With everyone #WFH (working from home) these days, “multi-tasking” between home life and work life has probably become an added skill on your LinkedIn page. But are you really accomplishing more? Are you really that much more productive? Only you can answer those specific questions, but I’m here for you to walk though successfully multi-tasking.
Since I’ve been working from home way before the shelter-in-place forced the remote-working culture on the world, people have been asking me for advice from how to set up their home work space to being disciplined enough to not binge on a bowl of cookies while working; in pajamas (at 10:00am) – you get the idea.
Whether you’re just WFH for the time being or this is in your unforeseeable future, the very first thing that you need to define is the difference between work and busy work. Think of it like this: WORK is what pays your bills; the tasks and projects that you need to submit; deliverables due by a certain time with an expectation of higher-level thinking and/or focus. Then BUSY WORK is what you can do to support your work (ie: organizing/sorting through emails, checking updates, mailing out items, returning phone calls, etc.) Once you have those two things defined, then you can move into multi-tasking between work life and home life … but not quite yet. It’s important to build out those two catagories on paper because you need to appropriately block out your time to accomplish both.
FACTORS:
- Space
- Time
- Goals
- Tasks
- Tasks in lieu of …
SPACE: Create a space that mimics your office desk. This way your mind doesn’t have to absorb yet another change in your work life. Now, if you don’t have all of the fancy equipment that your corporate office can offer, try to at least invest in cords & supplies that can help transform household furniture into an upgraded work piece. Here’s my home/mobile office.
TIME: Make sure to allocate your time appropriately. If you think that you can make dinner while on a conference call, you’re deceiving only yourself. You”ll end up burning something while not catching exactly what was just delegated to you – it’s a lose-lose situation. Know when you are your most productive/attentive and schedule your important tasks and calls during that time. What’s worked best for me is to get my husband and my daughter situated into their schedules then let them know that unless someone is about to lose a limb, I’m not available to feed, help, answer questions, or problem solve for them during these specific hours. This way I can fully focus on my WORK. I’m a firm believer of giving your commitments 100% of yourself during the allotted times. Being present (whether for my family or my work) is my number one!
GOALS: Make sure to set achievable DAILY/WEEKLY goals for yourself. If you skip this skep, I promise you, the “groundhog day” effect will consume your WFH experience. Be intentional about what you’re doing.
TASKS: These are your “must-do’s” for the day. List out what your deliverables are. Prioritize them according to brain-power-required tasks and deadlines. I often like to do the task that requires the most focus first then work my way down the list. I know that most people will want the satisfaction of checking things off of their to-do list so then they will zip through all of the easy tasks first. Most always, one will hit their mid-morning slump (regardless of what time that is) right before they are about to tackle the biggest ask of them. Then they realize that they don’t have the bandwidth to make it happen – & make it happen well – so then it gets pushed aside “until tomorrow.” So learn to prioritize early on.
TASKS In Lieu Of: Commuting takes what?… 10 minutes? 70 minutes? Whatever tasks that are on your to do list today, allot your commute time to a task that may be on your busy list that you just need to get done. Tasks that not so important to your work or something at home, but a task nonetheless. Good examples are cleaning out the junk drawer, organizing files (paper or electronically), updating due dates, going through old clothes, etc. These tasks can happen while I throw in a load of laundry or listen in on a webinar. Now, you obviously don’t have to do it during the actual time that you used to commute, but use that time for these BUSY WORK tasks. By the end of this “shelter-in-place” era of our lives, you’ll be surprised at how many “little projects” you’ve been able to tackle and how much more your life flows within each day, without becoming overwhelmed.
So that’s it. These are some of the things that I’ve learned through trial and error, as well as, some burnt dinners – LOL! If you’d like to hear more about each of these areas on multitasking, come and check out my podcast: His Kind Of Lady, launching TUESDAY, July 14th, 2020 on Spotify & Apple Podcast.
I’m so excited to hear back from you to see what you were able to accomplish today!
Be Intentional ~
LIVING YOUR FULLEST LIFE 