How to Stay Motivated While Working from Home

Every remote job has its pros and cons. While it allows one to avoid traffic on their way to the office, working from home can limit motivation, and ruin the right mood. Surely, it’s hard to make your home into your working office, as it holds boundless temptations and distractions. But we know a few tips that will help motivate to stay focused while working from home. We will share these tips with you in this article.

1. Follow Your Work Schedule

Waking up in the afternoon and procrastinating half the day away, while trying to force yourself to start working, doesn’t really sound like a schedule. The majority of remote employees face difficulties because they can’t organize their day.

If you work from home, it’s easy to get distracted or allow yourself to do nothing for hours on end, like getting up for a snack every 15 minutes or scrolling through your various social media pages. It’s easy because no one is there to tell you it’s wrong. Moreover, not having a fixed schedule might make one feel like they have enough time left to do everything.

So, establishing a stricter schedule will help discipline your mind to remain organized. Layout your working hours (don’t forget about your breaks as they are essential) and follow your schedule throughout the day.

2. Get Prepared for the Working Process

When you work from home, it’s hard to fight the temptation to work while wearing your pajamas, or taking your laptop to bed. However, this might be the factor that spoils your motivation and productivity. Showering in the morning and getting dressed help us to wake up and get into the right frame of mind before starting our work.

Of course, you might say (and will have a good point) that you have no one to impress at home, or that you feel more comfortable wearing sweatpants. That’s true. But often enough productivity is not about comfort. You might associate these morning rituals with the beginning of a new day, or as an additional motivational boost.

So, if you face some difficulties with procrastination and low-energy levels throughout the day, try:

  • Taking a shower
  • Getting dressed
  • Shaving
  • Applying makeup

Actually, the fact that no one sees you working, unlike while working in the office, is not a reason to abandon your appearance.

3. Work on Your Setting

Your workplace, as well as your setting, plays an essential role. Moreover, your productivity depends on your surroundings — comfort, lighting, and the like.

So, make sure to pay attention to your workplace. The room where you work should:

  • Be well-ventilated but isolated enough
  • Have natural lighting, or an additional lamplight with a cooler tone
  • Have a comfortable workplace — avoid working in your bed, as it won’t have a positive effect on your productivity.

You can also add some details like plants or goal-visualization boards to make your setting more inspirational.

4. Have a Daily Plan

If you still don’t track your deadlines and your achievements, then you certainly need to. When looking at your plan for the day in the morning, define the order of the tasks that you must complete, and chances are higher that you will organize your day the right way, so that you can be on time with every goal.

Make a list of the tasks that you have to work on and define how much time you need to complete each of them. You can also include all the calls that you need to make or the emails that you need to answer on your to-do list. If you don’t like working with paper organizers, then planning applications such as Things, Any Do or Sectograph are just for you.

Keep track of your accomplishments because even the smallest of them can help motivate you. Accomplishments allow you to remember what your goal is and why you have to keep working.

5. Know Why You Do Your Job

Remote workers don’t have team-building or motivational corporative events that boost team morale and help employees understand their goals. So, it’s not surprising that sometimes they lack motivation, or have a tendency to be disappointed with their work.

Lia Peterson, a motivational coach and project manager for Take My Class says:

“Sometimes it’s easy for us to forget the real reasons why we keep working. Everyone has these reasons — money, self-development, or professional growth. But in order to stay motivated, it’s essential to remember these reasons and tell yourself that your work is not something that you are obligated to do, but something that you choose to do every day. Don’t forget about your true motivation. In this case, work will seem less like a burden, and more like a tool for accomplishing your goals.”

Positive thinking and the right mood are the most important components of productivity and motivation for every person. And they are especially important for remote workers who need to remind themselves about these components every now and then.

Wrapping Up

Working from home is the dream of many employees. However, sometimes it becomes a real struggle. So keep yourself organized, keep thinking positively, and keep your thoughts and setting clean. Motivation is something that can be easily lost, but just as easily found again.

Regine Ward is a freelance blogger who writes a lot of materials on self-development and skill improvement. She also manages a team of content writers for Take My Class and loves everything that is related to social media, marketing, and management. On weekends, you can spot her going to yoga class or walking her dogs.