Working remotely has become the new normal for many of us over the past few years. While the home environment can be both a sanctuary and a productivity hub, it can also blur the boundaries between work and personal life, leading to burnout. To help you maintain a healthy balance and boost your productivity, here are some essential tips.

Clear, Achievable Daily Goals

It can be hard to gauge whether you’re being productive or not when you’re all by yourself in your room, especially if you don’t have a daily meeting with your team. It becomes much easier to tell when you set a specific goal for yourself every day. Sometimes, we have to do link building, sales, and podcast outreach, and then write content at the same time—plus whatever extra tasks are added for the week. Oh, and also help with our support chat.

Needless to say, trying to do it all at once is difficult—and the constant emails and support messages always whip you right out of your focus mode. We’re sure some of you reading this will relate. So, when you notice your work getting a bit too chaotic to handle, give yourself a couple of extra hours per day. Meaning that whatever you’re planning to achieve that day should be done in 6-7 hours instead of 8 (if you work 8, of course).

For example, the only “big” task for our outreach specialist is to send 50 podcast pitches. This only takes 3-4 hours, but Mondays are super busy both on support and emails—so add at least two extra hours for checking emails and reserve another hour just for the support. On average, that gives them 7 hours to do everything—and still have another “chill” hour to work on some extra tasks or maybe relax and start writing a new piece of content. Not only are they being productive, it makes them feel productive, too—and how you feel is super important for staying on top of your tasks. And you will, too!

Don’t Be Afraid to Change Up Your Schedule

When working remotely, you’re not bound to specific times or locations—unless you have an agreement with your team. So, there’s absolutely no need to confine yourself to just 9-5 every day, just like at your old office. What we like to do is start work at around 10am and work until roughly 8pm with a couple of breaks blocked in between. Bonus points if you split your workday into two or more separate tasks.

Get up a couple of hours before work, do something you like (go ride a bike, maybe play some video games, etc.), and then start the workday. NOT starting your workday with actual work is such an underrated way to deal with burnout. Somewhere halfway through the day, take a break for something else—food, going to the store, or just rest—and go back to work an hour or two later. This way, it feels like you’re working two 4-hour days instead of a big 8-hour one. And you have a couple of hours before work.

Okay, sometimes you just feel like you really need to sleep in. Then start work later, or do the whole thing in 8 hours and have a long evening off! Additionally, we like to do most of our tasks earlier in the week, so a 10-hour Monday turns into a more chillaxed Friday. It may sound cliché, but breaks and flexibility really are the best way to stay productive and not lose focus towards the end of the day—at least for us.

Mental & Physical Health

Don’t make the mistake of neglecting your own personal well-being for way too long. Some exercise goes a long way in keeping your mind sharp—especially if you’re struggling with going to sleep and getting back up on time. And mentally, if you’re not doing well and haven’t tried getting help, we highly recommend it. It’s hard, yes, and the psychiatrists rarely say things you’re going to like, but in the end, they’re right and are just trying to help.

You may not agree with them in the moment of hearing whatever advice they have for you, but over time, keeping that thought in the back of your mind has its merits—and eventually, you’ll come to the conclusions—and actions—needed to improve your life. Tangent over :)

Related Post: Tips for Minimizing Distractions in Your Browser

Dedicated Workspace

A nice dual monitor setup can make all the difference in the world for multitasking. Or, maybe, a special table on the balcony where you can comfortably sip on your morning brew and get some vitamin D at the same time. A place that’s made specifically for work (preferably different than your “rest” PC—IT guys will understand!) also makes it much easier to focus. More importantly, it creates a more defined separation between your work and your home. And that’s important.

Tired? Don’t Force It

Sometimes, you just don’t feel like working. It’s okay—we all do. While we don’t encourage you to call your boss and ask for extra days off on a whim (unless you really, really need one, of course), sometimes not pushing yourself to work is the way to get your productivity back.

This ties into tip #3—if you’re not in a working mood at the start of your day, just give yourself a couple more hours off. Do something you like—whatever it is. Allowing yourself to be tired is part of being human. Realizing that and giving yourself extra time to recharge can be rewarding. It feels even more rewarding to still do all your tasks that day, even though just a few hours ago, you were contemplating quitting the job altogether.

Throw Away Your Phone

For us, the biggest distraction from work is our phones—and social apps open on our computers. It sneaks up on you—especially when you pick it up to read a single message that turns out to be a YouTube Short meme a friend sent to you. And then you “accidentally” (or, more likely, reflexively) scroll down. And then again. And again. And 30 minutes later, you snap out of it. Of course, we don’t mean literally throwing your phone in the bin. Just close non-work social apps on your computer and put your phone somewhere you’d have to stand up to get it.

That way, with the extra step, you have to make the conscious decision to grab the phone and get distracted. It also makes blocking in breaks much easier. For example, take a 10-minute scroll session every couple of hours, and you’ll find it much easier to stay focused—and have more “recharging” breaks when you take them.

Use Productivity Tools

Where would we be without the blessing of our silicon computer chip god? Still using the old pen and paper, probably. Admittedly—a notebook is a great way to keep track of your tasks and visualize the amount of work you’ve done. But you don’t have to be so old-fashioned. Especially with so many productivity tools available.

You’re probably already using some like Asana, Slack, or Jira. But you kinda have to juggle them around in separate tabs—so why not put them into one place and eliminate one extra action (switching tabs)? Try Shift—a browser designed to increase productivity by consolidating various email accounts, apps, and workflow tools into a single, unified interface. Shop, stream, work, and stay connected without the hassle of switching and logging in between accounts. Built with your browsing behaviors in mind, Shift ensures everything you need is just a click away.

Speaking of emails—checking those is one of the biggest time sinks and sources of distractions we have to deal with daily. We highly recommend checking out Respona if you’re an outreach specialist, have one on the team, or have to do cold outreach for any purpose at all. It cuts down the time required for prospecting, finding contact information, and personalization by potentially over 90%—and might just be a lifesaver for your link-building campaigns!

Related Post: The Productivity Killer: How Bad Email Habits Are Sabotaging Your Success

Wrapping Up

We know some of the tips in this article can be a bit vanilla, but a few of our team members have personally rejected many of them for too long. Having tried them, we can say with certainty that our productivity and overall mental well-being have improved by at least 2X. I hope this post helped you rediscover your work crusher mode!