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If you are not enhancing your WFH experience by multitasking, you are missing out. Sure, multitasking has a bad rep, being linked with unfocused attention, fatigue, and low output. Yet, when you are thrown into deep waters and forced to multitask, you will often find a way to survive. Many of us have prepared for a presentation while answering urgent work emails. Remember the times you spoke to clients while verifying data on your computer. These situations prove that multitasking is possible and can sometimes be a good thing. Yet, many of us drop our standards when it comes to multitasking from the space of our homes. The tactics in this article will help you get more things done, especially if you work from home. Multitasking at Home is a Productive Time-Saver When you work from home, you are not watched by bosses or colleagues. There are many multitasking hacks that become possible. These are combinations of tasks that you never do at your company’s office. Good multitasking at home happens when you pair a main task with another less mission-critical, secondary task. For example, you can have a work call while taking a leisure walk, or watch a training video while exercising. When working from home, you can multitask in more practical, customized ways. Unlike at a company office, you can accomplish more at home while benefiting your health and wellbeing. To illustrate this point, here are some tasks that become logistically possible from the comfort of your home: Meal preparation while listening to a podcast Taking walks while making calls Making use of your home office furniture like standing desks Taking breaks on comfy mattresses or recliner chairs You want to capitalize on your freedom and autonomy when you work from home. Maximize the health and energy needed to skyrocket your career performance, launch a business, work 2 remote jobs, and so on. The truth is most remote workers get lazy and ignore these health-serving, and sometimes essential tasks. Taking proper breaks to recharge is essential (just ask those who suffer from ergonomic injuries and stiffness), while tasks such as meal prep, taking walks, standing, and basic movement mitigate against the likelihood of getting unhealthy. The good news is that many of these essential or health-serving tasks are mundane and do not require much brainpower. Remote working can be fun. Multitasking during online meetings A common incentive amongst remote workers is the ‘hack’ of multitasking during online meetings. After all, meetings are sometimes excessive. It is much harder to get caught in an online meeting, compared to an offline meeting. Should you multitask? Multitasking during online meetings can save you time. But if you are worried about getting caught, you are likely not going to be an effective multitasker while the Zoom meeting is on. If you must, have screens or windows tiled side by side on your monitor, so that you can see what is happening during the meeting at a glance. To be honest, online meetings may be a little overrated, but so is the idea of multitasking here. Everyone is talking about “making use of” online meetings to browse the internet, work on a side job, or relax away from the computer. However there are other times of the day that you can actually capitalize on. Few do. While working from home, you can be so creative with your schedule and batch activities that go hand in hand - so that you can effortlessly multitask. Know the right combinations of tasks, so that you can integrate them into a daily schedule. Multitasking while showing productivity at home Employers love employees with strong multitasking skills, since the average modern job requires some multitasking ability. Yet, multitasking while working from home could raise unwanted suspicion from bosses or colleagues. You may not be the quickest to answer messages while being away, washing your dishes or working out to a podcast. So, essentially, what you need to do is to gain trust and show that you are productive. To demonstrate productivity while working from home, it is key to finish tasks in a timely manner, while keeping communication channels open. Essentially, you need both task-oriented and people-oriented skills. The minimum standard is to give your bosses the sense that you are engaged and proactive, even if you are not the most switched-on remote worker. This article was originally published on unboundist.com. If it is now published on any other site, it was done without permission from the copyright owner. How to Multitask While Working from Home If you are not already convinced of the value of basic multitasking (i.e. pairing a main task with a less mission-critical, secondary task), let’s go on and discuss the hacks. 1. Prepare a meal while attending to secondary tasks While working from home reduces the ‘dead’ time from commuting, people often become surprisingly inefficient at managing their health. The tendency is to laze around, order convenience food, and eat junk food from the refrigerator. Preparing healthy meals is underrated. If you have less time for cooking meat/veggies, put together a quick salad or healthy sandwich. While preparing food, you can listen to a podcast, plan your schedule, make calls, or give your kids homework advice. These are tasks that just “come up”, occur intermittently, or do not require 80-100% constant attention -- perfect tasks to do when meal prepping. 2. Work while taking a walk With good time management, the number of excuses for staying physically unfit goes down to zero. Taking walks and burning extra calories is made possible. You can answer work calls, make calls, schedule meetings and plan ahead while taking a walk. Your walking schedule can be incredibly flexible, as walks can be allocated to the mornings, afternoons, or evenings. 