Todd Sumamno
Working from home opens up a lot of opportunities and possibilities for how businesses may structure and work themselves. With the outbreak of the global pandemic – COVID-19, home working gives some workers the flexibility they require to continue their business operations while prioritizing customer and staff wellbeing as part of the public health duty.
Currently, around 25% of people worldwide have embraced the convenience and flexibility of working from home. When pandemic forced companies globally to send their workers home to work online, remote work is having a big moment. However, the rush to give workers access to all the materials they require to work from home was a bit sudden for most employers. After everyone settled in, what became apparent to most office-based teams is that workers can be focused and productive when not in the office. Whether you are already working online or on the hunt for remote work, here are great tips you may use to set up a workstation to boost your output and productivity:
Create an Encrypted Home Internet System
Connecting to work internet and networks from home might be risky because your online activities are not encrypted. This will expose your activities to cybercriminals who may leverage your private details for cybercrime. The best solution for this is to use a Virtual Private Network(VPN).
Basically, with a VPN, you can encrypt online traffic and hide your IP address to ensure hackers or third parties don’t see it. Every router is created differently, through with a little poking around, you will not have any issue finding the encryption settings for your system. Ensure to turn on the WPA2 with Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), if necessary.
Get an Adjustable Chair
Unsupported postures may cause loads on your spine to disperse incorrectly, making the tissues on your lower back weak. Lower back pain is the major cause of work absence and activity limitation throughout. According to some studies that Medical News Today cover, back pain is as well related to main mental health symptoms, such as depression and anxiety. Alleviate back pain with adjustments by a Chiropractor in Collinsville, IL.
A good solution is to adjust the height of your chair. A fully adjustable chair is mandatory in a workstation. There are different designs and styles of office chairs. Many new models are pneumatically adjusted. Pneumatic office chairs come with a button or lever before the seat to allow you to push and adjust their height. Ideally, the seats should allow you to sit with both your feet flat on the floor, minimal pressure at the back of your thighs, and hips parallel for optimum posture support.
Develop an Hourly-Work Plan
Constant background noise, interruptions, and distractions may hinder your ability to work at home. This results in reduced productivity, financial losses, misuse of resources, and wastage of time. A perfect way to prevent this is to develop an hourly work plan. To take away your monkey mind, try to schedule your tasks every hour. This is a great exercise, giving you a structure to your workday.
What this means is that you will know what to do and what you should accomplish at the end of the day. Apart from that, an hourly plan will allow you to handle work in a way that tasks requiring higher energy and more attention can be accomplished the first thing in the morning. Whether you prefer using a pen and a paper method, Excel, or an online scheduling app, you need to build shifts. Your work plan should make sure that every shift is staffed properly. In order to achieve this, you have to put national or local events into consideration because this may result in an unusual spike in clients.
Choose a Good Location
Long commutes are basically the bane of modern business life. The endless commute is linked to unhealthy behaviors, such as poor eating habits, inactivity, and smoking. Rather than walking hours to a workspace situated a few miles away, choosing a good location for your workplace can be the ultimate solution you require.
The kind of business you are running at home is important to determine the location you need. If you have a family around, you may pick a room to reduce distractions far away from PlayStation, kitchen and laundry space noises. If you are also running a freelance photography business, you may need a darkroom, but if you want to run a car paint shop, your workplace should be a garage.
In the era of digital entrepreneurship, separating personal life from business operations is crucial. Opting for a virtual postal address can be a game-changer for home-based businesses, offering a layer of privacy that is much needed. Services such as enhancing privacy with a virtual office postal address are invaluable in maintaining a professional appearance.
Use Good Lighting
Too harsh lighting may cause blurred vision and eye strain. Over time, blurred vision will result in serious complications, including blindness, brain damage, and eye loss. Unlike harsh lighting, the best light guarantees your eyes’ good health while maintaining productivity in your workspace. Whether the source of light is yellow, natural, dim, artificial, blue, or bright, it is important to get the right lighting for your physical health, creativity, mood, and circadian rhythms.
In recent years, LED lighting has come into favor as the best energy-efficient alternative to fluorescent lights. Although LED lighting is more costly compared to fluorescent, when you use it in your workspace, you will save home bills in the long run. This is because LED lighting has a longer lifespan and doesn’t use a lot of energy in the form of infrared radiation.
The Bottom Line!
Setting up an office at home means you have a lot of freedom and time in your hands. Unlike building offices, it is simple to set up a home workspace, which is optimized for strong security and productivity. While most individuals think working from home means that you might work in the backyard or from bed, you will realize that location matters to be more productive and enhance security at home than in the office. However, regardless of how much you set up, decorate, or furnish a home, it is important to use the right tips for organizing your workspace.
With the tips, it means sitting behind your desk will not doom you to a career of sore fingers and back pain. The right office ergonomics, including using the proper lighting and seating, will help you stay comfortable in your workspace.
