Top 10 Working From Home Tips That Actually Work During Quarantine
Has staying at home due to the Covid-19 pandemic spoiled the novelty of remote working? Struggling to find motivation to be productive in your work? To keep you going through these difficult times, we’ve put together our top 10 tips for working at home during the coronavirus quarantine.
1. Use a Virtual Office for Mail Handling and Forwarding
No longer able to get into the office? Unable to receive important documents or your usual business mail? Why not use a virtual office for mail handling and forwarding? Many virtual office providers now provide mail forwarding and document scan services, meaning you can get all your previous physical inbound mail forwarded to your home address as well as sent direct to your email.
At Icon Offices, you can sign up to a virtual office package from just 99p per week, meaning you can continue to work as normal, without any heavy expense.
2. Get a VoIP line to Take and Make Calls
Maintaining frequent contact with colleagues, clients, and suppliers is key to keeping business going throughout this quarantine period. Without access to the usual office phone facilities, however, keeping up that regular communication can be extremely costly on your home or mobile phone bills.
One cost-effective alternative is to get a business Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone system installed. Icon Offices supply both single and multiple VoIP business lines with flexible bundles available depending on your working requirements.
Furthermore, as VoIP phone systems use existing internet connection to place calls, switching to VoIP can be done quick and easily, without the need to install any additional hardware at your home.
3. Use Video Conferencing For Meetings with Colleagues, Clients and Suppliers.
There are sometimes those occasions, however, where speaking over the phone doesn’t quite cut it. For example, you may need to brief the whole team on the latest sales figures, view and provide feedback on new marketing designs or even sign off on product samples.
While there is video call software available on the market for even the least tech-savvy individual, using a professional video conference software and setting is recommended to ensure your meetings are conducted in high-quality and without interruption.
To use for free, Icon Offices provides professional, high-quality video conferencing facilities as part of their virtual office packages.
4. Stay Hydrated.
Though this top tip may seem obvious, you’d be surprised how often it is neglected by office workers and those working behind a desk. Keeping hydrated is key to both your mental and physical health, helps prevent headaches, increase your metabolism, as well as keeps you focused, especially important when you are stuck behind a computer for hours and hours.
While water is of course best for staying hydrated, other drinks and foods such as vegetables, fruit as well as teas can also help add to the amount of water you intake each day, though moderation of course is always advised.
5. Use a Call Answering Service to Handle Calls
If your usual work involves taking lots of inbound calls, working with the distractions of children and noisy neighbours may not be the most suitable environment for dealing with customer enquiries or complaints.
A smarter way of working could be to use a Call Answering service. As an example, Icon Offices provides a call answering service and can assign professionally trained personnel to handle any of your business’ inbound calls and customer service enquiries.
6. Manage Your Home Time And Work Time Effectively
Just because you are stuck at home, it doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be a division between your working and non-working day.
Working from home can often mean we feel guilty about when we start our working day, when we take breaks and when we should log off, and it can often been too tempting to remain logged on from first thing in the morning till late at night.
Manage your time effectively, set your working hours and make sure you take your lunch and regular breaks away from the computer. Defining the balance will make your working hours more productive, while giving you more structure to your day.
7 .Hire a Meeting Room For Those Urgent Face to Face Meetings
Though it may be some time before we are able to resume to our normal working routines fully, it is likely that there will be a degree of relaxation on travel restrictions in the weeks to come.
If your work or project simply cannot be done via video conferencing, and you still do not have access to the office, there are a number of options available to be able to conduct those urgent or important face to face meetings.
For just £3 per hour, Icon offices provides multiple modern and comfortable meeting room settings nationwide, including Smart TV, HDMI/USB connectivity and all the business facilities you need for your meeting to be a success.
8. Use A Shared Office Space From Time to Time.
There may also be time when you need to get away from the house to really focus on a specific project. While lockdown restrictions mean we can’t access cafes, libraries and other public places where we may like to get some work done, considering renting a shared office space for the future may be a good alternative and a change of scenery.
Indeed, many individuals and businesses who work from home full-time often make use of shared office spaces from time to time to make use of their facilities and added benefits. Icon Offices, for instance, offer shared office spaces for just £60 per month with minimum contract lengths of just 30 days.
9. Keep Active
Though keeping active has always been important, it may never have been as important as it is now. With leisure centres and conventional places of exercise now restricted or with limited access, the amount of walking and exercise we do in our daily routine has declined massively.
To keep your mind sharp and body healthy, try keeping yourself active for at least 30 minutes per day. Why not try a home workout? Some of the most effective exercises can be performed using your furniture or even the most basic home equipment.
10. Get Creative
With football practice now cancelled and after-work drinks a thing of the past, seeing past the dull routine of stay at home, work at home can sometimes seem impossible. But staying at home doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have something to look forward to.
Get creative and plan your non-working week activities. Why not pick up a new skill or start a new hobby? Being creative can mean you have something to look forward to each day when you log off from work.