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So for a lot of us, we’ve been working at home for what seems like a decade and if you’re anything like me, your concentration levels may be starting to fall off. Staying focused and productive or being pierced to be so is amongst the biggest fears we have about working from home and so finding tips and tools to help keep us concentrated as the day goes on will be incredibly important.
Investing in noise-canceling headphones, setting up a home office, using the Pomodoro technique, and taking regular breaks are amongst the best working from home concentration aids. Remote employees also find investing in pink salt lamps or using aromatherapy have also been found to have beneficial effects on their concentration levels.
So what are some tools you can invest in to stay focused? Are there other tips you should follow to help boost your concentration? Keep reading to find out more.
(Just a heads up a lot of people reading my blog are in the process of designing their own home office. If you want to save some of the painstaking time I did in designing my office, you can find my recommended products here)
What are some good concentration aids for people working from home?
Let’s start by talking about some tools you can invest in today that will help you out and keep you focused when working from home.
Noise-reducing headphones
Easily one of the best things you can invest in when working from home to help boost your concentration is to invest in a pair of noise-canceling headphones.
Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t see the hype around investing in noise-canceling headphones initially, after all, you play your music loud enough surely you won’t have any issue in focusing right?!
Wrong.
The truth of the matter is that working from home means that the amount of noise and distractions we face is huge with everything from your dog barking to your neighbor deciding to do housework.
Playing music like binaural beats can also help have an effect on your brainwaves allowing you to focus.
My recommendation for noise-canceling headphones has to be the Sony WH1000XM3 which not only has market-leading technology but is also one of the market leaders when it comes to noise-reducing tech. You can read up more about it here, Or check out what kind of binaural music I listen to below:
Invest in essential oils
Oils… really?
Essential oils are one of the oldest forms of therapy used for a variety of reasons.
Some oils such as lavender are known to have effects to help you fall asleep which can help quite a lot especially considering we remote workers don’t do too well with our sleep schedules.
Other oils such as lemongrass have been shown to actually help you stay focused and concentrated for longer periods of time so investing in something like an oil infuser or diffuser in your home office can help aid your battle to stay focused when working from home.
If you are interested in learning more about essential oils when you work from home check out this post.
Use a notepad
So I don’t know about you but for some reason writing down notes or posting reminders to yourself on your laptop or phone just isn’t the same as writing it down on a pad.
There is something satisfying about ticking off a paper to-do list giving you a sense of accomplishment.
Believe it or not, the science agrees with me on this one with some studies showing that students who wrote the information down on paper were able to concentrate more and did better in exams.
Writing also helps clear your mind, getting what was on your mind out on paper which helps free you up to focus on other parts of your workday.
A good option then would be something like a good old fashions Moleskine pad which you can grab on Amazon here.
Water Bottle
Most people need to drink around 2 liters of water per day to feel fresh and get the most out of their bodies. Sadly 43% of adults don’t drink enough water per day, a problem which is elevated further when working from home with a lot of us staring at a screen for hours on end.
If you are finding yourself really struggling to concentrate a good part of it could be due to the lack of water in your diet.
Try to ditch the sodas for a fresh cup of H20
The solution for this one has never been so simple and so I would definitely recommend investing in a heavy-duty 2-liter water bottle that alerts you to how much water you have drank per day.
My recommendation for this one has to be the Hydracoach which you can get on Amazon.
To read up more on how to drink water when working from home, check out my blog post on the topic here.
Pink salt lamp
So Himalayan pink salt lamps border a little bit on the mystical side with some scientists calling into question the actual benefits of these but I would be remiss to leave these out on a list of concentration aids.
The theory goes that the rock salt that the lamps are made out of having a number of health benefits such as cleaning the air quality around you or improving respiratory function.
Both of which can help massively in keeping you concentrated for longer. After all, if the place you work is stuff or doesn’t have a good flow of clean air, you are likely to get up when working more often.
My recommendation then for the pink salt lamp has to be the Himalayan Glow which you can get on Amazon here.
Sand timers
One of the things that I’m becoming a big fan of when working from home is game-ifying the process.
This basically means turning your day to day role into a game as a way of keeping it interesting.
For my role in sales, making a set number of calls per day is the way in which I keep things exciting but another tool I found to be quite useful is to invest in a one-hour sand timer.
This allows me to not only schedule my day into hourly chunks but also allows me to have fun in the process of watching the sand trickle away, making me want to work faster.
