no boss who may walk past, causing you to promptly straighten up and get back to work. There's also no one to side-eye you when you seem like you're up walking around a bit too much.

So, without these little kicks to the tail, how do you remain productive when you have a bit more freedom not about what you have to do, but in how you get it done?

One way is to set a schedule or to time-block. By time blocking you can choose the moments of the day when you will go deep into a meaningful project vs the areas of the day designated for mindless tasks. The mindless tasks, while they can seem mundane, give you a break from the hard grunt work a major project might have. You can go solid for two hours into a project, then check emails, then take lunch and repeat.

The more you keep to that schedule and train yourself on the designated times for hard-core and mundane tasks, the less you will have to force yourself to be productive. It will become second nature.

Being able not to be micromanaged may be a benefit to working from home, but for those of us who use it to get by when in the office, scheduling and time-blocking may be our work from home productivity savior.

Distractions - How to Stay Focused

You probably aren't checking social media every five minutes (or are you?), and even if not, the dog coming to say hi, kids showing you their drawings and various street activities (with sound effects) are still at the ready to give you a reason not to get your work done.

So, what do successful work-from-homers (is that weird?) do in order to eliminate key distractions?

There are a few things:

- Do Not Disturb is turned on during moments of intense work so phone notifications won't get through.
- Expectations and boundaries are set, from day one, with those also at home (you may see me but I'm not here!).
- Chores, meal prep and household “to do's” are kept for before or after work times.
- Relegate the mundane but easily distracting tasks (see “Productivity”) to certain times.
- Ask yourself before you do anything - would I do this at the office?

Setting yourself up for success from your minute working from home with boundaries, blocks and think-before-you-do's, will help reduce the wandering away we all sometimes face in the case of unexpected occurrences.

Design - Setting Up the Perfect Office Space

If you've read our article on 'Hacks to Improve Your Home Office Setup' (shameless plug) then you know that the way you set up your work from home space can impact exactly how, what and when you get things done.

Here are the basic principles for planning and establishing your space as well as the reason behind each:

1. Cord Management - Keep cords neat and organized with cable management accessories and labeling.
2. Get the second monitor - Declutter your main (computer) desktop by adding another screen.
3. Use a computer desk with shelves - Have a shelf for your computer to sit on and free up space on your main work surface.
4. Adjustable furniture - Ergonomic chairs, standing desks, mobile drawers and pedestals will give you greater comfort and range of motion.
5. High speed network - Reduce slowdowns due to loading pages and downloading docs by getting an office-worthy network.
6. Splurge on the comfy chair - If you have to sit for 8 hours a day, why not recline?
7. Personalize - Add pictures, color, your favorite objects and music. Get the purple office chair! You want your office work-worthy, but it doesn't have to be bland.

Following these tips can get rid of the visual clutter and disorganization before it starts. It also builds comfortable elements and useful desk accessories into your setup before you begin settling with the generic chair and desk setup.

Disconnect - Keeping necessary communication

According to a 2015 Stanford Business school study, although remote workers are 15% more productive than office employees, remote workers were less likely to get promoted.

While reasons for this abound, out of sight-out of mind may be a factor. And apart from promotion, 50% of remote workers report feeling lonely at least once a week.

What can you do to stay top of mind and feel like an integral and collaborative part of your team, even from a distance? Communication!

It may not be something you've noticed, but at the office we don't communicate as much as we think we do. (At least not about work.) We rarely see our bosses down the hall, we share a bit of small talk, but team meetings, emails and instant messages are really all we hear from people about our projects or tasks.

Our communication skills are lagging because they aren't necessary at the office. When we do hybrid work, that flips everything on its head.

Check in at the beginning of the week with your boss and team about needs to get done or what you plan on doing by weeks end. Ask to schedule phone calls or Zoom meetings with your boss rather than emails or IM's. Reach out and ask for help from coworkers and let them know that you're there to help as well. Try to touch base once a day with the people back at the office.

It may seem overdone, since you see your boss (best case scenario) once a week in the office, but opening this amount of communication will help you to appear proactive, collaborative and vigilant when, like it or not, people still believe that you're in your pajamas most days, watching TV and working only when you feel like it.

Expectations - What you're responsible for

If you've worked at your job for awhile before going remote and everyone knows what to expect of you and you know what to expect of yourself, this may be easier to apply. If you've just landed a remote position, it will take time to know what to expect even of yourself.

In the spirit of the previous suggestion about communication, its important that your team and managers know what you can get done, in a normal workday.

This does a few things:

1. It takes the pressure off of you to feel like every minute, of every 8-hour day you have to be fully engaged and productive so that no one thinks you're taking advantage. You don't even do that at the office.
2. It allows your team to know ahead of time what they can rely on you for and when usually to expect your pieces of project.
3. It helps build trust with your manager. If they know what you can achieve in 40 hours and that doesn't change when you are working from home, and they even maybe see some increased quality and productivity, then that's a win for the home team!

To carry through on this, write down what it is you get done normally during the week, or each day of the week. Make these your daily (weekly) goals and deliverables. Use it as a benchmark for your week to keep you on task, but don't let it be something to slow you down. If you can do more, do more!

Having expectations overall can reduce stress, build trust and remove the subconscious negative thoughts people think and feel when someone works from home.

Conclusion

If you have faced any of these challenges in your hybrid work or fully remote position, you know that over time and with a bit of strategy, things get easier with time.

Remember the reasons you wanted to go remote in the beginning and plan your space plus your days, communicate, communicate, communicate and don't let distractions wreak havoc on the good thing you've got going!