How To Avoid Time Mismanagement When Working From Home

Time mismanagement is one of the most common issues of working from home. It’s very easy for your attention to stray to other things during your regular working hours, leading to work delays and affecting your productivity. You spend time on numerous activities as a remote worker, from your phone and television to home chores and housemates. Does it feel like you hardly have enough time in the day to complete work assignments at home? You may be wasting time on other things. Here are some ways to avoid time mismanagement when working from home. 

Set yourself up for speed

First, you need to ensure that all your work tools, especially your computer and internet connection, are fast and reliable. Unsuspectingly, a slow internet connection and an under-performing computer can drain hours out of your time. Regarding your internet connection, be sure to use the best internet providers that offer fast connection speed, reliability, and affordable packages. 

Declutter your workstation

A cluttered or disorganized workstation can encourage procrastination and waste more of your time than you think. You may think that spending several minutes looking for a pen or paper document shouldn’t be anything to worry about. But such distractions eat into your productivity. Therefore, take the time to organize your workstation, declutter, and keep important things within reach. 

Stay away from distracting websites

With nobody looking over your shoulder to monitor the websites you visit, it’s easy to waste several work minutes surfing distracting websites. Whether browsing your favorite online store or watching viral content from social media, distracting websites can consume chunks of your work time. Statista, for example, reports that the average social media user sinks about 2 hours each day into Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. If you find yourself plagued by too many such websites, you can download plugins to block access to specific websites, so you can focus on your work. 

Strategize your time

Try planning your workdays around your tasks and not your clock. Instead of thinking you have the whole day to finish a project, distribute your work tasks to specific times in your day. Consider the work you need to complete each day and set specific goals to accomplish them. For example, do you need to get shopping done and complete a marketing proposal within the day? When you’re most productive, you can assign the first part of your day to completing the marketing project and the latter part of the day to shopping. This strategy will help you focus on completing a task before attending to anything else. 

Learn when to say no

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Commitments come from different directions when working from home, and the last thing you want to do is accommodate all of them at once. That phone call from a loved one or that favor request from a colleague can cost you more time than you can spare. Sometimes learning to say no to commitments that eat into your work time is the best way to avoid wasting time.  

This is a collaborative post.

Melinda