Depending on your professional situation and your country, you might be able to deduct your home office from your expenses. To calculate your home office deduction, consult an accountant or tax advisor. For a budget-friendly alternative, things needed to work from home Panasonic offers these best selling earbud headphones with a microphone and volume control. At Luxe Digital, we independently research, review, and recommend products we love and that we think you will love, too.
Luckily, adding an extra monitor is easier than ever these days, particularly if you have a docking station alongside your work laptop. Most external monitors can now be connected via HDMI, USB-C or DP ports, so if you’re looking for an extra bit of screen space, check out our list of the best business monitors. Social media is designed to make it easy for us to open and browse quickly. As remote workers, though, this convenience can be detrimental to our remote work productivity. To maintain communication, schedule regular meetings with your direct reports, whether it’s daily, weekly, or every other day. By holding these check-ins, team members will be able to address things that are hard to convey over email or chat.
As much as team messaging apps are excellent venues for socializing, they tend to create distractions, too; check out these tips on how not to get overwhelmed by Slack. If your job entails taking old-fashioned phone calls, set up a phone number that you only use for calls with colleagues and clients. It doesn’t have to be a landline or a second mobile phone, or even require a SIM card. Everyone who works remotely has to figure out when to work, where to work, and how to create boundaries between work and personal life. And let’s not forget about office equipment, career development, training opportunities, and building relationships with colleagues remotely. In the case of Nicolette Finder, Sales Growth Specialist at The Muse, she quickly figured out what she needed to sustain her three-cups-a-day lifestyle.
Consider, too, that you might need to shake up your routine once in a while, lest it get too…routine. Just as you should start your day with a routine, create a habit that signals the close of the workday. It might be a sign-off on a business messaging app, an evening dog walk, or an at-home yoga class. Something as simple as shutting down your computer and turning on a favorite podcast will do.
In those moments, remote work life feels more like a punishment than a miracle. To prevent burnout and achieve proper work-life balance, it’s crucial to set clear boundaries, which is where creating a schedule comes in handy. When the boundaries are blurred between home and work life, it can feel more difficult to separate the two.