How to Work From Home & Be Productive: A Blogger’s Guide

With the onset of the COVID-19 virus, many people are finding themselves working from home for the first time – and realizing it’s a lot more challenging than you’d think! When I transitioned from a traditional 9-5 job and started working from home in between travels for my blogging & photography business, it actually took a while for me to learn not just how to be productive but how to work from home at all. With so many distractions and especially if you are self-employed and the only person you have to answer to is yourself, it can be tough to sit down and get things done the way you would at an office. As a blogger, I’ve learned some hard-earned tips that I will share with you in this guide on how to work from home and be productive:
Make Custom Work Hours
If you are used to working a 9-5, it can be helpful at the start to set yourself the same work hours as you had before, at least until you figure out which hours YOU as an individual are the most productive at. I personally start work at 7am and finish up a little earlier, from 3-4pm since I know I focus best in the mornings. Give yourself a real lunch break – it’s easy to push through and get burnt out. But on the other hand, be cautious that you don’t just watch Netflix while you eat and just keep letting the episodes play. It’s a slippery slope, and I found that I do best with just 30 minutes of a break, but you may need an hour or more – just adjust your work hours.
Set Home-Work Boundaries
During your set work hours, do NOT do any housework, personal tasks, or anything else not work-related. This is especially helpful for those who have partners that work outside of home while you work from home. It is very important to define home-work boundaries. An example of why this is important is that you may find yourself feeling resentful that you are constantly doing housework while your partner only does them while they’re home. This also helps define to yourself that your work from home is just as important as work someone else would do at an office. Mindset shifts are HUGE when working from home, so respect yourself and your business, or respect your employer if you are working for someone else.
Give Yourself Structure
While it’s tempting to roll out of bed and stay in your pajamas all day long (honestly nothing wrong with that some days!), you will find yourself in a better and more productive headspace if you get ready and do the same things you would if you are going into the office. Whether that’s making a full breakfast, reading some articles on your phone, putting on a full face of makeup (even though no one will see you, this is a personal choice but for me a little mascara goes a long way to put my “game face” on and work hard!) – regardless of your getting ready routine definitely at least get dressed for the day. I like to start my day with a workout, so I personally roll out of bed, get a full workout in, then make coffee, eat, shower, and get dressed before starting my work day. If you took a gym break at lunch time or 2pm or 5pm at your office job, try and keep the same routine. During this current pandemic, go through YouTube for workout inspiration; there are so many incredible free resources for yoga, body-weight only weight lifting, pilates, cardio in small apartments, etc.

Set Aside a Dedicated Workspace
This one can be optional, but I find that having dedicated workspace simulates that getting into the office feeling helps a ton. I am lucky to have an office where I work on videos that has a desk and a large monitor, but my other work setup is just my laptop at the kitchen table. It’s simple but effective and I honestly work there more than my office; I just love the open space and I have the few things I need ready to go each day next to me and it gets me in the mood to work. De-clutter your workspace before you begin; this will help you limit distractions and stay focused. Post-pandemic, you might find that going to a coffee shop or finding a local co-working space is more ideal. Some people honestly don’t work well from home, and that’s okay! If you’re not one of those people who can be productive at home, don’t worry, I think you can learn to work better than you’d think!
Take Breaks
There have been a lot of studies about what makes us productive, and while people have different habits and abilities, the general consensus is that it’s helpful to take frequent, short breaks. For me, I have gotten much better at putting my head down and working for longer periods of time, so my ideal window is working for one hour and then taking a ten-minute break. For many of my friends, working for 30 minutes and then taking a 5-minute break is ideal. My best advice: set a timer for both! Time 30 minutes and when it goes off, wrap up what you’re working on and then set yourself a break timer as well so you don’t get distracted. At the end of the day, finish up your work and don’t let your work hours become blurred. Recovery time from work is just as important as quality of work for productivity and mental health.
Limit Distractions
The biggest challenge from working from home is the ease at which you can jump on social media and waste a few hours with no one over your shoulder to yell at you. Try to avoid social media during your designated work hours except for your lunch break and dedicated small breaks. Log out off your social media accounts, delete your browser shortcuts – make it harder for yourself to get on social media. It may help to silence your phone, and physically place it in another room or at least put it screen-side-down so those little notification flashes don’t disrupt your workflow.

Focus on One Task at a Time
We all like to think we are good at multi-tasking, but newsflash: we aren’t. With a thousand things on your work to-do list, it’s easy to jump from one task to the next and back again, and then finish the day feeling like nothing got done. Circling back to my timer tip, pick ONE thing off your to-do list and work on that for 30 minutes or until your timer goes off, and then work on a different task for the next 30 minutes. You’ll find you’re much more productive during those 30 minutes of dedicated work than if you tried to do a few different things during the same amount of time.
Plan Ahead & Stay Organized
Before you finish your first work week at home, take some time on Friday to figure out what you will work on the next week. Schedule in this planning time, and try to stick to your plan. I like to set each day of the week for specific tasks, such as Monday: blog writing, Tuesday: photo editing, Wednesday: client work, etc. Even if your work is more hour-by-hour, planning ahead and staying organized will help your productivity and keep you on task. The other thing that has been huge for me this past year was to have a physical planner instead of keeping a to-do list on my phone. It has been sooo much easier to see a month and my week at a glance instead of everything jumbled together. It also made me FEEL more productive – which in turn keeps my mood higher and allows me to actually be productive, whether or not the initial work was productive. This is because if I have a multi-day project, on my phone I couldn’t mark anything off my checklist until it was completed, so each day while I had worked on the project, I didn’t actually feel like I had done much. Versus in my physical planner, I can write out the project on each day and CROSS IT OFF for each day I worked on it without forgetting to finish it later. I am a huge believer that mentality is half the battle of being productive.
Stay Social
You don’t think about it until you’re working from home full-time, but it can actually be very lonely. While your old coworkers might have driven you crazy, you’ll probably realize you miss the small little socializations you had with them. I’m a self-professed introvert, but I still find myself craving social time when I’ve had a full week at home by myself. While we’re all stuck inside, make sure you schedule time to FaceTime/Skype/Zoom call friends, family, or old-coworkers. Post pandemic, schedule a coffee meet-up or a weekly bar meet-up with your buddies, having that social time will greatly improve your mental health. And on that note:
Protect Your Mental Health and Maintain Self-Care
Once you feel like you’ve “unlocked” your productivity, it is easy to over-work yourself and let your self-care slide. I am a type-A personality, and I am likely to push myself past my limits and burn out before I realize what I’ve done. Even once you figure out your best hours and habits to maximize your productivity, you can still have bad days where you don’t get as much done – and that’s okay! In those days, try to be gentle with yourself and focus on the things you did accomplish, and forgive yourself the things that you didn’t finish. I know my own productivity is deeply tied to my mental health, so making sure I exercise, eat well, sleep for enough hours, and practice self-care has been crucial to keeping myself in a healthy headspace to do my best work.


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Hey I’m Rebecca!
I’m a freelance travel & outdoors photographer and blogger living in the US but you can find me adventuring around the globe! On this blog I share tips to help you improve your photography, inspiration to explore the outdoors, destination guides, and travel tips, and more to plan your own adventures!
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