How To Create Your Work From Home Schedule for Daily Productivity
By
Theodore Henderson
The Wisdom Man
Do you have a work from home schedule? Are you overwhelmed with the idea of becoming a work-from-home entrepreneur, business owner, freelancer, or remote worker? What has made your work from home schedule positive or negative?
My apologies for all the questions, but today more than ever, there’s a worldwide trend toward working from home. And this happens not just to the typical employee, but also to small business owners, and former entrepreneurs. Contrary to what some may think, the trend started well before the Covid-19 pandemic. I predict it will grow dramatically afterward.
You’ve taken a giant breath and decided to dive right into remote working. But how do you effectively run your business from home? The often-overlooked answer is a well thought out daily work from home schedule. This will be the foundation of your ultimate success working remotely.
In this article, we provide solid tips on how to create your remote daily schedule as a business owner. We’ll also show you a regular sample schedule you can use as a guide in designing your own approach.
Tips in Formulating Your Work From Home Schedule for Daily Remote Work
There are many strategies for typical employees to come up with the right daily schedule for remote work. And guess what – you can adopt these strategies too, even if you’re the big boss!
1. Have a “going to the office” mindset.
Treat each remote workday like you’re still going to the office. The comforts of being at home sometimes make this hard to do. However, there are a few things you can do to get your mind thinking “office” even while you’re at home:
Work in a room with an office-like setting, or set aside some dedicated space in a room, if possible. As a business owner, you probably already have some kind of room or space at home. Equip this area with a good computer setup, a reliable internet connection, and an ergonomic office chair. As a remote trainer and coach, I have a very specific multi-station set up in a dedicated space that gives me the working environment that I need.
Inform your family or friends about your working hours. This is to minimize interruptions while you work at home. Lots of breaks can become detrimental to your daily remote work schedule and mindset. It is your job to train the people around you when it comes to your working environment
A word of warning. Don’t let this office mindset eat you up completely. Lots of business owners throw themselves in and become workaholic due to this mindset. Balance is the key.
CONQUER DISTRACTION & DIGITAL ADDICTION
2. Decide your workdays and work hours.
Set your needed workday frequency. How many days in a week, and in what hours should you work?
You can continue with your typical 9 am-to-5 pm, 5 days a week work schedule if it’s feasible. If you need more flexibility, decide on a good time when your mind is clear and your productivity peaks. Also, take into account your team’s schedules and make sure it jives nicely with theirs.
As a business owner, it’s tempting to remotely work for hours on end. But you need to define time boundaries to efficiently tackle all your work-related tasks. And remember to keep your workday frequency realistic!
3. Don’t forget to take breaks!
Entrepreneurs like you typically have tons of workload. And it’s easy to get so tied up working that you forget to eat healthily, drink, exercise, and do other things. Remember that you do need breaks throughout your workday, even if you’re working from home!
Add in a lunch break and a shorter coffee break within your daily remote work schedule. Eat and wind down a bit during these times. Breaks are an excellent opportunity to crack work monotony and refresh your energy for the next tasks.
What The Numbers Say
- 75 percent of people who are remote workers report dramatically fewer distractions.
- Work from home or remote workers maybe 20 to 25 percent more productive than their in-office colleagues.
- Gallup research finds that workers who spend 60 percent to 80 percent of their time working remotely — or three to four days in a five-day workweek think this is an excellent mix.
- 90 percent of employees state that flexibility in their work schedules and in-office time contributes to their motivation.
Sample Work From Home Daily Schedule Business Owners Can Follow
Here’s a daily sample schedule for business owners doing remote work. Modify it to suit your needs, keeping in mind the tips we listed above:
- 6:00 am – Wake up
- 7:00 – 9:00 am – Do morning routines (e.g., meditation, shower, breakfast, exercise, etc.)
- 9:00 – 11:00 am – Check emails, make phone and video calls to clients
- 11:00 – 12:00 pm – Online team checks and meet-ups
- 12:00 – 1:00 pm – Lunch break
- 1:00 – 3:00 pm – Work-related tasks
- 3:00 – 3:30 pm – Coffee break
- 3:30 – 4:45 pm – Work-related tasks
- 4:45 – 5:00 pm – Office wrap-up, organize workspace, plan for tomorrow’s workday
- 5:00 pm – End of workday
- 5:01 pm – Live your life!!
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Let’s go deeper into creating our daily work from home schedules and boosting our productivity.