In terms of sand timers, I would recommend the Suliao one-hour sand timer which you can grab on Amazon.
Brain training games
Did you know that the 45 to 64 age group is the fastest-growing market when it comes to video games?
This is in part due to the links of games linked with cognitive training such as brain training as a way of keeping you focused.
Doing a little bit of mental training every day then can go a long way on your work from home journey to keep you focused and concentrated.
Whilst some video games are great options there are cheaper alternatives such as puzzle games
So now you know some great tools that can help you concentrate when working from home, what are some other tips you should follow to help keep you focused?
Schedule your day
Easily the biggest and easiest impact you can have on improving your concentration and staying motivated when working from home is to just schedule your day.
Taking the time to block out the tasks you need to accomplish and the amount of time it will take to do them gives you the ability to focus on the tasks at hand
Word of advice though guys, please ensure you schedule our break and take the time you need on them. If you don’t schedule a lunch break or breaks throughout the day it’s super easy to be left feeling frustrated.
So what is the best way to schedule your day?
Whilst a lot of people will try to sell you on fancy paid-for apps or books, I always found the best thing to do was to use google calendar which gives you the option to block out your day.
This works from a concentration standpoint as it will allow you to visualize exactly how much you have to accomplish per day, making your tasks more bite-size and easier to handle.
Stick to your regular work hours
This one took me a while to figure out.
When working from home we get into the habit of only wanting to work harder and longer to prove to management that we are not taking working from home for granted.
Sticking to your regular work hours is one of the most important things you can do to stay concentrated.
This is because we remote workers have the tendency to work longer and harder than our office-based counterparts, eating into our personal lives and ruining our focus.
For example, let’s say your normal work hours are 9-5 and on Monday you work 8-8. By Tuesday, your performance will be a lot more diminished and it will take a lot more time for you to get into the habit of work.
It’s no wonder then that your concentration levels might have gone out of the window.
If you are struggling to take breaks – feel free to check out this blog post I wrote talking all about taking breaks when you work from home.
Meal prep your food
On average, people spend about 61 minutes per day prepping their three meals.
This eats into your day and can have a huge impact on your concentration levels as you move away from your work to prep your food, so why not take this challenge out of the equation by making your food in advance
I just started dieting myself (working from home has made me pack on the pounds a little) so I like to prep all my food on a Sunday night for the weekdays.
Invest in storage boxes to store your food to keep them fresh.
If you’re struggling to find the room in your fridge one workaround would be investing in a mini-fridge or mini freezer which costs a lot less than buying a full-blown tank of a fridge.
Keep your pets and kids somewhere else
Did you know there are roughly 3 million remote workers who have pets?
Pets can be distracting enough even if you don’t work from home and throw kids into the mix, getting distracted, and not being able to concentrate is pretty much a way of life.
One of the best ways then to avoid the distractions that kids and pets bring is by keeping them outside of your office.
I’ve written an entire blog post talking all about how to stay focused when working from home with pets and with kids but keeping them in a different room is a sure-fire way to keep them focused.
Kids will be a little bit more tricker, especially if they are not at school or you have younger children.
If you can try to drop them off to a babysitter or guardian for a few hours for your important tasks, and then focus on your busy work like admin whilst they are present so you still get facetime in with them.
Avoid any personal calls
Working from home is a lonely road and I would never tell you to cut out any social interaction when working.
That being said if there is a big task you have that needs to be finished at your workplace, it might be time to turn your personal phones into airplane mode and stay focused on the task at hand in order to improve your concentration.
Okay, so what about the roles that require you to stay next to your phone or make a bunch of calls like sales or customer service?
Most phones have the option nowadays of blocking certain callers for a few hours, alternatively, speaking with your manager or HR team about giving you a work phone.
If you are making work calls from your personal phone your workplace should help contribute towards either with a new phone or specific VOIP or internal calling apps.
Use motivational posters
Another quick option to help boost your concentration when working from home is to put up motivational posters in your home office.
Studies have shown that these temporarily boost motivation and focus amongst those who see these types of posters.
That being said if the message is the same it does lose some of the effects so consider subscribing to an online newsletter that gives you a new motivational quote every day.
Do your chores later
One of the major benefits remote working has is the ability to do your chores during the workday when you have completed your tasks.
If you however find yourself getting distracted more often than not, doing your chores will often lead to longer periods of procrastination when it comes to work.
Instead, schedule your day to allow for times to do your chores.
