How To Stay Motivated Working From Home

You’re here because you need to know how to stay motivated working from home. 

Well, you’ve come to the right place. 

This post will walk you through the steps you can take in order to stay motivated and get more work done whilst working from home. 

Let’s jump straight into it! 

Start your day, the day before 

Prepare your to-do list

Before you pack away for the day, make the last task on your to-do list to write out the most important tasks you need to get done the next day. 

I’m quite old fashioned when it comes to doing this as I write my list in my Oxford campus notebook and my BIC 4 colour pen!

But if you prefer, you can add this to your online to-do list. 

Getting into the habit of doing this will allow you to start thinking about what you need to get done the next day. 

It will also help you to start prioritising the most important tasks.

This will inform the order in which you complete the tasks the next day. 

When you wake up the next day knowing that you have a clear list of tasks to complete will help you to stay on track. You’ll also feel more motivated to get it done. 

Get a good night of sleep 

I can’t stress enough how important it is to get a good night of sleep when working from home. 

When I first started working from home I would find myself feeling exhausted by lunchtime. The thing with working from home is that there’s nothing stopping you from taking a nap. 

The problem I found was that when I felt tired around lunchtime, I would take a nap that would sometimes last up to 2 hours! 

When I’d finally wake up I’d feel like I wasted a big chunk of the day and would feel demotivated. 

It wasn’t practical or helpful for my productivity so I had to work out ways to improve my sleep hygiene. 

The first thing I did was to get blackout blinds. A darker environment is more inducive of sleep. 

I also got this Lumie alarm clock that wakes me up by getting brighter over the course of 30 minutes. This helped me to wake up feeling much more refreshed compared to the alarm on my phone. 

Once I started getting higher quality sleep, I was able to feel more awake and motivated during the day. 

Start the day right 

Now most people will say “wake up early in the morning” 

When I say start the day right, this will be different for everyone. 

For example, if you are a morning person and you feel very motivated and productive early in the morning, start your day early. 

I’m not a morning person by any stretch of the imagination! So I usually wake up later.

One way to know whether you should wake up super early or super late is to work out what your chronotype is. 

You can take a chronotype for free online and it will help you to understand what time of the day you’ll be more motivated to get the majority of your work done. 

My chronotype is wolf. I have a hard time waking up early in the morning and feel extremely energised in the evenings. 

Therefore, my working hours start later in the morning and finish later in the evening. 

Regardless of what time you wake up in the morning, make sure that you take the time to perform your morning ritual. 

Again, this will look different for everyone. 

Generally, this will involve eating a healthy breakfast and getting dressed for the day.

Create an awesome workspace 

If you’ve been working from your sofa or bed, and haven’t been feeling motivated to work from home, I’m not surprised! 

Whilst you should feel comfortable whilst working, if you make yourself too comfortable, you’ll be more likely to want to sleep rather than work. 

Once I had created my home office space, I felt much more motivated to work!

I started to associate my desk with feeling great about getting lots of work done! 

Staying productive will really help you to stay motivated when working from home. I find that the more I get done, the more I want to get done. 

Eliminate all potential distractions 

The times that you stop working should be intentional. 

By that I mean any time you stop working, it should be due to taking a scheduled break or finishing for the day. 

When you get interrupted, it can be difficult to find your flow again.

When working from home, it is important to let your family members know when you’ll be available. 

The next time you are working from home, write down a list of all the things that distract you you interrupt your work. Then work out solutions to prevent this from happening again. 

Once you’ve implemented these changes you’ll be more motivated and stay motivated working from home. 

If you find working from home to be too distracting, you might want to consider working from a local coffee shop or from a coworking space a few days a week. 

Use the time you save wisely

One of the benefits of working from home is that you get to avoid the morning commute. 

However, use this time wisely to help to increase your motivation level.

One way to do this is to do some exercise. This might involve going to the gym, going for a run or exercising at home. 

Know when to stop 

As a freelance writer, I sometimes find myself working well into the early hours of the morning. 

I definitely wouldn’t recommend doing this. 

Boundaries and balance are two things to really respect when you are working from home. 

Once you’ve completed the things on your to-do list for the day, go and do something completely different for a while. 

Knowing how to stay motivated working from home

When it comes to motivation, we are all motivated by different things.

Push motivation is when individuals force themselves to behave in a certain way or take actions to achieve a goal.

Pull motivation is when an individuals behaviour is influenced by feeling drawn towards achieving a goal.

As a freelancer, the source of your motivation is probably a combination of push and pull factors.

Youll push yourself to get excellent results for your clients and be drawn towards working on tasks that you love.

Tap into these sources of self-motivation, try out some of the tips mentioned here and work out what works well for you.