Working from your own home office has many advantages: you can work at your own pace without a boss breathing down your neck; you can stay in your pyjamas for as long as you want and don’t have to rush your coffee and breakfast; you can design your workspace the way you want without having to abide by company protocol, and you can even sit in a cross-legged position while working – who’s going to stop you? Yes, there are many perks to the home-office, but working from home also has its disadvantages. Without a team or a boss around to motivate you, it is easy to start slacking when you’re lacking the drive. Plus, with so many distractions around – household, pets, kids, social media – it can be difficult to stay focused. Here are three tips to help you increase your productivity at your home office.

Organize Your Workspace

Before you sit down to do your work every morning, take half an hour to organize your office and any other part of the house that may feel cluttered and could potentially distract you. There’s nothing worse than trying to complete a deadline when you have a pile of dirty dishes staring back at you or when moving one item on your desk could inspire a whole avalanche of disorder to fall from the other side of it. So, set yourself up for success: declutter your desk every morning and have a little speed-clean through the house before you sit down to work to minimalize distractions. A tidy office will help you stay focused on the tasks at hand.

Block the Enemy

We all need a cheeky break during our work hours and there’s nothing wrong with logging into Facebook or Instagram a couple of times a day for a quick browse. But let’s be honest – how fast can a “quick browse” turn into an hour wasted looking at funny memes and videos or chatting to that one friend you haven’t connected with in years? It’s easy to tell yourself to limit your social media time during office hours, but much harder to implement. Fortunately, there are great apps and google extensions that will do it for you by restricting your time spent on social media, especially during working hours. Social media is productivity’s worst enemy – block it!

Ditch the PJs

Ah the joys of being able to work in your PJs all day! There really is something great about not having to worry about what to wear every day. However, staying in your tracksuit or pyjamas all day may increase the comfort, but it will decrease your productivity. It sounds silly but dressing up the way you would if you were to attend an actual office environment every day, will put you in a professional, productive state of mind. You wouldn’t laze about on the couch in a pantsuit, would you? Then don’t work in your pyjamas either!