I prefer to work from home as I have never been a fan of the commute. Though the office does have advantages, that initial drive in and the return journey always seemed to be a high cost for the reward of socialising with co-workers. However, after a several years of on/off working from home (especially during the pandemic), I still have issues in “starting” to work. That period where I sit down in the morning and make the leap from using my computer to working at my computer has always been a grey area. A time when I intend to work but somehow get distracted by a news article or some amazon product that I am meaning to purchase. This tends to make the morning an odd time where my coffee has kicked in but I am not focused on the work rather I am a very productive consumer. 😃
A former co-worker usually worked from home and also found it tricky to get into a working mode. His solution was to have a strict morning routine that would be the same as if he was going to an office i.e. putting on his shirt and tie, packing his suitcase with lunch, etc. He would then enter his home office and force himself to work. After enough effort, he eventually found it easier to work from home as long as he kept to this routine. Personally, although I am a fan of routine, I find this approach a little strict and have tried to develop my own method of making that initial leap into the working day.
In that endevour, I have discovered that the use of a musical “prompt” to be quite effective. Rather than focus on creating a routine, I play a YouTube clip to start my working day:
Most people will recognise the tune and its strong association with racing. In fact, this association along with the tempo and rhythm of the music make it quite motivating to “do something”. As such, I find it quite a good signal to start the working day. In doing so, I have found myself shortening that grey working transition down to an acceptable level.
During the day, I also try to use some background music to help encourage me though this is typically more ambience-based music. It does not always work, though for the effort it takes (a few seconds) it does work better than most other methods I have tried. In addition, being a music “prompt” it can be used pretty much anywhere (i.e. even back in the office) which gives is a strong advantage over a location based routine.
So, if you are working from home (or on the road) and are having a little trouble in starting the working day, give it a go and see if you are “off to the races” and chasing those productivity gains. 😃
Please note, if the music linked above is not suitable you can choose any sort of music to be your “prompt”. I would just suggest that it be music which is positive & upbeat.
The featured image was created by AI, content written by myself with an AI assisted title.
