Staying Productive at Home

As many students across the UK have travelled home in the government's 'Student Travel Window', a lot of us will once again be struggling to be productive at home, much like back in March and Lockdown 1 when we all got sent home from University the first time, except now we have the added distraction of Christmas.

I love being at home, especially because until Wednesday I hadn't seen my family for almost three months, which is a really long time when you're used to popping home at least once a month, if not more. Obviously I didn't want to risk my family's health so I stayed away, but after my negative test on Wednesday morning I was very excited to get home, however now the reality has set in. I have to complete lectures, seminars, and assessments all from home. Even as I type this I'm sat at my desk in my childhood bedroom, and I can hear my mum talking (and sometimes singing) to herself as she works from home.

Along with my mum singing various Christmas songs to herself, there's also the distraction of our dogs, the TV (we have a telly in our uni house but there's just something even more enticing about a TV at home that's somehow considerably more distracting than a TV at uni), and now that I'm home and it's cold and wintery it just feels like Christmas. There's a constant battle in my head between wanting to sit downstairs watching Love Actually and The Muppets Christmas Carol with a massive mug of hot chocolate, and knowing that I really should be working on my essays.

That being said, I have found some ways to keep myself on task and staying productive.

First of all, I've made myself stick to some sort of routine, getting up between 8am and 8:30am, and starting to work at around 9am, then later going to bed between 10:30pm and 11pm seems to work for me.

Throughout the day I take a few short breaks, for example this morning at about 11 I took the dog out for a quick walk in the snow, then got back to work until having lunch with my mum at about 1:30pm.

Another tip is using 'To do' lists. I have a notebook dedicated to lists, but I used to use post-it notes, whatever works for you, but personally being able to visualise everything I need to get done in the week really helps me stay on top of everything, especially at busy times of the year.

If you can try to separate your working environment from your relaxing space, this can be difficult when you're working at home but if you have a desk only sit there when you're working and sit on your bed to relax, or work at the kitchen table and relax in the lounge. Keeping it separate gives you some level of work-life balance, which can be difficult when you can't actually go to work/university.

These are just a few tips that have helped me stay on task while working from home, I hope they help you stay productive too. Hopefully we'll get back to some sort of normality in the new year, but for now we'd better get used to ignoring the distractions and telling ourselves that "we can't watch Love Actually right now, we have to work". But maybe that's just me.