5 Boss Lady tips for working from home

We share our advice and top apps for remote working

When your living space and office merge into one, it's not easy to stay motivated. Since Covid has changed the norms of office culture and turned our lifestyles upside down, we now have different challenges to confront when it comes to staying on top of your work. The 'new normal' looks like it's here to stay so here we list the tips and apps that will help you as we settle into WFH for a while longer. Here are our 5 tips and apps for staying productive and sane while working from home.

Have a morning ritual

It can make you feel stressed and overwhelmed if your routine not managed well. Therefore, before kick starting another day, it is crucial to have time to yourself to boost productivity. Having a morning ritual can help overcome this issue, a morning ritual is simply a way of preparing yourself for the rest of the day both mentally & physically.

What can you do as a morning ritual? Meditate, exercise, do yoga, stretches, drink water, read the news or simply do anything that makes you feel alive. A morning ritual will enable you to start the day more efficiently, lower your stress levels, feel in control, develop healthy habits and simply be productive.

Eat that frog first

Eating the frog means starting your office day by doing the hardest or the most disliked job of the day first. By doing this you’ll feel less stressed or exhausted about the remaining work because the hardest one is done. Being busy and caught up in the idea of “we need to finish things”, means it becomes easy to be under the control of our daily schedules, instead of controlling the schedule ourselves. This is just one way to manage that and reduce anxiety in the process.

Organise, Organise, Organise

Being well organised is the key. Effective management of your deadlines and meetings is crucial. We live in an age where time is extremely valuable and cannot be wasted. Therefore, you need to be managing your time efficiently, which can be ensured by being organised.

In order to do this you can keep weekly planners or write a daily plan. When you are planning don’t forget to make sure you prioritise what is important. Sometimes, we tend to do what we like rather than doing what is important. (Don’t forget “Eat that frog” first.) 

You can also add weekly and daily goals to achieve in your weekly and daily plans. Once these goals are achieved you can reward yourself with small things, maybe a cup of coffee. This simple goal and reward system also increases productivity.

Create healthy habits

We spent half of our days with automatic behaviours, in other words with our habits. Habits are also a way for your brain to save energy. Therefore, creating healthier habits around our mindset & body will help us be more productive in long term.

Sometimes we get trapped in the daily routine and forgot about the importance of small habits. This can be something as small as making sure to drink 8 glasses of water per day.

Reflect on yourself

Mental health is crucial to keep productive. It is so easy to get frustrated during these times where everyone is busy. You could keep a journal where you can write about your day, feelings or anything you feel relevant writing about.

Reflecting on yourself can help you to develop self-awareness, understand your values, understand current circumstances that you are in. As a result of these, you can improve your decision making with more clarity in your life and also develop your emotional intelligence.

The 5 Best Apps to Download for Working From Home

Noisili

From the hum of rain to the buzz of a cafe. The Noisli app allows remote workers to set a sound track of background noise to keep you sane and focused indoors.

Asana
Asana is one of the most beautifully designed project-managing apps, allowing you to track tasks, set reminders and stay on top of your to-do lists.

Wifi Map
If you work on the go, finding WiFi can be a challenge. WiFi Map shows you all the locations with Internet hotspots near you and works in locations across the world. 

Toggl
Toggle is an incredibly useful time-tracker which allows you to see which work is taking up most of your time and how you can better manage your hours online.

Wakeout!
If you are WFH the hours can be long. The Wakeout! app gives tips on working out, using your desk as a prop, so that you can still get moving without having to go to the gym. (Voted App of The Year 2020)