Tips in Creating a Weekly Work From Home Schedule for Business Owners
Here are some tried-and-tested productivity-boosting techniques you can apply in creating a weekly work schedule as a home-based business owner:
1. Do your activities by batches.
Batching is a well-known technique to streamline your schedule and keep your focus sharp. It’s merely grouping similar tasks and tackling them one after the other.
The main advantages of batching include the following:
- It sets your focus on related tasks on particular workdays – even before the actual day arrives.
- Steers you away from multitasking and ramps up your productivity.
Let’s illustrate batching with this example:
You need to do virtual meetings with clients and suppliers and check on developments for a new concept you wish to produce. You can do these activities by batches throughout the week. For instance:
- Monday – Online brainstorming session for a new concept with team members
- Tuesday – Virtual client meeting
- Wednesday – Suppliers online meeting
- Thursday – New concept design developments
- Friday – Virtual client meeting
Note how your mind is focused only on specific tasks per day. Indeed, batching your activities is a great way to create a more realistic weekly schedule for business owners.
2. Try a version of the Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule concept.
Tech investor Paul Grahams came up with the idea of two separate and incompatible schedule types. According to Graham, people can become a maker, a manager, or a hybrid mix of the two.
The Maker’s Schedule is designed for people who need to make whatever they need to do. Makers are typically engaged in tasks such as product building or problem-solving. As such, makers need a timeframe of half a day to an entire day to finish their assignments.
On the other hand, the Manager’s Schedule is intended for big bosses. Blocks of time are generally reserved for meetings, sales, and marketing tasks.
A lot of business owners likely fall somewhere in between a maker and a manager, classifying them as hybrids. Hence, the best way to use the Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule concept in a weekly schedule is to block off days into Maker Days and Manager’s Days.
For instance, you have a lot of managerial tasks to tick off your to-do list. But you still need to participate in new product development.
Your weekly sample schedule may look like this:
- Monday – Manager’s Day (client meetings)
- Tuesday – Maker Day (brainstorming sessions for new products)
- Wednesday – Manager’s Day (supplier meetings)
- Thursday – Maker Day (concept sketches and more brainstorming)
- Friday – Manager’s Day (checking in with your remote team, clients, and suppliers)
Notice how managerial tasks are grouped in certain days (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)? The same goes for maker tasks done during Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Excellent work from home schedule apps for either Android or iOS
- Slack. – An App for different kinds of teams, large or small to share tools and information.
- Dropbox. Considered the go-to app when you need to upload, transfer, and share files using the cloud.
- Google Calendar.
- Asana. Work anytime, from anywhere with Asana. Keep your remote and distributed teams, as well as the entire organization, focused on their goals, projects, and tasks.
- Toggl. A time tracker with reports that works across all your devices.
- Spark. An email client to organize your inbox working across iPhone, iPad, Mac and Android.
- Todoist. – A to-do list app to keep you organized across multiple areas.
- 7-Minute Workout. App that helps you do exactly what the name says.
And for heightened productivity.
- IOS Notes
- Google Docs
- Microsoft Office
- Evernote
- OneNote
Conclusion – Work From Home Schedule
In a nutshell, it’s not that easy to create an excellent weekly schedule for business owners. But it’s still possible! By combining the ingenious techniques of batching and Maker-Manager Schedules, you’ll be on your way to a smooth weekly work-from-home schedule as an entrepreneur.
Coming up with an excellent daily schedule for business owners seems like a huge undertaking. But with the right mindset, realistic goals, and avoiding work burnout, you can craft a schedule that fits your busy needs!
Creating realistic work-from-home schedules is among the hardest things to do if you’re a remote business owner. Addressing all the needed tasks in a week inside a physical office is indeed daunting. But what may be more challenging is trying to fo it working from the comforts of your home!
Don’t get discouraged. As you can see there are tips and tools to help you out!
In this post, we gave you some great tips and tools to efficiently craft your work-from-home daily and weekly schedule. Also, we weaved in samples of weekly remote work schedules to serve as your guide in making your own.
Lastly, we check out some of the tools we linked to in this article as they are very beneficial.
About The Author
Theodore Henderson works with business owners, entrepreneurs, and corporate professionals on their business skills, marketing, and leadership strategies. He is an Amazon best-selling author, a Certified Career Coach, Business Skills & Leadership Coach, and a Certified Social Media Security Professional Powered by CompTIA. Visit The Wisdom4Business Blog for the complimentary series on business startup and entrepreneurship.