Working from home can be challenging at the best of times, but having to do it for long periods can make it hard to stay Motivated and Sane.

Here are TEN Essential Tips to Help You Stay Sane and Motivated Working from Home.

Note if things do slip, don’t beat yourself up about it, rather remember that the only constant thing in this world is change. So whenever you start to feel a little overwhelmed just say to yourself ‘this to will pass’.

Tip #1 – Practice Good Self-Care

We are living in unprecedented times. With most of us having experience some variation of lock down, being stuck in our homes. This can be stressful and scary and that is why it is particularly important to practice good self-care.

Now as an social entrepreneur you might be use to working from home. However with lock down, you might find yourself having to share your space with family members, wife/husband/children or if you are living on your own not being able to pop out for that physical social connection can be tough.

It’s important to meet your physical, social and emotional needs right now. Eating right, exercise, plenty of rest, and some good care strategies, interwoven with some fun will help to keep you sane and motivated during lock down.

Some good care strategies to manage your emotional state could include meditation (we provide a powerful free co-vid 19 relaxation meditation in our Free Resources section for reducing anxiety, stress and worries), affirmations, yoga, dancing and a relaxing hot bath.

Tip #2 – Make a Schedule

Regardless of your personality type, whether you like to plan or not, having a schedule is particularly important when working from home.

Even though as your own boss you can set your own hours, having a daily schedule helps you to stay organised and be more productive. It also reminds you to have those much needed breaks to keep recharged which is so crucial during this tough time, otherwise time can really get away from you.

There are a number of great time tracking software that can help you monitor your time and help you stick to your daily schedule.

Another good strategy is to make a list. Not only does it keep you on track, it also gives you that sense of satisfaction and achievement as you cross tasks off your list.

In terms of prioritising your list, some people look for the number one thing that will have the greatest impact on your desired results, while others choose to get the least desirable tasks done first. There are no right or wrong ways to do it, just whatever works best for you.

Some people work best by segmenting their time into small chunks, like 10/15 min time intervals followed by a 5 min break and so forth. Planning your work schedule into small amounts of time, may help the big tasks feel more manageable. If you have lots of smaller repetitive tasks then telling yourself that you need to complete one in the next 15 minutes, as opposed to 40 by lunchtime may seem less daunting.

Scheduling your time can also hold you more accountable. As having set tasks and goals, together with set timeframes forces you to keep up your momentum and focus. Just think about your work like a football match, without a goal there would be no runs on the board. It makes monitoring your progress rather difficult as well if there are no milestones or bench marks.

Here’s a brief outline of Claudette’s daily schedule.

Upon waking she meditates, followed by some sort of exercise. She then grabs herself a cup of green tea and her protein shake before resuming her business day.

First up, she checks what’s on her agenda for the day, using Trello before reading her emails. Your schedule of course could be monitored through Google Calendars or simply the old fashion note pad. 

Claudette then breaks up her day with regular small breaks and a lunchbreak. As mentioned above there are some great apps out in the market place to ensure regular breaks and to monitor how long you’ve been sitting in front of your computer for.

At the end of the day she creates a rough outline of the tasks (both professional and personal) she wants to get through the following day.

Tip #3 – Keep Your Body Moving

It is very easy to become a couch potato (maybe without watching the t.v. part) when working from home. This has never been more true in lock down.

Not only can this be detrimental to your health and well-being, it without a doubt can affect your motivation and discipline.

So for physical and mental well-being we would encourage you to do some sort of exercise to keep that body moving. This could be going outside for a walk or some sort of yoga, or even throwing some music on for a quick boogie does the trick of recharging those batteries. 

Keeping the body moving and the blood flowing, can help clear your mind, boost your energy and confidence levels, it can make you feel good and has the added benefit of making you look good too. All of these things support performance and productivity.

If you need extra support with training, a lot of gyms (like Les Mills), yoga and pilate teachers offer online classes. Of course there are also hundreds of free workout training videos on Youtube. Some of our favourites include Yoga with Adriene and the 4 min workout with Dr. Zach Bush https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwJCJToQmps&feature=share .

My sister and I like to start the day with some form of exercise but having things scattered throughout your day can work well too. Particularly if you’re about to drift off to sleep in the middle of the day or find yourself getting tired, get up and do Dr. Bush’s 4 min workout or just a few gentle stretching exercises can do wonders to restore your energy levels.

Tip #4 – Establish a Dedicated Workspace

Don’t be tempted to lie around in your pyjamas working from your bed. It might be just too tempting to dose off for those nana naps. Not to mention, it’s not great for your posture.

When you associate your bed with work, it can interfere with your sleep. And trouble sleeping will affect your performance the following day.

Creating an establish dedicated workspace is once again creating a good success habit. So that your brain associates you sitting at your desk or kitchen table with worktime.

This is even more important during lock down when you might have to share your space with family members or flat mates. This way it is clear to everyone that when you are in that spot you are not to be distracted or disturbed unnecessarily.

Tip #5 – Earn Rewards

We all go through moments of feeling unmotivated. Struggling to start that task that you don’t really want to do, whether you know it’s going to be hard, boring or maybe you just feel tired, drumming up the necessary motivation can be tough. This is where incentives or rewards can come into play.

Let’s face it we all like to be acknowledged for our achievements. Not only do they provide physical incentives, they also help mentally, as they release the feel good hormones, serotonin, like when you eat chocolate.

