Improving the work from home experience

Get out of the house and get out of your rut

The best way to do this is quite simple:

Get out of the house!

That may seem counterintuitive to working from home. Yet simply getting out of your home office for even the shortest amount of time can dramatically improve your productivity and state of mind.

Don’t worry how frivolous that time out of the house and away from your work might seem. Even a walk around the block to get some fresh air will suit you well. Yet if you want your away-from-work time to feel productive, too, you can be as creative as you want with it.

For example, I have a P.O. Box for my business. A daily trip to the post office two miles away does wonders for my state-of-mind. Even better if there’s a check in the mail. Yet the important thing is to get out of the house.

It goes beyond that though. When I pass people on my way to and from the P.O. Box, I do something novel here in the northeast: I say hello.

The entire trip back and forth may take 15 minutes. The benefits last for at least a few hours. The miles are also tax-deductible.

If you need more human/outside interaction than that, join a networking group. If you’re small business, chambers of commerce, rotary groups and other networking organizations all have activities. Sure, most of those have been virtual for the past 20 months. Yet many are coming back to in-person.

Meetup is another great resource. You can find activities during the day that can get you out of the house for a bit. Sometimes those are as simple as a walk at certain local park. You can even start your own Meetup and it can be as simple as a walk in the park, coffee break or lunch.

Of course, some WFH professionals and home-based business owners take the get-out-of-the-house thing to another level. Take yours truly.

I began driving Uber a few years ago for a variety of reasons. Working from home, it has been a godsend.

At around 4pm or so, if I haven’t done the trip to the post office, I get a little fidgety. If exercise, meditation or a breath of fresh air won’t do the trick, I put on the Uber app and take a ride or two.

Now, this does not mean I’m the Uber driver from hell who chats your ear off. You know fairly quickly whether somebody wants to talk or not. Even if they don’t, you would be surprised the benefit you receive just from being around another person. And you make a few bucks on top of that.

If you’ve thought about being an Uber driver, you find out more by clicking the button below. And if having strangers in your car is not your thing, Uber Eats and some other programs are out there so you are getting the benefit of being out of the house and some interaction without a violation of your space.

Truly the important thing is getting yourself to a place of being productive. That can have any number of looks.

What do you do and where do you go when you start getting a little stir crazy in your home office? Please share and we may make that part of an upcoming My Home Office Hacks.