How should you start your day as a remote worker? We’ve got the answers.
1. Dress Professionally
While it may be tempting to spend the morning checking your emails in your pajamas, you really should resist. Getting dressed for the day gets your mind in motion, and if you dress professionally, you’re more apt to stay on task. Ever heard the expression “you are what you eat”? Well here’s ours: you are what you wear.
Wearing work-appropriate clothing also assures that you’ll be ready in case of an impromptu video call or Skype meeting. Nobody wants to be caught in their pajamas when they’re on the clock.
2. Eat a Healthy Breakfast
You work from home, which means that there is no excuse to skip breakfast. Take the time to make yourself a healthy, hearty meal to start your day off right. Everybody knows that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and when you work remotely, that certainly couldn’t be truer.
Additionally, though you may by habit sit down at your desk with breakfast, try your best to avoid this. Take the time enjoy your breakfast without looking at a screen or multitasking. You can always bring your coffee back to desk when it’s time to get to work, but leave the eggs and bacon in the kitchen.
3. Go for a Walk
It can be hard to wake up and immediately sit down at your desk. To help shake things up a bit (and to help keep you from feeling like you spend all morning chained to your desk), take a quick twenty-minute walk around your neighborhood before sitting down to get work done.
Another added benefit of starting your day with a stroll? Quite simply put: it’s healthy. Even twenty minutes of exercise a day can make a huge difference in your health and the way you feel. You’ve got the freedom as a remote worker, so make use of it!
4. Write Down Everything You Want to Accomplish for the Day
Before you actually start working, sit down, think for a moment, and write down a list of tasks you want to accomplish during your work day. Whether it’s answering that email you’ve been avoiding all week or getting a headstart on that new project your boss has been talking about all quarter, scribble down everything, big and small, that you think you can accomplish during the day.
While you may not be able to get it all done, seeing everything on paper will help allow your mind to focus on the tasks at hand, rather than juggling the many tasks you still have to accomplish.
5. Set Alarms for Yourself
Nobody should be sitting at a desk for eight hours straight. Nobody should be sitting at a desk for four hours straight. Really, nobody should be sitting at a desk for two hours straight. Set alarms for every thirty-minutes or every hour so that you remember to get up and stretch.
You may even want to set an alarm for walking the block, grabbing coffee, or having lunch. While being a hard worker is wonderful, you don’t want to burn out. Taking breaks is vital. Don’t skimp.
6. Set Your Personal Phone on Silent
It’s amazing how distracting the smallest things can be. We’re talking text messages, Twitter, HQ alerts. When it’s time to work, don’t slow yourself down by picking up your personal phone every minute to check updates and scroll through feeds. There is always time for that later.
Setting your personal phone on silent is a small accomplishment, but it’s one that can lead to much higher levels of productivity. By choosing to set your phone on mute, you’re choosing to focus on your work. This, without a doubt, will give you better work results and increase your the speed at which you accomplish them.
Do you work remotely? What’s your morning routine? Let us know on Twitter!
This article was originally published on Remote.com