At the office, you might have gotten feedback from work colleagues or your boss but as a social entrepreneur working from home, you have to look to yourself for your own rewards.

You might find having a little incentive waiting for you at the end of a task the motivation you need to get that task finished and keep productivity up. For example, you might say as soon as I finish this blog post/report/facebook ad… I’m going to… reward myself with a cup of tea and a snack/allow myself to watch one episode of my favourite t.v. show (although if you have a tendency to binge watch, perhaps stay clear of t.v. watching during the day)/play a game on my phone/catch up on my personal social media accounts/read a chapter of my book/have a good old chin wag with a friend. If it’s at the end of the day you might even reward yourself with a relaxing soak in the bath, or a glass of vino.

Tip #6 – Go Outside

Being confined to your house or apartment may start to feel like you’re a prisoner in your own home. Take a walk outside, connect with nature, take in some fresh air into your lungs and get some sun!

Sunshine is so important for vitamin D and mental well-being. Oxygen is crucial for optimal brain function, energy and helping you to stay centred and calm.

If you live by sea, lakes, waterfalls or rainforests, take in the opportunity to breath in some fresh air, abundant in negative ions. Despite its name, negative ions are actually incredibly good for you. They help with respiratory conditions, they boost serotonin levels in the body, the happy hormone and they also neutralize some of the electromagnetic interference we get from all our tech. Note you can also create this effect with salt lamps.

Tip #7 – Surround Yourself with Motivating People

Another way to get out of the house, without physically leaving your house for that injection of motivation and sanity, is joining online networking groups, such as Facebook communities or online mastermind groups.

It’s important to surround yourself with like-minded people, for support, motivation and inspiration. Other social entrepreneurs who want to create wealth and success in their lives and who what to make a difference in the world. People who you can communicate with to bounce ideas off.

Alternatively, find yourself an accountability buddy to have daily zoom calls with, this could be a friend, family member and of course a business partner.

As American entrepreneur John Rohn said, “You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” 

So choose your company wisely, even if that means removing toxic relationships out of your life.

Tip #8 –Have Inspirational Mini Mindset Breaks

Having the right mindset is essential for being able to have the discipline to stay on track and to reach your GOALS with ease and grace. Now more than ever, having the right mindset is so important to help you navigate any extra feelings of isolation, anxiety or stress that COVID-19 can bring.  

How do you boost your Success Mindset?

One way is to surround yourself with inspiration. This could be through a vision board, or through placing post it notes with inspirational quotes around your house. Particularly where you will most likely see them, like on your computer screen or your fridge door. Alternatively you can sign up to our daily inspirational quotes on our free resources page and have them delivered on a daily basis to your inbox.

Another way to boost your Success Mindset is to listen to affirmations (you can find some free affirmations on our  Youtube channel). If you find the talking distracting, you can just listen to the subliminal versions. A quick guided meditation can also be very powerful for putting you back in the right frame of mind (you can find a Free COVID-19 Relaxation Meditation to reduce Anxiety, Stress and Worries on our Free Resources page on our Website).

Tip #9 –Minimise Distractions

The internet is an amazing tool, but it can also be one of our biggest distractions. It is quite common to become addicted to our social media pages and to checking our emails every few minutes. Our level of concentration as a result has significantly dropped to below that of gold fish. I’m not joking -latest research shows that the average attention span is around 6 seconds. So don’t feel bad if this resonates with you. Haha.

What we suggest is putting your phone on silent and turning off your email and social media notifications. And, make use of internet blockers like Antisocial, Cold Turkey, FocusMe, and Rescue Time stop getting distracted and improve your productivity.

Other forms of distraction could come in the shape of interruptions from family members, children and flat mates, particularly during lock down.

This is where establishing some clear ground rules are helpful. If you have children in the house, setting out tasks for them to do, to keep them occupant to reduce unnecessary interruptions is a must. Don’t forget to give them rewards and incentives for filling their part of the bargain.

Other distractions could be laundry, cleaning the house and other domestic chores, day time TV, the list is endless and this is where your SCHEDULE comes into its own.

Tip #10 –Find Your ‘Why’

Our last tip to help You to Stay motivated and sane working from home, particularly during COVID- 19 is to find your reason WHY.

The reason why you have become a social entrepreneur. What’s your purpose, what’s your passion, what’s your values. How do these give you the drive to keep going. A lot of social entrepreneurs want to make a difference in the world, they want to have the freedom to live life on their own terms, they might want to leave a legacy for their children or grandchildren, they don’t want to be trapped in a meaningless 9-5 grind, they want to be have financial freedom.

Get really clear about your WHY. As Dean Graziosi stated in his book ‘Millionaire Success Habits’ the magic number is SEVEN, that is, you need to go seven times deeper to find your inner WHY. 

Knowing your WHY keeps you moving forward and keeps you going in the tough times. It builds your commitment and resilience which are critical to long term SUCCESS.

Keeping Production Levels High

Working from home may sound like the easier route, but it comes with its own challenges that can be hard to overcome. By following these Top 10 Tips however, we hope keeping your head in the game, and finding the motivation to work past them, is made that much easier. 

Like anything, do them enough times and they become a habit. In time, you’ll find yourself working more efficiently than ever. The ongoing pandemic might have disrupted our plans and work habits, but like all good entrepreneurs, some of the best opportunities arise from our greatest challenges.