The current situation means that many people are now either furloughed or working from home. I’ve been lucky enough to be able to work from home for the past few years while I have been blogging full time. I also regularly worked from home while I was at my last job. Some may think that working from home is great, however during lockdown when you can’t go anywhere, it’s not. I used to love sitting in coffee shops for hours on end working away, drinking coffee after coffee. Unfortunately, we can’t do that right now so we have to make the best out of our space at home.

There wasn’t really much warning when we were all told to work from home. The Coronavirus seemed to go from 0-60 in no time at all. So, you probably didn’t have everything you needed at home in order to work comfortably. Luckily, wilko.com is still open for business as they are deemed an essential retailer and you are able to buy the items that you need to work from home. They have supplied me with everything I need to convert our small home office into a comfortable working environment.

Tips for working from home during lockdown

Once you’ve worked from home for a couple of weeks, you’ll have realised that it’s not as easy as you first thought. When working from home it can be really hard to find that perfect work/life balance. Here are some top tips for getting the best out of the current situation.

Set up a work space

My number one tip for working from home is DON’T WORK FROM YOUR BED. Yes, it’s easy and comfortable but you need to separate your work life and your home life. If you spend hours working from your bed or your sofa each day you will get into a bad routine. When it comes to your own time, you will then find it hard to relax when in those places. Being in bed also makes it tempting to roll over and go back to sleep.

We have a small home office, which is my brother’s old room. We have a desk with the iMac set up on it but there’s also room to set up our laptops. We’ve got a new shelving unit from wilko which has been put next to the desk. This means that we can keep everything we need to hand, but in an organised way. I also chose this copper lamp which is perfect for the desk. You can adjust it so the light is directed wherever you like.

Ensure you have everything you need

The last thing you want is to not be able to do your work because you’re missing something. Make yourself a checklist of all the things that you need to do your job. Tick off all everything you have and then see what else you need. The two things that I needed when working from home was a wireless mouse and a wireless phone charger. As a social media manager, I used my phone a lot. This means that I had to charge it at least once per day. I picked up both items from wilko.com

The wireless charger is a life saver! I can just keep it on my desk and pop my phone on whenever it needs charging. I don’t have to worry about having any extra wires dangling around and tempting my cat – he’s bitten through a few already!

Get organised

As well as making sure you have everything you need, you will also have to be organised. When you’re working, you don’t want to be getting up and down to find things. Think about your desk back in the office, what do you keep on it? What do you keep in your drawers? I got this lovely rose gold coloured wire pen holder from wilko which I keep my pens, scissors and sticky notes in. From the same range, I also got a matching rose gold paper tray. I use this to keep any documents I may need organised and to hand.

Also from wilko, I got a whiteboard which is already sectioned off into days of the week. This is a great way to plan your days. It’s a great idea to fill this in at the start of the week and make sure you know what you have coming up. A journal/planner is also a great idea too along with some pretty post it notes.

Set boundaries

When you’re working from home it’s easy to get carried away with your job. For example, I used to leave the house at 7am to get into work, so when I was working from home I would wake up around the same time as usual and open up my laptop at around 7:30am. If I was in the office, I wouldn’t be starting until 8:30! I would also work later than 4:30pm because I had the idea in my head that my boss wouldn’t think I was working properly when I was at home, so I’d work longer hours. Another thing I used to do was skip my lunch break, I’d feel guilty for having half an hour doing nothing.

Make sure you take some time away from your desk – have your lunch break at the same time every day. Move away from your desk and don’t think about your job, have something to eat, or play a card game and RELAX. Don’t feel pressured into working longer hours, you’re still getting paid the same so log off at 5pm and don’t log in again until the next morning.

If you’re keen on remote work but don’t currently have a work-from-home job, consider exploring job boards like Indeed, Jooble, etc., to begin your search.