Lazy Proof Your Day: How to Stay Productive While Working From Home

Emylee here. It’s the dream right? Getting to work from home and making your own rules (and breaking them too). We’re our own bosses (usually for the first time) and the freedom tastes so good. Until you look up and realize you stopped for a “mind break” and ended up catching up on an entire season of Criminal Minds on Netflix.

It’s time to lazy proof your day, boss friend. It’s time to find the balance of remaining productive without the Drill Sergeant version of yourself coming out. You can have the best of both worlds and here’s how.

Make your bed

Seriously, we used to roll our eyes at this one too. It takes like 3.7 seconds and puts a finality on your bed so it’s not quite so tempting to crawl back into. Although, honest time, we know that sometimes you will and that’s okay.

Give yourself some time

This can look differently for everyone. You might meditate, go workout, listen to the news, zone out, read a book, or browse the Internet for yourself for once. It doesn’t matter; just give yourself some time before you jump into work. We’ve found that even if we just take 30 min to an hour of “me time” before heading into “the office” we felt like there was a bit of separation and some breathing room. Honestly, you wouldn’t roll out of bed and drive straight to an office job and get right to work would you?

Check in with your gut

We do this by setting daily affirmations and daily gratitudes and you might want to start them too. This is a great opportunity before we do anything work related to set the tone of the day. An affirmation could be anything from “I will sell 7 things today” to “I am channeling my creative energy for this project”. A gratitude statement could be anything from “I am thankful for this cup of warm coffee to wake me up” to “I am proud of how that campaign ended yesterday.”

Make a list

We manage our day-to-day inside Trello by using the boards we created inside trelloforbusiness.com, so if you’re looking for something to organize the chaos then definitely head there right now. What we find particularly helpful about that system is that we can make lists on lists on lists. Everything can get a breakdown of tasks and due dates and checkpoints. It’s super helpful to be able to break things down into manageable chunks that actually get done. So instead of staring at “write a book” you could just be focusing on one tiny task that will lead to the final outcome.

Check it off

Oh, glorious, glorious, checking things off. How our brains love thee. This more than anything might help you keep chugging right along all day. It’s a snowball effect so once you get to check one thing off you’re super fired up to get to check the next thing off.

Take a lunch

Admittedly this is not something we’re very good at so we’re putting it here in hopes that it forces us to do better. We’re not saying go out for lunch (although that’s cool too), but take a lunch somewhere that isn’t your office. We need fuel to run and as creatives we also need a new change of scenery every now and then - this checks both boxes.

Know when you're most productive

Okay, just because you’re most productive from the hours of 6:00 a.m. - noon doesn’t mean you can necessarily stop working at noon every day. What we’re wanting you to recognize is that you should be scheduling things that take your most brain power in the times that you’re most productive. If there are smaller tasks that you can schedule or plan for later in the day (or whenever you start to slow down) you won’t be wasting your precious supercharge hours.

Dedicate times for specific tasks

Seriously, it was like the angels came down and hugged us when we decided to only check out email once in the morning and once in the late afternoon (instead of every time we got a ding. We were not only able to stay focused on what we were doing throughout the day, but we stopped resenting getting email (hallelujah!). Take a look at what is causing you to look away and set some boundaries.

Need some convincing?

Hey, not everyone has $29 to spend on a course– Okay, well probably so, but we get it if you’re a little doubtful that Trello for Business can it actually make a difference in the quality of your business. That’s why we’re giving you the Big Picture Strategy board for FREE.