20 Tips for Working From Home

The global spread of COVID-19, the novel coronavirus, is keeping people at home. Major conferences, including Mobile World Congress and Google I/O, have been canceled to decrease the risk of infection. And some employers are encouraging or requiring people to work from home.

- By Jill Duffy

I’ve worked remotely for more than five years, and I have some friends and colleagues who’ve done it, too. We all face unique challenges, because we have different personalities, lifestyles, and jobs. Still, many of the core issues we face as remote employees are the same.

Everyone who works remotely has to figure out when to work, where to work, and how to create boundaries between work and personal life. And what about office equipment, career development, training opportunities, and building relationships with colleagues? Working remotely, especially when you’re working from home most of the time, means figuring out these issues and others. Here are 20 tips for leading a better and more productive remote-working life, based on my experience and what I’ve learned from others.

1. MAINTAIN REGULAR HOURS Set a schedule, and stick to it—most of the time. Having clear guidelines for when to work and when to call it a day helps many remote workers maintain work-life balance. That said, one of the benefits of remote work is flexibility, and sometimes you need to extend your day or start early to accommodate someone else’s time zone. When you do, be sure to wrap up earlier than usual or sleep in a bit the next morning to make up for it.

Automatic time-tracking apps, such as RescueTime, let you check in on whether you’re sticking to your schedule. They can also help you figure out what times of day you’re most productive versus when you slack off. You can use that information to your advantage by reserving your hours of high focus for your most important tasks.