Wicked Maple Design

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How to work from home

These days a lot of peoples are asked to work from home, they set a laptop on the kitchen table in the middle of the kids running everywhere, turn windows on and wonder how they will be able to be productive.
I work from home since 2014, and did picked up some tricks to ease my day. Here are some idea that may help most of you.
SCHEDULE:
-It’s really important to keep a schedule day to day. In my case, I work from 7AM to 10AM. While I work, I do not use my phone to browse Facebook, text friend, or even answer emails. When 10AM arrive, I check to see if my son or wife need help, I discuss what their plan is for the day (when I get started, they start getting up). I do look and answer emails at this point. Then it’s the 2nd part of the morning, working my way until lunch. While having lunch, I talked to the family, open Facebook, and look at the news. I usually split my afternoon in 2, as I have a family, and things kind of happen. I always work the 7AM to 10AM, as I realized this is my most productive part of the day. If I need to do something (Helping someone, drive somewhere…) I do it within a part of my day (trying to always keep 10AM-10:30AM & 2PM to 2:30PM for family stuff). I also already setup the evening time (as sometime you just can’t get it done in the daytime), so I always keep Wednesday evening for family fun, Tuesday for volunteering, and I have the ok to work the other day (as long as they know ahead of time). After a while, the family get use and comfortable with this schedule, and I get less interruption during the day.
ENVIRONMENT:
-Your environment is also important, as you won’t last if you don’t have comfortable situation. Avoid setting up in the common area (kitchen, living room), and try to find a more seclude place, where family member don’t use on a daily basis. Set your computer in an ergonomic position (I could email you the Alberta WCB office ergonomic flyer, and it will give you the basics of it). You should be able to find used desk, chairs, speakers and everything else you need online for a decent price.
GOALS:
-Before my day end, I always set my goals for the next day (do job 303505, 309547, phone Brian about the setback, and so on. So there is no surprise when I get started the next day (remember, I love 7AM to 10AM time slot). Having goals allow me to gauge my day, know if everything will get done, how fast I am working. So I can let the others know if I need to work later or in the evening. I also set my son on the same goal schedule as me, so he know it will be reading time after lunch.

I do understand that if your child too young to be on his own for a couples of hours, it will make things more difficult, or if everyone is working from home at the same time. This is what work for me, it may be different for you.
Let me know in the comments what work for you, I may pick up a trick or two myself.