To make this more interesting and not make chores feel like, well, chores, consider splitting your chores out every day so you have a different activity to keep you busy.
For example, I like to schedule doing the vacuuming on Monday, ironing on Tuesday, cleaning the bathroom on Wednesday etc. Doing this will make doing grunt work a little bit easier.
Figure out how to automate
There is a reason that Amazon is one of the most successful companies the world has ever seen – it’s learned the secret of automation.
Whilst automation has led to a lot of us viewing remote working as being the new normal, it also has its downsides with an estimated 20 million jobs being lost to automation by 2030.
Automation can definitely be a double-sided sword but if used correctly it can save you a bunch of time and help spend your precious hours on the most important tasks at hand.
I like to use the following as a way to break down my tasks:
| NOW
All the tasks which are critical to getting completed go into the now category |
LATER
Any tasks which fall into the latter category are the ones which don’t take too much of your time and you won’t get in trouble if you leave for a few hours |
| DELEGATE
If you are a manager, tasks you delegate are tasks that do not require your direct attention in order to be completed |
NEVER
Some tasks will not require you to respond back ever such as responding back to spam emails. They can fall into the never pile |
Get facetime in with your colleagues
Part of the reason you might be feeling so unmotivated and lack concentration is just a lack of human interaction or facetime.
Human beings are social creatures.
Working from home is an isolating place and not getting human interaction can have some very serious consequences such as depression, anxiety, or has even been linked to things like heart disease.
A quick way to get around this especially if you find yourself in lockdown is to just use facetime or video calls to get time in with your colleagues.
You can catch up about work or even get to know them better by doing things like weekly quizzes, heck why not even try to boost all of your concentration by using some of the concentration games we talked about before.
This should not only give you a break away from your work but you should come back feeling refreshed than before.
Use the Pomodoro technique
Long time readers of my blog know just how much I love this one.
Taking breaks is one of the easiest ways to keep focused, improve concentration, and away from distractions when working from home.
Whilst a lot of us think it’s possible to work 8 hours straight without any distractions, most people can only concentrate for about 2 hours and 53 minutes before the quality of their work starts to suffer.
If you’re honest with yourself you will probably find that you take fewer breaks at home than you do at work so getting away from your desk will help you come back feeling refreshed and recharged.
The best way to take a break would be to use the Pomodoro technique whereby you do the following:
Work for 25 minutes
Take a 5-minute break
Work for 25 minutes
Take a 5-minute break
Work for 25 minutes
Take a 30-minute break
Recycle until your workday is completed
It’s been scientifically proven that taking shorter, fewer breaks is more effective than taking longer breaks, or definitely give it a try.
For more help on the Pomodoro technique check out the video below or read up my blog posts on taking breaks when working from home here:
Have a dedicated place to work from
The elephant in the room and one of the things I talk about the most on this site.
If you find yourself working from sofa to sofa or even worse… from the bed, you might find yourself getting distracted more than most, which can ruin your motivation to work remotely.
Instead, invest in a room in your house or a corner in your apartment to have a dedicated office space setup.
Home offices can massively help with productivity, concentration, and help counter stress, keeping you motivated for longer.
Unsure what products to use? Check out my recommended gear page for a full list of items but I feel as though every office needs the following:
Standing desk (why not get some exercise in when you work from home)
Now color can also have a huge impact on motivation so consider a shade of green-blue which has been scientifically proven to be amongst the best colors to keep people motivates – you can read up more about this on my blog post or check out the infographic below:
It’s also worth mentioning that most people are unsure where to put their home offices.
If you have room for it, consider converting an old loft which can increase your property value by as much as 20% – again you can check out a post I’ve written on the topic here.
Set a clear boundary between work and home
This is a massive problem remote workers face and is one of the biggest factors that lead to a lack of concentration.
As discussed earlier, remote workers tend to work longer hours than their office-based counterparts, blurring the line between the workday and their personal time.
This can lead you to feelings of resentment towards your job, sapping your concentration, keeping you distracted throughout the day.
Instead set up a dedicated space to work and ensure you finish work when your workday would normally finish.
A great bit of advice I always learned was the work will always be there, but you will not be so sure to just do what you can in the time you’ve got and then move on and enjoy your evening.
Give yourself time to relax
When was the last time you really gave yourself time to relax and just enjoy the day?
Too many of us remote workers are nervous about putting time in our calendars to just do nothing and just switch off, like going for a massage or just staying in bed for longer than you might originally.
