12 Ways to Boost Productivity Through a Virtual Commute
Stacy Walden is a Content Marketing Manager at Siege Media. She enjoys writing about blogging, business development, and productivity.
The federal government employs more than 4 million people, making it the largest employer in the United States. During the pandemic, nearly 60% of federal employees worked remotely, many continuing to work from home into 2021 and beyond.
For many, working from home, or ‘WFH’, has also come to mean ‘WFB’ – working from bed. While this ability might have seemed alluring at the onset of the pandemic, lazy habits like rolling straight out of bed and into your desk chair could be doing your health (and productivity) a significant disservice!
The Importance of Creating a Virtual Commute
Creating a virtual commute can be your saving grace while working from home. Rather than sleeping in or slacking off, use the time you would have previously spent commuting to get physical activity, create psychological barriers between work and home, and increase work productivity,
Prior to the pandemic, the average American spent 35 minutes commuting to work every weekday. While this may seem like a trivial amount of time, it adds up to 152 hours — or 19 full workdays — every year.
Allocate those extra 35 minutes a day to completing pre-work tasks that help fire up your energy levels and mentally prepare yourself for a productive day’s work.
12 Productivity Hacks for a Work-From-Home Commute
If at first, you’re hesitant about the idea of getting less sleep just to take a walk around your neighborhood or catch up on emails, consider taking a lesson from goliaths in the industry who are seeing increases in their remote worker’s productivity after advocating for virtual commutes. Since the onset of the pandemic, companies like Microsoft have been encouraging virtual commutes to their employees to enhance engagement and increase worker productivity and well-being.
From ideas to wake up and energize to ideas geared at maximizing efficiency and batch tasking, keep reading for 9 productivity hacks you can use to create a virtual commute.
Ideas to Wake Up and Energize
Morning routines should be rooted in increasing efficiency and waking up energized. Rather than rolling out of bed and straight onto a work call, try waking up 30 minutes to 1 hour before logging on, and doing some tasks that will help you prepare for the day. Follow the below tips to extend that morning burst of energy into your entire workday.
Drink Caffeinated Tea Instead of Coffee
Contrary to popular belief, drinking green tea in the morning rather than coffee can increase levels of energy and improve brain function. The combination of caffeine and L-theanine in green teas can help you maintain energy levels longer and the ability to focus. Many people even report having more stable energy and being much more productive when they drink green tea, compared with coffee.
Walk to “Work”
Simulating a physical “commute” to work whether on foot or on bike is easier than it seems and can be beneficial for boosting productivity. Walking before work (even if it’s once around your neighborhood) increases your heart rate, as well as oxygen to the brain and to the production of neurotransmitters. Simulating a walk after work can help you psychologically close the chapter on the day’s work and begin to settle down for optimal rest.
Organize Your WorkSpace
Tidying up your desk or workspace is key for improving productivity. Having everything exactly where it should be saves time which can be used more productively elsewhere. Finding your indispensable items immediately aligns your personal space with operational processes significantly improving efficiency.
Scroll Intentionally
We all have that instinct when we wake up to immediately reach for our phones. Rather than checking emails or social media, energize your mind by taking some time to read industry news or catch up on current events. This exercise mimics what you’d experience at the water cooler or the chit-chat that occurs when you brewed a pot of coffee at work. Keeping up to date with industry trends and news helps you stay on the ball during meetings and conference calls.
With so many things changing in our world, creating your own kind of normalcy can be very therapeutic and grounding.
STACY WALDEN
Ideas to Self-Motivate
After you’ve effectively woken up and prepared yourself for the day, take some time to self-motivate and tap into the creative or inspirational aspect of your job. Taking time every day to connect with yourself and your goals will help you feel more motivated to get work done and lead with a positive attitude.
Listen to a Productivity Audiobook
Audiobooks, in general, are great if you want to read books you like but you need to rest your eyes. Many of us spend our weekdays glued to a screen for work the last thing we want to do, at the end of the day, is to pick up a book and read more words. Listening to an audiobook in the morning is a great way to get the juices flowing and learn something you can bubble up at an upcoming team meeting. It might also give you new resources for increasing the efficiency of your own processes.
Stream a Success Podcast
You can listen to podcasts while you do other things at work or at home, or during your virtual commute. There are so many different types of podcasts that are hosted by successful moguls and leaders. Apply some of their tips to your workday or simply listen along for an inspirational success story.
Practice Visualization
Visualization can help you construct your ideal life from inside your brain, and then pursue actions to make it a reality. Do you want a promotion? Do you want to make more friends at the office? Do you want to start your own business? With good use of visualization, you can practice in advance for the event, so that you can prepare properly for it.
Brush Up on Management Skills
Whether you manage others or aspire to be a manager, these skills can be some of the most difficult to learn. Take the extra time to read newsletters or books from leaders in management. Before you know it you’ll be forming new habits and incorporating lessons into your day-to-day interactions.
Ideas to Maximize Efficiency
We could all use more time doing real work and less in meetings. The following ideas are geared at getting more work done during your virtual commute, to give you time back in your busy day.
Brainstorm New Ideas
Sometimes the best brainstorming happens on the go or outside of working hours. Use your virtual commute to ideate concepts without office distractions and jot them down before the whirlwind of meetings and calls.
Ideate Goals For Your Team
Whether you manage your team or are an individual contributor, brainstorming and sharing goals for your team is a great way to motivate others and yourself! Whether you think of micro or macro goals, make sure they are SMART and positive.
Schedule Your Tasks
Rather than simply amassing a bunch of tasks to get to “today” or “whenever,” you might benefit from scheduling everything in its own time slot. You can plot out your chores in a planner, app, or a blank notebook. This works well if you tend to look at your to-do list in the morning, decide you can do all of those things later in the day, and realize suddenly at 5:00 p.m. that you’ve gotten to none of them.
Catch Up on Company Emails
From new company press to the CEO’s weekly email, use the extra time in the day to read and process everything being sent out regarding the company. You might have good intentions to do it before you head out for the day, but you never quite get around to it so reading updates is a great way to use your commute time.
Hopefully, you’ll find these 12 tactics easy to incorporate into your virtual commute and beneficial for your productivity. With so many things changing in our world, creating your own kind of normalcy can be very therapeutic and grounding so we encourage you to create a morning routine that is rooted in success and growth.
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