Lifehacker has a new thread about productivity tips from/for telecommuters. I work from home about 95% of the time, am currently 7.5 months pregnant, and I don't have a proper office/desk set-up available to me at the moment. I work from 2 laptops (well, trying to consolidate to one personal and another work machine) at the dining room table.
I do have tips on how I maintain motivation, deliver on deadlines, and keep multiple clients/projects on track, when I work alone, at home, with no manager or co-workers around me to get me in a "worky mode."
I submitted my comment to Lifehacker, but in case they don't approve/post it, here it is:
Pregnant hyphenate telecommuter recommends:
1. Eat first so you're not distracted by low blood sugar.
2. If you're on deadline or need to log some serious hours on a project, then I would suggest a) put on headphones,
b) set your chat client status to "Unavailable for Chat except for emergencies" (Mine says "Hyper focus Productivity Sprint - do not disturb)
c) Use a digital egg timer like Minuteur (Mac) or Google Timer (PC kind) and set it for 1 hour.
d) Queue up some droning techno or whatever you can find at 130+ bpm minimum. Press play.
e) Put an autoresponder on your email letting people you know you only respond to email at certain times of the day. (respect to Tim Ferriss for that one)
f) Close down all unnecessary web browsers.
g) With timer ticking, WORK! Focus isn't so hard in "sprint" mode.
2. (**GTD-speak follows) Select a "context" to work in, after you've done your time/date "hard landscape" deliverables. Whatever next action you feel like doing.
- Feeling chatty? Make calls.
- Just wanna click around and do research on the web? Cross some things off your @web list.
- Wanna go shopping? Check any shopping or @errands list.
These are some of my standard operating procedures for working from home, in between offering snackrifices to my gestating Pod, power naps and marching in place for exercise.
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