How Can Designers Stay Productive While Working From Home?
As a designer who works in the tech industry, working from home (WFH) or remote working is not a new concept for me. I have observed that WFH boosts my productivity, gives better focus, helps you maintain a better work-life balance, is less stressful, and as an added plus, helps you avoid the daily commute. With the COVID-19 pandemic, more people are WFH and months into our new norm, do we still feel the same about WFH?
How do people feel about WFH now?
When you observe the following stats, you can get an understanding of how COVID19 is changing our mindsets about WFH including how much time we want to spend in the office after the pandemic.
62% of remote workers would prefer to continue working from home between one or four days each week, while 20% want to stay home every day and just 18% prefer the office.
Analyzing people’s behavior, I feel that at times many people are more aggressive, do not communicate properly, and make more mistakes compared to earlier. Because of these behavioral changes, I wanted to see how people feel about WFH now and how they stay productive.
Prior to the pandemic, perhaps people only focused on the positives of WFH rather than the negative impacts. But the pie chart below shows that now negative sentiments have overtaken the positives.
Do you enjoy WFH like you did earlier?
Based on my study I found that 27% of people have a 100% positive attitude regarding WFH and say that it’s awesome, more productive, no commuting, and gives them a chance to spend more time with their families. 73% have a negative opinion saying that they’re exhausted, constantly distracted, overwhelmed, and work longer hours.
As a designer, How do I feel WFH?
At the beginning, I too had a negative impression of long term WFH. It’s really difficult to handle full-time remote work plus the stress of lockdown. I felt like I’m grounded and most of the time hated weekends, mainly because I missed all my usual weekend activities such as basketball, travel with friends, etc. Hence, I completed my office tasks during the weekends as well (stupid, I know). I wanted to kill time by being busy with something extra.
Eventually, I understood that it’s difficult to keep working week after week and it’s not a good thing for my mental health either. I knew I had to find a way of dealing with coping with this situation. That’s how I started blogging about my research — although that is not the only thing I started during the lockdown. As designers, don't hesitate to try new things that are outside your usual scope of work and take risks, and most importantly, relax your mind and think out of the box. Let’s see how we can stay motivated.
How can we stay more productive?
#1 Create a TODO list
I created a to-do list template, which I have been using since 2016. I still use this format which I’ve now become very familiar with after using it for 4 years.
As designers, we are more likely to play with colors, that’s why it looks more decorative. But it’s easier to identify sections with colors.
Most importantly give deadlines for each task. My own experience is that I’m more productive if I have deadlines. Therefore, I’m keeping two deadlines, one is the actual one and another one is one day before the actual one. So that I try to complete the task before the real deadline. This can help to save time for your research.
Of course, this is not always possible, especially if you have a lot of urgent work. Therefore, identify your top priorities when you start your day. This can help you avoid stressful situations when you start thinking about your workload. Designers must maintain the quality of work over quantity. Therefore, always try to focus on one task at a time and be realistic when you give deadlines. But if you notice that you may miss the deadline or would find it difficult to stick to your priority list, try to reach your teammates or your lead to ask for help.
Personalize your to-do list as it should work for you and make sense to you only. You will be motivated to keep working and also feel good after you complete tasks.
#2 Take breaks
Some people act like remote work is 24/7 connectivity. Absolutely wrong!
To stay productive, you must digitally disconnect. This can be a few minutes, a few hours, or perhaps a few days. I’ve seen many people mark their calendars offline during certain time durations or take days off if they feel they need breaks. Communication is important — so take your breaks after informing your team leads beforehand and marking these times in your calendar.
Research has found that longer breaks can help to increase productivity.
If you are using Fitbit, Mi band, or Apple watches, you can get alerts when you sit for longer than 1 hour. If you don’t have devices like that try the Pomodoro technique. Many people find using such methods useful.
Most of the time people don’t take this seriously. However, I know a few people who have back pain because they were sitting for too long while working and doctors have recommended that they stand or walk around for a bit after one hour. Furthermore, you can go to drink water or fill your water bottle or make a cup of tea during your short breaks.
You should digitally disconnect including a walk for a few minutes.