3. Listen to a podcast during ‘brainless’ tasks No longer should you complain about not having time to learn about new or interesting subjects. There is plenty of written material available in the form of podcasts. Even if listening is not your preferred method of learning, podcasts help you make use of transitional timings of the day when you are doing ‘brainless’ tasks -- periods of the day that would otherwise be wasted. These are times when you are working out, taking a shower, taking a walk, doing the dishes, and so on. You could find written books that are condensed into 15-minute to 1-hour interviews by CEOs, experts, and other people you follow. Such content is short but extremely insight-packed. Simply do a Youtube search for these interviews/podcasts, or browse books available in audiobook format on Amazon. 4. Make a second income while working your remote job Making a second stream of income is more realistic when you work from home. Simply, you have more time. Compared to working stealthily on your computer and hitting “Alt + Tab” when your colleagues pass by, you can work on your side projects at home without being monitored (do not use your company’s laptop though). Think about the pointless conference calls and Zoom meetings you must attend at home. During these meetings, you can multitask by learning how to create a second stream of income online. Yes, making a second income is a somewhat controversial idea that many remote workers have embraced, as they fought to regain their time and autonomy. At a remote job, you get to leverage both factors to your advantage. Many people start by looking into freelance work such as web design, writing, or building a website for someone else. For the business minded, find or build products to sell via the mode of an e-book, blog, an online course, or an ecommerce store. Creating more monetary streams of income should be an active part of your WFH lifestyle. It is a great opportunity for you to make time for money-making skills and projects. 5. Using massage tools while reading or learning Doing long hours of productive work does not mean you must suffer pain, stiffness, and physical stress. Besides building at-home wellness routines, you could look into high ROI (return on investment) massage and ergonomic tools. Examples include massage chairs, electric pulse massages, and resistance bands that support stress release, flexibility, and mobility. There are certain items in the market you can get for less than $50-100 which will last you several years, making WFH endurable in the long term. Items built for those working long hours include ergonomically designed drafting chairs and recliners which provide good lumbar support. What’s a better way to make use of time when reading about a new subject, than to get a lower back release on a massage chair? If you tend to read on your bed, you might want to upgrade your mattress to a medium-firm or firm mattress. 6. Exercise while watching educational videos or TV When you are watching educational videos, training videos required by your job, or even TV, you could do simple yoga stretches or basic lifts with dumbbells. You might as well cancel that gym membership if you spend ample time at home. This is not to say that you shouldn’t be out and about, but you could save tons of time if you have some space in your home. If you could afford to purchase a bench and some weights -- such as an adjustable dumbbell or barbell set with clips -- it will make a massive difference in your health, fitness, and time management. Related: Watching TV while Working Remotely: Ill Advised or Smart Multitasking? 7. Plan ahead while working on a current task Typically, the way most people plan ahead is by spending 10-20 minutes in the evening writing out their next day's to-do list. That is perfectly fine, as this puts you ahead of the average person who does little to no planning. Even better, one effective way to multitask is to write down tasks for the next hour -- and ideally the next day -- as and when they ‘pop’ into your mind, while you work on your primary tasks. Write them down quickly in point form, so that you free up brain space to carry on with your main task. Not only do you save time, but this approach prevents the likelihood of forgetting certain tasks. 8. Switch between main and secondary tasks Bear in mind that we should NOT be jumping between two mission-critical tasks that require a high level of focused attention. Other than that, we can be more flexible. When we are doing ONE cognitively demanding task, the Pomodoro technique is known to help - work on that one task for 25 minutes, and take a 5-minute break. The purpose of the 5-minute break is to enable mental recovery and replenish brain power. In fact, we can capitalize on these breaks by doing ‘easy’ activities that are mentally stimulating or uplifting. For multitaskers, we may want to use the break time to read an ebook, monitor team chats, meditate, or listen to a podcast — as long as these tasks are easy enough and not mentally exhausting. If you will, view the 5 minutes as a “reward” for your hard work; this can help you enjoy the process of working more. Tip: This technique lets you switch between main and secondary tasks as you work, while giving your mind a break from the main task. 9. Stand while working (Health Hack) What is one way to increase productivity and fat loss at the same time? Try standing while you work. This is a simple but effective multitasking ‘hack’. When we sit at our desks for a long time, what happens is that our output dips, posture issues surface, body pains surface, and health declines. There is legitimate science to how standing at work can improve your quality of life. A laptop stand or a standing desk converter are not magical cures, but they can alleviate some health issues in the long run. Multitask Wisely To conclude, working from home opens up new avenues for multitasking that can potentially improve your quality of life. Therefore, do not belittle multitasking, which comes into play during the dead and unfocused time periods within your day. Some of these ideas may leave a transformative impact on the micro level of your day.

Unboundist

Category: Remote work