I’ve been working from home now for many years, and I have learned the hard way how to be the most efficient, save the most money, and get the most accomplished, and I’m going to share that with you so that you can save time and money and be more productive in your daily work.

Some of these things may work for you when working from home, and some may not but read all of them to see where you’re weak and strong.

Have a schedule

Map out a schedule you adhere to each week of what you plan to accomplish when working from home. For example, your sales day might be Thursday, your check-your-bills day might be Friday, and Monday and Tuesday may be catch-up days.

Decide which days are going to be used and for what. You may decide to take Monday and Friday off or do less work. Whatever the case, write down a schedule for yourself and stick to it. Things will pop up, and you may have to flip your plan but have a base to guide you.

Take Breaks

Take multiple breaks throughout your day every couple of hours. Working from home can affect your motivation. Get up and walk around or run an errand. Stretch out.

Sitting at your desk all day will cause fatigue and eventually weight gain if you don’t get up and get some exercise in or take a break. That may mean just making lunch for yourself, checking your mailbox, or walking around the block several times.

Plan on taking at least three breaks throughout your eight-hour to 10-hour day.

Learn to Multitask

As you read this, I’m walking 3 miles; I’m recording my voice-to-text through an app and writing the story by voice-to-text, which is much more efficient than writing it or typing it.

I’m multitasking. Exercising simultaneously, I can get my point across better and edit it when I sit down. That’s just one example of multitasking, and there are other ways you can multitask too.

For instance, I have Bloomberg TV on all day while I learn how the stock market works while I’m working from home. The more I watch, the easier it gets for me to understand the language and the terms, all while getting my other work done.

There may be something else you want to watch in the background while you work, but learn to multitask throughout your day to get a lot more accomplished.

Respect your work hours when working from home

Respecting your workday means no personal calls during the day. Just like you were at a job. Personal calls tend to pull you away from your focus, and you will find that you waste time.

Often, entrepreneurs are friends with other entrepreneurs, and when we are on a break during the day, or we go to a doctor’s appointment or in traffic, our entrepreneur friends will pick up the phone and call us. You don’t have time for this during the workday. So avoid the tendency to pick the phone up, or you will throw yourself off track when working from home.

It would be best if you respected that you are at work and being productive, and you can talk to them after work hours when the workday shuts down. If it’s important, they’ll text you or leave a message.

Another bad habit was checking my mailbox once or twice a week. My mailbox is about 15 miles away from where I live. With gas prices the way they are, this wasted time and money.

Now, I check the mailbox once a month. Being efficient in the process saves me money and time.

Plan a monthly mini vacation

Fortunately, where I live in LA, is an environment with many mini-vacation spots around me, such as Palm Springs, San Diego, and more. Most of which are only a couple of hours away by car, and even with gas prices, a mini-vacation dramatically improves your mental state and peace of mind from working from home.

Save money, for example, by using your points for a hotel to stay in for a few days. You will be refreshed, reinvigorated, and ready for the next work week. I would strongly suggest mapping this out at least once a month if there is something close by. We all could become overwhelmed with our tasks, and we need to be able to break away at times.

Treat Yourself

Pat yourself on the back and treat yourself to a nice lunch or dinner once a week to give yourself a nice break from working from home, whether by yourself or your partner, wife, or husband. Or even friends, we all need that pat on the back for what we’ve achieved, and this is a great way to do it and kill several birds with one stone (multitasking again).

If you want to save money, make sure you don’t go to a super expensive restaurant, especially when it involves other people. I have friends who insist on eating at expensive restaurants, and I don’t believe in doing that too often.

I used to feel sorry for people when I saw them eating alone, but now I admire them. Especially when they are at peace. Sitting at a restaurant for an hour and being served is a fantastic thing as a pat on the back.

Keep healthy foods in the house.
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As the old saying goes, never go shopping when you’re hungry; you’ll always pick the worst things. Keep healthy food in the house for snacks you can eat throughout the day. Of course, anything with sugar or a lot of carbs will tire you.

Know that this will take away your productivity while working from home. So if you feel like you have to snack on something, ensure you have quality food in the house. It’s easy to get into the refrigerator or take a nap when you work from home, and you want to avoid that. Once again, you want to respect your work hours.

Working from home – Get 7 to 9 Hours of Sleep

Getting 7 to 9 hours of sleep is critical, especially the older you get. Being well-rested means your body has had a chance to recoup, all your cells are restructured and your energy is up to par.

You’re going to get a lot more accomplished working from home after you get a good night’s sleep. Sometimes it’s hard because you may have late nights and early mornings, especially if you’re a new entrepreneur, but once you start going to bed at 9 o’clock, your body gets used to it.

I prefer early mornings to get up because being on the West Coast, I get a lot more accomplished, and my day is pretty much over by 11 a.m., and then I have the remainder of the day to work on other projects.

Being efficient often means ensuring that you have other projects in your Wheelhouse, and you never know when you may have to depend on something else.

Working from home – Be on the Lookout for Trends

Always be on the lookout for new trends when working from home. Have someone younger around you who is aware of the trends. This will help prolong your relevance and sustainability.

Right now, I know TikTok is super hot. I’m not into TikTok, but I know younger people who are, so I hire somebody to establish our connection on the network. Whether or not it’s necessary for my business is something I need to test out since I work in a niche industry, but it cannot be ignored, and your clients will see if you’re involved. People love social media, and Facebook is not enough even though I accomplish a lot on Facebook.

Keep Younger people in your Wheelhouse.

It would be best if you found a way to keep younger people around you. Sometimes you will be disappointed because they don’t have your work ethic.

I’ve hired people to write and paid them and then discovered they were copying word-for-word from other sites, which drove me nuts because I told them not to do that, and I wasted money paying them. Sometimes in the thousands.

I would never get that money back, but it taught me another lesson. Make sure you do your due diligence, no matter how nice and sweet the people who work for you are. DOUBLE CHECK their work before you pay them … REGULARLY until you get into a good rhythm with them which could take a year or two.

Unfortunately, there is a significant lack of respect for black business by a lot of Black people. As painful as it is, they don’t GAF about you, so you better care about yourself. This is all still a part of being efficient and productive, and having to do the work again after wasting money is no joy.

All is not lost; nevertheless, being around younger people or mentoring more youthful people can be ideal for learning what’s coming and brewing. They will also be brutally honest about your brand and products.

Never be afraid to listen to somebody younger who may not have experience in doing what you do. They could have excellent information and accurately tell you what you’re doing wrong and how you can remain relevant.

Always be on the hunt for a new opportunity.
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Keeping young people around you lets you be aware and alert of the next opportunity you don’t want to miss.

Sylvia Robinson had had a career in the music industry for decades. When she noticed the new trend was on the rise in the black neighborhood. Hip-hop in the mid-70s, she jumped on it and recorded the first record by the Sugarhill Gang, “Rapper’s Delight.” She made history with the first recording and reinvented herself well into her 40s, and became the Godmother of Hip-Hop. She learned about the concept from her younger nephews and her sons and paid attention.

She saw the kids were going crazy for it and knew a new trend was brewing.

You can get much more accomplished by doing a lot less than you’re doing or a little more in the way of what works best for you. As I stated in the beginning, that will be a good indicator of what you need to do to accomplish much more in your day when working from home.

My best in business

Kevin Ross