While key workers and those in health services work harder than ever to ensure our safety and well being, many of us have been constrained to the same four walls for the foreseeable, working differently or in some cases not working at all.
If you’re starting to go a bit stir crazy when self-isolating, and need some ideas of things that you could be doing, here’s a short home office guide, with some advice on how to cultivate a healthy ‘home office’ working environment, and some examples of productive things that you could be doing.
Setting up a home office
In order to be productive in your home, you need a space that you can go to work, separating and segregating yourself from all the different distractions and allowing you to focus in on the task at hand. Designate a room (you might already have one or a study that you can go to) to get started in, and get the essential stuff you’ll need ready to go. Those of us that are continuing to work from home in times like this will likely already have the right equipment/computers brought home from the office, but if you’re working on your own projects, you’ll know the things that make you productive.
Tip – Try to spruce up your desk space and make it inviting. Just because it’s somewhere that you’re going to work doesn’t mean that it has to be boring! One great desk inclusion could be greenery/plants, as they can purify oxygen and aid concentration.
Save and invest your money
Many of us want to be in better control of our finances, keeping a tighter control over what we spend and what we should be spending on in order to build for the future. However, with busy lifestyles and schedules it’s difficult to find the time to go through our financial profiles and portfolios with a fine-toothed comb. If you have a little bit of extra time on your hands now that you’re stuck indoors, it might be worth thinking about streamlining your finances, getting some of your outgoings under control, and even putting some of your additional money into a savings account or investment strategy.
If you’ve thought about investing your money in the past but haven’t been sure, now is a great time to get started and learn about many of the different asset types and potential strategies that you could go with. If interested in the property market, for example, RWinvest offer a range of different guides, videos, construction details and podcasts on different aspects of the property market.
Freelancing, and monetising your hobby
If you want to make some extra money on the side while working from home, one of the best ways to do it is to set yourself up for freelancing on sites such as UpWork or Fiverr. You can quickly set up and search for the right job for you, or employers can even reach out to you also depending on what your skills are.
Tip – One of the best ways to show potential collaborators that you’re talented in your specific field (be it graphic design, blogging etc.) is to set up a personal website or portfolio of previous work. That way, people can search through all the great stuff you’ve done in the past, and it will improve your chances of getting more work.