By scheduling this in as much as you would any work tasks gives you something to look forward to helping you improve your concentration when you go back to work.
For me I take a break every day between 4 pm and 5 pm which gives me time to just be present, speaking of which
Keep one hour just in case
A little trick I learned working from home is that you should give yourself an hour in case of emergencies when working from home.
Managers have a habit of putting in emergency meetings to check in on their colleagues when working from home and so keeping an extra hour free in case you take longer to complete your project or for any of these similar projects will give you time to not feel overworked which can help with your concentration in the long term.
Get out and exercise for 30 minutes
The human body needs at least 30 minutes of exercise every day or around (150 minutes every week) to stay healthy and yet most remote workers struggle to get even an hour’s worth of exercise per week.
Working out or going out for a run for 30 minutes every day will not only keep you active which has a host of benefits, but also allow you to get some fresh air, ensuring you come back feeling more refreshed and focused than you were when you left.
Mixing up both aerobic and anaerobic exercise at different intensities will give you the biggest benefit.
For me, going for a run during the lockdown has helped massively and downloading couch to 5k has helped me get back in touch with outdoor activity when the gyms are closed.
Keep a journal
So when I first came across the idea of journaling It was something I felt was a little bit new-age, I mean writing down how my day went, and talking about my feelings was something that I felt was a bit too hipsterish for me to give any real thought to.
That being said, starting putting this into action was quite a bit different.
If you have a problem, how do you know if it is persistent without checking in regularly on it?
Journaling allows you to keep a daily log of the days you have less concentration and can help notice patterns, for example, if you always feel more distracted on a Monday it could be because you’re not sleeping well on a Sunday night.
Tracking patterns and journaling can allow you to take a step back and focus on some of your pain points.
Make a note of what you get demotivated by
Similar to journaling you should make a list of everything you feel you get unmotivated by.
Human beings are different, and what might be demotivating for one person won’t be for another.
For example, it might be that having an hour-long meeting every day with your boss saps your energy for the day.
I know some people who can very easily work with the TV in the background, me? absolutely not.
Taking a week to write down everything that demotivated you and then tracking that will give you an idea of how to improve upon this.
Set yourself deadlines to be accountable
Anyone who has ever gone to college or university and had a big paper due knows how little work is done up until a few days before you need to hand it in.
The same goes with work, and so setting yourself deadlines even if they are only imposed by yourself will be critical to help improve your concentration.
The best way to do this I found is on a weekly basis, schedule out your most important tasks for the weekend then give them active time frames when they need to be completed.
A great book I read that helped me do this Eat That Frog by Brian Tracey which you can find out more about here.
“remote workers work 16.8 days more than there office based counterparts”
Do one task at a time
I don’t know about you, but multitasking and having 17 tabs open at the same time just makes me feel more overwhelmed than productive.
Human beings are notoriously bad at concentrating on more than one task at hand.
I know it might not seem like you’re getting a lot done but believe it or not, doing too much work at the same time can also distract you.
Instead, try to break your day up into tasks as opposed to doing multiple tasks at the same time and you’ll find yourself getting distracted less.
Eat fewer carbohydrates
Did you know that diet can affect your mood?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those carbophobes who think carbs are the enemy, but anyone who has eaten a huge lunch only to crash a few minutes later knows exactly how damaging eating carbs at certain times can be.
Aim to eat slow-release carbs like oats or whole grains instead of fast-release carbs like sugar during the day to keep your blood sugar level which should help stop you from feeling lethargic throughout the day, helping you to concentrate for longer.
Get dressed in the morning
Getting dressed during the day will help give you a sense of direction, focus, and purpose for your workday.
It is especially important when working from home.
Studies have shown that people who dress professionally or dress for their jobs live up to the qualities of their roles.
To find out more about this I’ve written a post which you can read more about here.
“Employees who get dressed in the morning have a higher sense of self-esteem and accomplishments than those who wear their bedclothes”
Leave your house
By the time it hits 5, too many of us home workers just feel like cozying up on the sofa avoiding the great outdoors.
This is especially true in the winter and what many of you might not know is that not getting the crucial vitamins into your system can lead to a number of health problems.
Seasonal affective disorder or SAD is a real thing and so it may just be that staying in the house during the winter months can be causing you to feel demotivated.
Aim then to leave your house for at least 15 minutes per day, you will come back home feeling more refreshed and ready to get on with the rest of your day.
