In a matter of days, the majority of us had our workday completely turned upside down. If you’ve never worked from home, suddenly you are. If you do work from home, you may now have a full household due to school closures or a partner now working from home as well.
It can be jarring, but it’s time to reframe and refocus.
I reached out to three very successful entrepreneurs to ask how we all might stay productive under quarantine despite the chaos that is surrounding us. Here are their expert tips.
1. Work On Your ROI: Return On Impact
Jennifer Kem, brand futurist and business strategist, says, "Now is the time to work on your ROI — return on impact to increase your productivity.” Kem has three C’s she recommends to follow during this time to stay productive and keep the momentum going.
- Connection — In real life connection is on pause for 4-6 weeks, but that doesn’t mean you stop connecting. In fact, you must keep connecting, the internet and social media are your friend, USE IT ACTIVELY! Be strategic and find ways to create content your customer and core demographic needs and will engage with.
- Community — Serve your community first! They are feeling the pinch of this situation too and need your leadership. Things you can do to showcase empathy and care will help relieve pressure from them in a responsible way.
- Creativity — When there is less time to interact in person, there is more time reserved to finish the important things you’ve been putting off. Is there a program you can learn? A new system you can implement? A new skill you can master?
2. Get Your Tools Right
Amy Porterfield, online business and marketing expert says, “Having the right tools in your business can make all the difference - especially when times are turbulent or in transition. For my remote team, there are three tools that we absolutely cannot live without: Asana, Slack, and Zoom. Asana for project management and task tracking, Slack for our daily conversations and mini celebrations, and Zoom for high quality, reliable video conferencing - so that we can stay connected even through the distance. These, together with a mindset that is primed for productivity and positivity, lay the foundations for success.”
Tactically, this is so spot on. Leaning on software will be crucial during this time, so it’s important to pick out your stack of tools, learn them and start to leverage them to keep you productive. If you are feeling frazzled, set aside an hour to go through tutorials and videos to learn. That hour of focused learning will save you tons of hours later in lost productivity.
3. Mental And Emotional Health Must Be A Priority
Jim Kwik, world-renowned brain performance and accelerating learning expert, says, "WFH (Work From Home) has become the newest acronym to trend in popularity. Except working from home isn’t as easy as those three letters may imply. It takes disciplined focus under ordinary circumstances—and times are anything but ordinary. With the proper tools, we can kickstart productivity while lowering stress. Here’s three of our favorite tips to increase focus while working from home."
- Create A Structure - Our brain likes routine. It helps insulate our brain from decision fatigue and can provide comfort during times of uncertainty.
- Work Smart - In finding the solution to the work smarter not harder formula, the most important thing is to keep the most important thing the most important thing.
- Self-Care - During times of stress, taking care of ourselves becomes more important than ever. But self-care isn’t solely about eating healthy, drinking plenty of water, or getting daily exercise, though those are vital components. It also means taking care of our mental and emotional health.
If you’ve been tossed into a totally new situation (most of us have) in regards to what your work day looks like, take note of these tips. Over engage with your audience, learn a new skill, commit to learning the software that will do the heavy lifting for you, and take care of yourself.
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