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Consider these while working from home.

Here are some tips on how to stay focused as you move through the workday, while still enjoying all the unique benefits of working at home.

1. Respect Your Own Time

When you work at an office, family and friends seem to naturally respect your schedule. But when you’re working from home, you’ll inevitably get calls at 11:00 a.m. or be expected to handle the daily errands. I’m not saying you shouldn’t wait for the cable appointment or chat on the phone, but be mindful of how easy it is to have time ripped from your workday.

It’s important to set boundaries, if needed. People will respect your schedule, only if you respect it first.

2. Impose Time Limits on Specific Tasks

It’s easy to become distracted, particularly when dealing with a task that’s challenging or a bit dull. If you find yourself losing focus, tell yourself to dedicate just 15 more minutes to the task on hand. Knowing there’s an end in sight might inject new energy into the project. And if not, move on to something else and return to it when you’re in a better mindset.

3. Set Strict Deadlines

Ever wonder why you’re ultra productive when facing a tight deadline, while a simple task can take hours to complete? You might chalk this up to working well under pressure, but it could also be Parkinsons Law, which basically states that a task will expand to fill the time you can give it. Combat this phenomenon by imposing your own deadlines for specific tasks. These can be as complicated as finishing a proposal or as simple as responding to a client email.

4. Log Off for “Power Productivity” Hours

Digital distractions aren’t just limited to Facebook and YouTube. For most, the daily barrage of emails and IMs from friends and colleagues ends up being the day’s biggest time sink. If you’re stuck in your inbox, dedicate chunks of the day when you unplug from your phone and email to get work done. You can log back on afterward and power through the necessary responses.

5. Delineate Your Workspace

Ideally you can have an area dedicated as your office (and preferably with a door so you can shut out unwanted distractions). Creating boundaries not only helps you be more productive “at work,” but also helps you decompress during your personal time.

6. Slowing Down? Change Your Environment

If you find yourself stuck (and you’ve already tried the “just 15 more minutes” tactic), change your environment. Go work at the café for an hour, or brainstorm at the park. A change in scenery can spark new ideas and give you newfound focus.

7. Conduct a Time Audit

Ever finish up the day and wonder where your time went? If you’re self-employed, it’s important to understand exactly how you’re using your time. Every so often, conduct a detailed audit of your day and keep track of what you did and how long it took. These audits can reveal great insights into your daily workflow and can help you make adjustments where needed — whether it’s getting help for your bookkeeping, dropping an overly demanding client, or condensing multiple trips to the grocery store.

8. Create Task Lists

I tend to have multiple lists running at any given time. One list keeps track of longer term goals (for example, the projects I need to complete by the end of the week or month). Then each morning I also create a focused outline for the day’s tasks. Try to keep your daily list as realistic and uncluttered as possible. Nothing can sap your motivation like staring at an overly ambitious list full of items you can’t possibly complete.

9. Make Your Breaks Count

Whether you’re working at home or in the office, it’s not possible to stay focused for hours on end. Breaks are an integral part of the workday, but make sure your free time counts. Have you ever denied yourself a trip to the gym or lunch with a friend “because you’re too busy?”

Chances are that on that very same day, you spent well over an hour browsing eBay, watching TV, looking at Facebook, checking your online bank account, or organizing your medicine cabinet. Busy work doesn’t accomplish anything and won’t recharge your batteries. So take your dog for a hike, take an actual lunch, or do whatever you enjoy. You’ll not only end up being happier, but more productive as well.

Source: http://mashable.com/2011/05/26/work-from-home-productivity/

May 27, 2011 · Awareness,Opinion · Comments (1)

Daylight saving

I used to have a conversation with my US team exactly at 6:45 pm twice in a week but on November 7 day light saving was ended in US and my schedule of conversation shifted to 7:45 pm. It’s a mid-winter here in Nepal and it gets dark at 5:15 pm or so. And my friend, 7:45pm the conversation time feels like midnight, which raised a question “what is this day light saving” which is affecting my schedule so much.

I searched on the net and especially wiki is the best place to find information. And I got to know that it’s a wonderful concept which can really impact economy as a whole. It’s a mechanism to save the day light. It is just a concept but a wow concept. Then what happens in this wow concept that’s the prime concern. It gets like this; we have longer days in summer and shorter days in winter. In summer, Sun rises early at about 5:15 am (average) and Sun sets at about 6:45 pm (average), so to utilize the early morning natural light, in the beginning of summer at about 2 am, time is shifted to 3 am and it is done on the nations standard time, and every citizen do the same on their clock as well. So if our usual time to wakeup is at 6 am without day light time, then we wake up at 6 am but ( time shifted 1 hour fast) hence we wake up at 5 am that is one hour early. And it really don’t feel like we are waking up early because after all time is 6 am. This way we have extra one hour of evening time where we can utilize the day light. In some countries daylight saving is done on winter as well, i.e. shifting from 2 am to 1 am or 3 am to 1 am (depending on the region) because sun rises late in the winter.

This way if day light saving would also been here in Nepal, then on our 9am-6pm office, we wouldn’t have reached home in the dark. Exact timing without day light saving would be 8am-5pm but our clock would have shown 9am – 6 pm and we would have reached home in the day light. Also, one hour less electricity would have been consumed by houses and nationwide reduce in consumption would definitely impact economy as a whole. This is just one example. But there are many organizations and industries that depend highly on day light. Certainly impact would be huge. But despite changing time, in Nepal we reduce 1 hour working time i.e. 10am-4 pm instead of 5 pm. Let’s say if there are 100K government employee and even 2 months winter time (let us also say total working days = 50) then there is a total loss of 50 * 100K = 5000K hours.

100,000 (employee) * 50 (winter work days) = 5000,000 hours
5000000(hours) / 8(working hours) = 625000 working days
625000(days) / 250(avg. working days in a year) = 2500 years
And with avg. working age of a man, let’s say 30 years.
2500 years / 30 (a man’s working age) = 83 (approx) man’s life.
And my friend that’s a huge loss for a nation in a year (in just one winter).
All the data are approximate. But exact loss would be more than this.

Day light saving is a wow concept.

December 3, 2010 · Awareness · No Comments Yet