12 Effective Tips for Staying Motivated When Working from Home

Working from home might seem like a dream job for us, but very often we don’t realise that Staying Motivated When Working from Home can be very challenging. In this post, we want to share 12 effective tips for staying motivated when working from home.

We are using all these methods ourselves and can promise that they are very effective and can help you not just stay motivated, but to increase your productivity. Let’s dive deeper into each method and see why and how they can help you stay motivated and increase your productivity.

Write Down Your Goals

Always write down your daily, monthly and yearly goals, otherwise, it is very easy to lose track of what you have to achieve in the set timeframe. As an example, if you are a blogger writing a blog post could be your daily goal. Your monthly goal could be an increased amount of visitors on your website or rank on the first page of Google. A yearly goal could be to have a certain amount of blogs posted or money earned, or customers made.

Setting your goals are very important to stay on track and keep your motivation and productivity at a high level. Because if you don’t have any set goals to achieve, you won’t give your best to achieve them.

Use a Stick Notes

Using stick notes can be very helpful because it is very easy to forget to look at your notebook with goals. Write each day goals on a stick note and place it somewhere you could see it early in the morning, bedside table, fridge, your home office desk, wherever you feel is best for you to find it.

Stick note will remind you what must be done today and won’t let you get lazy and forget that you have work to do.

Take Breaks

Research shows that the human brain is most productive to work in smaller chunks of time. Try to have small breaks every hour and don’t work longer than three hours, because your productivity will decrease drastically. Take an hour break, have a tea and some food if you worked 3 hours in a row.

Another scientific research says that most productive hours when our brain works most efficiently is generally between 10 am to 2 pm and then again from 4 pm to 10 pm.

The lowest brain productivity is between 4 am and 7 am so do not wake up too early to start your work. However, do not sleep to long ether and try to have your breakfast and be ready for work around 10 am.

Eliminate Distractions

Most of the people get very easily distracted and can waste many hours on social media or web browsing even without realising that.

Before starting your work, close all unnecessary browsing tabs (leave just ones you need for work). Close all social media, do not reply to unrelated to work calls and messages, ask people who are living with you do not disturb you while you are working.

Distractions are one of the main reason which disturbs people motivation and productivity. Once you start browsing on Facebook or watching videos on YouTube it might be too hard for you to get back to work.

Set a Timer

The timer can be a very powerful tool to keep you motivated and productive. Set a time limit for a task you must complete, give yourself less time than you usually would give. Set your timer for 30 minutes if the task takes you 1 hour to complete. Eliminate all distractions as we talked before, start your timer and get to work!

You might be very surprised how motivated you’ll be to complete the task before that timer runs out. Imagine that is a challenge which you must complete.

Timer increased our motivation and productivity massively, post which used to take me all day to write takes me a couple of hours now.

You can find many timers online, just search it on Google or find the timer we use here.

Set up Your Home Office

The nice working environment can increase your motivation a lot because working in a bed or kitchen might be very hard for some people and they very often lose concentration and motivation.

Set up your home office, buy a chair and desk and set up your working environment. Keep only work-related stuff on your desk like pc, notes, and pen etc.  Do not forget to have your stick notes with goals written on them on your working desk.

The statistic shows that people who have their cosy home office set up are more motivated, productive and successful than those who don’t have their working space.

Follow a Sleeping Routine

Following sleeping routine is very important to keep you motivated. You are more likely to be demotivated if you go to sleep very late at night and wake up too late. Research shows that the most productive hours for deep sleep are between 10 pm and 12 am. Try to go sleep no later than 11 pm and wake up by 7 am to get most of your sleep and feel fresh in the morning.

We can promise that if you follow this sleeping routine all the time you will increase your motivation and productivity. You will feel a lot better in the morning and it will be much easier to start your working day in the morning.

Use Productivity Apps or Software

Productivity apps can give you reminders about tasks you must complete for each day and keep track of it. We are using “Goal tracker” app where you can set time and date to complete tasks for each week. The app will send you a reminder that you have to complete your task.

Productivity apps are great to keep you motivated and won’t let you forget the work you must complete each day.

Reward Yourself

Reward yourself, you deserved it! Reward yourself if you complete all your work and tasks you planned for the week. Have a nice meal, visit places you love, spend some time with your friends or go to the cinema. Choose a reward which will make you happy and give you a break from work you’ve done.

However, do not reward yourself if you fail to complete your goals of the week. Opposite, give yourself some extra work, clean the house or do something you don’t like that much.

This technique will help you to keep motivated and working hard, so at the end of your working week, you can get a nice reward for your hard work.

Get Some Fresh Air

It can be very hard staying motivated when working from home if it is lovely weather outside. Work in the garden or find a nice and quiet place in the park to do your work if possible. Sun and oxygen can increase your brain productivity and keep you motivated to complete the work.

You will see, sometimes to keep that motivation it is very good to change the environment and work in the fresh air. Also, outside your home office, you most likely will get fewer distractions and work could be completed much faster.

Meditate

Sometimes it is very hard to concentrate as we have a million thoughts in our minds and just can stay focused on the work we do. Meditation can be a great solution to clear your mind, get rid of all negative thoughts and increase your motivation.

There are hundreds of meditation exercises on YouTube, try to pick something you like and meditate before getting to work. Best time for meditation is first thing in the morning when you get out of the bed.

Choose a Background Noise

For some people, background noise can create a distraction, but for others, it can be very helpful to keep their concentration and motivation in place.

Try to play some music or ocean sounds in the background. Or play anything that works best for you and can increase that motivation and concentration for work you are doing.

Conclusion

These are our proven and working methods for staying motivated when working from home. Try them out and pick the ones which work best for you and do not forget to use them all the time to keep that motivation going.

Maybe you have more tips that work for you and helps you to keep you motivated? Please share them with us in the comment section below. And if you ever need a hand or have any questions or concerns don’t hesitate and feel free to leave them below and we will be more than happy to help you out and answer your questions as soon as possible.

All the best,

Marius & Ndidi

Founders of howtoquit9to5job.com

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