8 Top Tips for Working from Home

28.9.22

Since 2020 more and more people have made the switch to working from home. Not only does this allow employees to strike a better balance between their work and personal life due to more flexible hours. But it also avoids unnecessary commuting that saves precious time and it can increase productivity, reduce distractions and increase the level of job satisfaction. However, working from home can also become a great challenge for those who have never done remote work, since it involves taking on new responsibilities and demands being able to efficiently self-manage. 

So if this is you, hopefully this post will help you, as I share 8 top tips to be productive while working from home! 

Set Office Hours

Although it may be tempting not to set the alarm clock, if you want to be productive you need to stick to a schedule. Since you will be working with other people and you will have to respond to emails, be present in the corporate chat or answer video calls, it is important that you adjust your workday to your company’s working hours. Setting office hours will also help protect your personal life and prevent teleworking from ending up consuming every minute of your day. 


Set up a Work-Only Space 

To work productively from home, the best thing to do is to separate work and leisure spaces. If you have an office, it will be easier for you to adapt and focus. It is important that you set up this space so that you feel comfortable. Remember that working in a pleasant and orderly environment will increase your productivity. If you can’t turn a room in your home into an office, at least make sure to use a desk. Avoid lying on the sofa and working because your productivity will plummet as your brain will immediately associate this space with leisure and rest, disconnecting from your work. 

Establish a Work Routine

Even if you have a home office, you should follow a routine similar to that which you’d follow if you were going to work. Don’t stay in your pyjamas all day. Getting ready and dressed as if you were going into the office will help your brain prepare to enter 'work mode'. Organise a routine like the one you followed in the office, such as planning short breaks and trying not to eat while sitting in front of the computer. These little breaks are very important because they will allow you to get back to work with even more energy and fresh ideas. Avoid doing housework during the office hours that you have set because you will lose your concentration and work rhythm.

Plan Priority Tasks

Working from home is not the same as being in the office, where project managers usually have tighter control over daily tasks to ensure that nothing important has been left undone. To be productive, you must become your own boss, which means learning to manage your time and self-regulating. Before starting to work, spend at least 10 minutes organising your day. Check what tasks you have pending and organise them according to their priority. Try to be objective and don’t plan out more tasks than you can do, because you will end becoming overwhelmed and frustrated.

Take Advantage of your Peaks in Productivity

Your energy levels, motivation and concentration will change throughout the day. When working remotely, it’s essential to know when these spikes in productivity occur, so that you can plan your schedule based on them. Most people are more productive in the morning, so it’s best to spend those hours on more complex projects that require more focus and energy. You can spend your less productive hours on tasks that are more repetitive or that require less mental effort, such as checking work emails or planning tomorrow’s tasks.


Avoid Technological Distractions

When you work at home no one controls what you do, so you can end up developing unproductive habits. To meet deadlines, you will have to impose strict discipline - avoid checking personal messages, browsing social networks or reading the news during work hours. Little tricks, like logging out of your accounts, can act as a deterrent and prevent you from logging in automatically. You can also use applications to block access to social networks while you’re working. And if you want to go one step further, there are applications like Strict Workflow that allow you to create a blacklist of websites that you won’t be able to access during the period of time that you specify.

Use Time Management Tools

If you’ve never worked from home, the first few days you may have a hard time staying focused on a task, or you may find yourself being less productive than you thought. In that case, time management applications can become your allies. Productivity applications, such as RescueTime or Harverst, will help you monitor the amount of time you dedicate to each task, so you can detect the black holes where the minutes seem to disappear into. You can also use timers like TomatoTimer to schedule blocks of time of maximum concentration with rest breaks.

Stay in Touch with your Co-Workers 

To work from home effectively, you must keep yourself informed about all the changes occurring in the company that may affect your projects. This means that you must keep in constant communication not only with your boss or the project co-ordinators, but with your closest co-workers as well. This contact will help you to better perform your duties, as well as to alleviate the loneliness and feeling of disconnection that you could end up experiencing when working from home.