This can help further add to you having a sense of accomplishment, which in turn will improve your ability to concentrate when working from home.
Get plenty of light in your room
This is a great tip for anyone who struggles to work and concentrate in the morning.
One of the best things you can do when working from home is to air out your rooms and try to get plenty of light in them.
Light causes the human body to want to stay awake and so aim to work from a room that either has a large window where you can get natural sunlight from.
Consider investing in LED light or lamps to really add brightness to your room and it should help you get on with your day.
Disable your social media
Social media is the bane of many of our lives with it being the single biggest factor contributing to why we are so distracted most of the time.
Using apps like Moment or App Detox are great ways to monitor your usage or even limit the amount of time that you are allowed to spend on these sites.
Start a side hustle
This might seem counter-intuitive in the first instance as giving yourself more work is going to make you concentrate less right?
The truth of the matter is that starting a side hustle was one of the best things I did when I first started working remotely as it allowed me to manage my work time more effectively.
This often allowed me to overcompensate in my day job helping me stay more focused.
Personally, I’m a huge fan of blogging (you can probably tell reading this right!) and definitely recommend Project 24 by Income School which talks you through the a-zs of making money online- it’s definitely my side hustle of choice.
“Starting an online side hustle can be a great option for people who do not want to build a physical business”
Be patient
If working from home is relatively new to you it’s going to an adjustment period until you have figured out how to avoid getting distracted. The best thing to do is not to panic, stay patient, and work on the task every day.
Doing 1 thing 1% better every day leads to huge changes over time so don’t beat yourself too much if you are struggling to stay focused.
Get 8 hours sleep
Sleep is one of the most important things we can do for mental performance when working from home and so not getting enough quality sleep will lead to feelings of frustration and distraction.
Turn off your phone and any UV light at least an hour before you go to sleep and give your brain the time it needs to relax.
Do the most difficult task first
One of the major blockers that stop us from being motivated when we work from home is the tasks that we have to do.
Let’s face it if there is a really long hard task in front of us that we need to complete, I know I’m guilty of pushing this to the next day to make my life easier.
The truth is accomplishing these difficult tasks is what motivates us to want to continue, giving us a sense of accomplishment that we’ve achieved what we needed to.
Aim then to do the most difficult task of your day first and you’ll find yourself more focused to continue on.
Invest in your creative side
When working from home one of the first things to go will be the time we spend for ourselves.
As such, one of the most important things you can do to help boost your concentration is to focus on your creative hobbies outside of work.
Doing creative tasks like painting, drawing heck even dancing ( although you’ll never catch me on a dancefloor) can help you to unwind and can get you passionate about something outside of work.
This passion will rub off onto every aspect of your life and help you to concentrate when you’re at home too.
Speak to your boss
Finally comes speaking to your boss.
While a lot of us are scared to do this if you are feeling demotivated or having a hard time concentrating when working from home, letting your boss know can be one of the best things.
This isn’t their first rodeo and it’s likely they have had to help out other colleagues in the past that have struggled with motivation when they work from home, heck, they are probably going through the same.
Doing this shows that you respect them and their opinion and is always a better option than saying nothing, watching your performance decline, and acting like everything is okay.
Aim to catch up with them for 30 minutes at least once per week and you should be good to go.
“Imagine if someone you were close to didn’t let you know if they were struggling, your manager will likely feel the same”
So hopefully these tips will help give you some ideas as to how to stay motivated when working remotely. That being said, there are a bunch of other FAQs that people have that I’ve given some quick-fire answers to below
What affects concentration when working from home?
Distractions such as the tv, social media family members, loud noises, or doing too many tasks at once are amongst the biggest causes for poor concentration when working from home. Not having a dedicated space to work is also a major factor causing people to struggle to achieve what they want when working remotely.
How many people struggle to concentrate when working remotely?
8% of remote workers struggle to focus on the tasks and concentrate when working from home. This is around 360,000 permanent remote workers. This is more than 6% of traditional office workers who struggle to concentrate when working from home.
Remote workers however do get distracted less overall wasting only 27 minutes as opposed to 37 minutes from traditional employees.
A lot of people reading my blog want to know what products I recommend for a home office/remote working. You can find out my recommendations here and learn how I make money whilst working remotely on the side here.
The content on this site was written by Fehed Nicass who has been working from home for the past ten years and has over ten years worth of experience in Sales.