#3 Focus on your health
When you look at my calendar, you’ll see that I’ve booked 5.30 to 7.30 slot as “out of office”.
This is the time that I workout!
This helps me to reduce my stress levels and boost my energy levels. Most of all, I feel good after my workouts and this to me, is the biggest benefit.
Gym closed? No instructor? No schedule?
Try the Nike training club. I started using this app consistently when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and I no longer had access to the gym. This is a free app that also automatically creates a workout plan that suits your fitness level. I tried many apps and finally ended up with this. This is why I recommend the Nike training club app to everyone. But if that is hard for you, try out simple 15-20 min workouts. You can find day to day workout plans from fitness trainers on Instagram.
If solo workouts are boring, try to do workouts with groups. Try to motivate others as this affects motivation your self as well. There was a time that my basketball team at the office would schedule Zoom calls to arrange some workout sessions. Now the company that I work for organizes live calisthenics sessions for all employees twice a week.
This creates an opportunity for you to take breaks from your laptops and helps you to stay motivated during stressful situations.
#4 Communicate with people
Experts say that “The relationships you have at work can really improve your health. On the other hand, they can also really harm your health.”
As we all know designers are sensitive people, therefore it’s not easy for everyone to adapt to the new normal. When I talk with designers, some are taking a long time to get used to this situation. The worst-case scenario is that people may stop functioning as a team if there are poor communication and engagement. Therefore, most importantly, stay in touch with your team members and try to help each other.
Communication is key in a remote engagement. As designers, we are brainstorming our ideas among team members. Set up a call once a week with team members and talk about your designs, workload, and other issues. It’s always important to discuss your issues to prevent small problems, becoming larger ones. Sometimes you may not find any solutions from such meetings but in the end, these small meetings can help to relieve your stress and at the end of the day, it does feel good to talk to your coworkers.
#5 Create your workspace
Don’t work in your pajamas! Dress up properly even if you work remotely. This helps to stay motivated during work hours, otherwise, you will feel lethargic.
Research shows that, if you have a dedicated workspace it reduces your stress levels and it helps you both mentally and physically.
Make a comfortable workspace in your home. It’s better if you can arrange your table to be next to a window so that way you have enough lighting and you can interact with nature(visually even). Some people try to work in their bed or couch or bean bags. This is not advisable as it hurts your back or neck. As a designer, these places do not work for me, I always need a table and chair to do my work.
At the end of each day, make sure to clean your table and prepare your workspace for the next morning.
#6 Avoid distractions
Recently, I asked my colleague how they stay productive while WFH. His answer: “I send my wife and kid to the room and ask them to be there”.
Sounds familiar? You are not alone. During my research, I found that many people suffer from distractions during WFH. Here are the top distractions for remote workers.
True! My biggest distraction was social media. Therefore I removed some apps from my mobile because I observed that constantly checking my social media accounts was demotivating me and created more stress. Some of us may have the bigger distractions. One of my friends asked his parents to give him a missed call if they want to talk with him. Otherwise, they step into their rooms during video calls.
Sometimes remote working is new for your parents and kids. Therefore, you can’t cut the distraction completely, try to keep them to a minimum as much as possible.
#7 Learn and try out new things
Take remote work as an opportunity to learn new things and try out new things. As designers, we must generate new ideas and there are many learning resources out there — Udemy, Coursera, LinkedIn Learning, plus there are plenty of great articles on Medium.
Udemy has free courses and they have promotions with great discounts too. Try to follow these courses as they have good content. Allocate 2 hours of your week to learn something new. I’ve noticed that mornings are the best time to learn something new while working remotely(as most of the time, urgent work tends to come up in the evenings making it harder to learn something new in the evenings).
As a best practice, before starting your work day, try to spend one or two hours reading some articles to improve yourself.
Conclusion
WFH (or remote work) is not an easy task for designers. You should prioritize your work, take breaks while working, workout to boost your energy level and stay motivated, communicate with your teammates, create a suitable workspace, avoid distractions, and learn new things to stay productive.
As designers, we constantly find solutions to problems. So identify your biggest problems when WFH and try to solve them.
Most importantly stay healthy, stay safe!