Staying Productive with Children at Home

If you have children, working from home can be twice as challenging, as we all know they can be noisy and easily bored. Consider a daily schedule, realistic and adjusted to your needs. Remember that it’s better to work fewer hours, but without interruptions to get the most out of them, rather than getting frustrated because you need to stop what you’re doing to continuously look after your children.

A good option is to wake up earlier to take advantage of those hours when your children may still be sleeping. If they are already in school, you could consider signing them up to a breakfast and after school club, so that they can be enjoying themselves, and you can work more. Of course if needs be, technology and video games can also become your allies. Don’t feel guilty for allowing your children to use them while you work. If you live with other people, including siblings, parents or flatmates, it’s important that they respect your work schedule and don’t constantly interrupt you. Keep in mind that your brain takes an average of 23 minutes to re-focus and work at peak capacity after a distraction.

So just because you’re working from home doesn’t mean you’re available at home. Remember that working from home can be an excellent opportunity to develop new professional skills that could be very useful in the future, as well as demonstrating your commitment, worth and dedication to your company.

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This article has been written and provided by Liberty Insurance.

What Flooring is Best for your Home?

9.9.22

When it comes to style, elegance and reliability within your flooring design planning, luxury vinyl flooring is the product that ticks all of the boxes for satisfaction. The reasons why are plentiful - and so are the benefits. Here are just a few!


A Popular Choice
Popular in both homes and offices, luxury vinyl flooring has expanded from the UK to worldwide as the most popular flooring option available in today’s market. By utilising steps in innovation, beauty and versatility throughout their design, vinyl tiles took huge steps to become one of the most respected products on the entire flooring selection lines.

It's not just designed that this product excels at. Due to its durable layer structure including two PVC backing layers, the ranges available through planks and tiles provide various properties that protect against all types of threats to secure your space with unbeatable quality.

Cheaper Than Most

Whilst some vinyl flooring is more expensive than other brands, brands such as Distinctive flooring are the cost-effective option that provides all the best qualities. Keeping the floors at their maximum level of presentation requires a minimum of effort with a simple sweep and mop with a regular floor cleaner. No need to purchase expensive industry-leading chemicals to keep the vinyl looking like new.

Distinctive is also among the most child-friendly options available, offering safety and comfort for children to play and an easy clean surface for parents - meaning that maximum fun can happen with minimum accidents.

Incredibly Quiet

When it comes to noise reduction, luxury vinyl tiles and planks cover all intrusive sound. With soft underfoot protection deadening any noise levels at a higher rate than other alternatives, you won't be worried about waking anyone up at 3am if you require a late-night snack from your kitchen.

If you tend to move your room around a lot, refurnish after a few months or regularly practice your feng shui, the integrated safeguards in luxury vinyl flooring protect against stubborn scuffs and stains that can occur from furniture removal and incidents. This eliminates the use of surface treatments over time and with easily replaceable sections should any damage occur, you won't be disrupting your entire floor.

Adds Warmth

You can also keep a vinyl floor warm all year round due to its natural companionship to underfloor heating systems, a very popular method throughout the UK currently to save money on heating. No matter which room you look to implement you can be sure you won’t be left in a cold spot, even if you choose stone replicating tile.

By choosing flooring such as grey oak flooring, you choose incredible quality, security, satisfaction, and design with ranges to suit every type of homeowner and taste. It’s no real surprise that it has perfected upon perfection, providing endless consistency to developing homes and increasing the look and feel of luxury vinyl tile standards for years to come.

This is a collaborative post.

Is Luxury Vinyl is the Best Flooring for your Kitchen

From cooking food to washing clothes, the kitchen requires a flooring option that can withstand heavy foot traffic throughout the day - whilst still managing to look great whilst doing so. This is one of the main reasons why everyone looks to luxury vinyl flooring as the solution is simple. It doesn’t compromise on the style whilst taking on the demands of the kitchen. Here's just a few more reasons why luxury vinyl flooring is the best choice to make.


Adds Warmth

Whilst many homeowners feel the desire to opt for real wood or stone flooring throughout the kitchen, authenticity is truly in the eye of the beholder. Real hardwood and stone are generally considered cold underfoot and susceptible to fading and discolouration when direct sunlight hits them every day. Where luxury vinyl such as Invictus flooring gains a big advantage, not just in its cost-effective pricing, but in its ability to fully replicate the real thing and be softer and warmer underfoot.

