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As workers and employees adjust to new ways of working together and handle stress and anxiety triggered by the coronavirus pandemic, Wolfeye Keylogger offers company owners and department managers a simple opportunity to track employee activity remotely. The Covid-19 pandemic has an impact on every part of our society, shutting down entire parts of the country and challenging our very nature as humans to be social through social distancing, restrictions on travel as well as our working habits. In the context of a company owner, this situation is very challenging because of significant revenue losses and potential sinking productivity of the company workforce due to an increased amount of people working remotely from home. We have collected the best productivity tips, which you can replicate and try out at your own workspace. 1. DEVELOP A STRONG MORNING ROUTINE An enjoyable benefit of working from home is not having to get up, rush out of the house, and commute to an office in a rush hour. However, working from home doesn’t mean you get to skip your morning routine altogether. Since you’ll likely be cooped up indoors, take a brief walk around the block to take in the fresh air. Get up early, take a shower, make your coffee and breakfast, and prepare your lunch, just like you have to leave the house. This routine will help you to get the day started and follow a pattern. Otherwise there might be the possibility to get lost in a kind of vacation mode attitude, where you won’t get as much done compared to a usual day in the office.  2. SET YOURSELF WORK HOURS Now that you have your morning routine set up, it’s time to get down to business — literally. If you are going to make working from home an everyday commitment, then set specific business or work hours. Also communicate these hours to relevant team members and your boss so they will know when they can get a hold of you. The beauty of working from home is that you can be flexible in setting your working hours. For example, if you are most productive in the morning, or if you need to get the kids to school, then you may want to set your work hours from 7 a.m. until 3 p.m. Use your deep focus to zoom through your tasks. Keep reading to see how to manage your time effectively. Enforce a hard limit at the end of the day. Distance yourself from work, so you don’t work nonstop. Regardless of your schedule, be sure to establish set work hours to follow each day.  3. INVEST IN TECHNOLOGY WITH QUALITY Yes, setting up a home office or workspace may require a small investment. Much like starting a new business, you may have to purchase technology, such as a desktop, laptop, tablet, or remote phone system to do your job every day. A high-performance router will save you from many technology hassles. Since working from home often requires more than chat messages, you need a router that will keep up. A router from several years ago might be prone to common network issues. Depending on the nature of your work, you may also need to purchase hardware or software. Our recommendation? Invest in whatever you need to comfortably and efficiently do your job. This will definitely boost your productivity and you can take care of your work in a much smoother way. 4. FOCUS Find a quiet area inside your home. While some people need some background noise to work, others find any noise at all incredibly disturbing. For Gaetano Dinardi (Link: https://www.nextiva.com/blog/working-from-home-tips.html) , a busy room is the worst place to work. “I’m much more efficient in a silent space with no potential distractions,” he says. “My home office spot is far enough away from the television and the play area that, with the doors closed, I can easily work in peace.” If you feel the same way, make sure that your workspace doesn’t coincide with anyone’s play space. Or, at the very least, choose a room with a door. 5. PREPARE YOUR DESK It’s pretty obvious that swimming through extra papers and pens delays your progress, but what exactly should you have on your desk? According to numerous people who are working a significant time in home office, not much. They usually have a couple of folders on the left-hand side housing current projects always a few sticky notes for short-term tasks that need to be done. While sticky notes can be a helpful tool, extra books, piles of paper, or cups half full of lukewarm coffee will strongly detract from your productivity, not to mention your concentration. You don’t want your desk to be empty—don’t stow away your pen if you’ll be picking it up again today—but giving yourself space to work allows you to have space to think as well.  6. SET UP A TO-DO LIST Before you begin tackling the daily tasks, spend some minutes creating a detailed checklist. Then, spend another five making an even shorter checklist of tasks you absolutely know will get done in the next couple of hours. This trick not only helps you remember and plan for each chore, but also breaks your day down into small, actionable tasks. Plus, once you check off or cross out your finished work, those visible accomplishments will spur your productivity! You can extend this habit with monthly and yearly tasks that need to be done. This way you also gain a much better overview what midterm and long-term projects you need to keep on track.  7. TAKE BREAKS When it’s time to take a break, most of us tend to go over to social media for a while. But for a more productive way to recharge your batteries, try reading relevant articles to give you some inspiration, learning about new innovations in your field, or even taking a walk around your block on the fresh air. Also, an energizing refreshment like a tea or a healthy snack can help you to regain focus for the time after the break. As long as you’re timing your breaks, you’ll be back to work shortly and your brain will feel a bit more refreshed. Choose an increment of time that works better for your schedule and work habits. Just be careful not to make it so short that it interrupts you when you’re finally in the zone, or so long that it is ineffective.  8. COMMUNICATE WITH CO-WORKERS FREQUENTLY Take the time to meet and contact with your team regularly. The meetings should have an agenda actively involving all members, so they contribute. Dedicate time to meet privately (even when it is just a personal telephone call or a brief skype-chat) with each member so they can share status updates, receive coaching, and discuss developments from their personal life. Be mindful under the context of why people work from home. Remote employees might miss some aspects of the office. Beyond handling phone calls, be sure to discuss the bigger projects they are working on.  9. USE PROFESSIONAL TOOLS You might already be using tools to communicate with your team today like Zoom, Microsoft Teams. But there are several other tools that you can use to boost your productivity. The problem with personal apps like WhatsApp, Telegram, and Google Hangouts — as an aggregate — is they don’t necessarily improve internal communication. With tools like slack (www. slack.com), trello (www.trello.com) you can improve your task management as well as the communication with your team members easily. Tools like the Wolfeye Keylogger (www.wolfeye.us) can help you as a team leader to monitor the computer usage of your team members and what projects they are working on. This way you can get much more done in less time. 10. ASSUME POSITIVE INTENT One clear limitation of working from home is that team chat messaging sometimes falls short of expressing ideas clearly. It’s easy to think a quick remark was made to be rude or even flippant. Remind yourself not to take seemingly short or snide responses offensively. For some members of the remote workforce, they are just efficient in their replies. Consider using emoji to support your intent in your declarations with your team. Focus on the facts and assume positive intent where it might not otherwise be seen. Use emoji and emoticons to convey emotions with your team. This way the person on the other line can understand better how you feel and what specific intent you message might have. Because it is really hard to always hit the right mood, try to communicate via live-videoconference tools as well. The facial expression is a really important part of our interpersonal communication.  We really hope that we can help you with this quick guide to boost your productivity level especially in these challenging times. For further thoughts on how to improve productivity we would be very thankful if you get in touch with us via email over contact@wolfeye.us. Beneath you find a short overview over our top tips to boost your productivity:
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