Invictus is manufactured to stay at a well-regulated temperature and is also the perfect cover for underfloor heating systems, giving a little extra warmth on colder nights.

Easy to Clean

Among the best qualities, luxury vinyl brings to the table is its ease of keeping clean - a godsend where the kitchen is involved. No matter if it is dirt from the outside or sauce spills from your cooking, your cleaning will be the easiest job you have. Real hardwood and stone will typically retain lasting signs of tough stains and require expensive cleaning solutions to fade them out, whereas luxury vinyl flooring requires little more than simple soapy water and a mop to retain its impressive look! 

Simple vacuuming and sweeping can also help to keep the floor in its original intended look, and you won’t be shilling out extra money on special cleaning chemicals either.

Plenty of Selections

The quality of designs and colours available through the range is definitely among the most popular and inspiring choices on the market. With full practical functionality comes the requirement for versatility in design. You can find plenty of unique designs through real hardwoods to slates complete with stunning finishes, rich tone and the ability to mix and match to give people an insight into your kitchen creativity.

Designed to Last

With luxury vinyl flooring, you are provided with the ultimate product to ensure the long life it deserves.  Bringing new meaning to the term hardwearing, Invictus, such as grey parquet flooring, presents a warranty that spans decades - a true testament to the confidence in withstanding heavy foot traffic over time. This warranty is among the longest terms available in the marketplace and reinforces why luxury vinyl flooring is the best you can find for your kitchen.

The is a collaborative post.

Makeup Trends you Need to try this Autumn

3.9.22

With Summer over and Autumn just around the corner, it's a perfect time to start looking in to, and embracing, the new and current trends. Experimenting with makeup is one of the easiest ways to refresh your look for the season ahead! Thankfully, many makeup tutorials are now accessible online, which means you can confidently wear some of the latest looks. Here's just a few you need to try this season.


Eyes

Graphic eyeliner looks are super modern and almost futuristic. Why not try experimenting with some quirky graphic liner looks? If you’re intimidated by the thought, you can create the look even as a novice makeup lover if you have the right tools. Invest in a thin brush and a pot gel liner, or just have fun with creamy, easy-to-use pencils. When making the shape, don’t be afraid to elongate its silhouette and always go upward to give a lifting effect to the eye. 

Smudged eyeliner is another trend and gives a more edgy, smoky look. All you need to do is apply brown or black eye shadow on top of your eyeliner and blend it with a small brush to create soft edges. Many makeup artists are embracing softer, sootier lines, and the worn-in look is easy to achieve yourself because you don’t have to be too precise. achieve.

Sometimes eyelash extensions can make all the difference to your look. Try a pair of soft, fluttery lashes with smudged eyeliner on the top lid. Look for Lilac St, Ardell or Mac for the best-in-class lashes. You can easily apply the best lash extensions at home in about 10 minutes for a week of wear. You don’t even need to wear any mascara as you choose to do so when you wear eyelash extensions to enhance your natural lashes!

Brows

Brows are still a strong focal point. Bleached brows are popular, but they aren’t for the faint of heart. Playing around with the structure of the brows is a modern trend, but you don’t have to do something dramatic to your brows to be current. Try blocking out eyebrows instead by using a glue stick, setting powder and concealer.

The tide also seems to be turning against the ultra-laminated brow, and brows are becoming more natural-looking. They look more effortless and full than brows that are full of product or overly groomed. Use a brow pencil to fill in any sparse spots and lightly draw lines that look like hairs.

Embellishments

Everyone’s current obsession, Euphoria, is bringing gemstone embellishments into the spotlight again. Many celebrities are rocking this trend already, and it is only likely to grow in popularity in the colder months. Many facial embellishments like gemstones and pearls have been seen on the runways. To make placing appliqués easier and quicker, you can first create your design using liquid eyeliner.

You can easily create a subtle sparkle with delicate clusters of sky blue or light pink crystals or use a few strategically placed accents for a more dramatic look. The trend of using facial embellishments is a throwback to the Y2K era, and definitely a fun one to embrace!

This is a collaborative post.