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BUSINESS TIPS DEEP DIVE ARTICLE TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

7 Tips for YouTubers to Stay Sane When Working From Home During COVID

Being stuck at home is rubbish.

For many of us, the Covid Pandemic means that we’re trapped at home, trying to get our videos planned, shot, and edited while trying not to go stir crazy.

The line between working and playing gets blurred also. It’s all too easy to get stuck in a rut of doing a bit of work on your channel, then giving yourself ‘a break’ and playing a game or mindlessly scrolling through Instagram for an hour.

There are things you can do to make Covid enforced work patterns more enjoyable, however. A few little tweaks to your working practices can improve your mood and productivity when working from home.

It’s worth experimenting with home working practices too. One estimate reckons that 30% of the workforce will still be working from home regularly at the end of 2021.

So to help you better handle the current do-everything-from-home formula, this post has seven tips you can apply straight away to make working from home on your YouTube channel or any other job more enjoyable.

#1. Get Up and Get Dressed.

I’ve worked from home for myself for several years now, so I can confidently say that watching morning TV in your PJs while pecking away on your laptop is not the path to a healthy working habit.

Similarly, you may think you’re being clever when your all business up-top for your Zoom meeting, but all bedtime down below out of sight of the camera lens.

You need to treat your work like any other job. That means getting dressed in regular daytime clothes to signify that you have ‘left’ rest and relaxation behind and you are now ready to do some work.

The physical act of putting on a pair of jeans/trousers or skirt is a mental signal that your morning routine has started, and it’s time to get stuff done.

You don’t have to dress like you are going into the office, but you need to make yourself respectable enough to meet people outside of your usual home bubble.

A good rule of thumb is to dress smartly enough not to feel embarrassed when you open the door to the Amazon delivery driver.

The same advice applies to showering and brushing your teeth — at the start of the day, make yourself ready for the day.

You can see how I work from home in my own personal account of my own working from home experience.

#2. Have a Space Just for Working.

We can’t all have a desirable ‘battle station’ like the picture below.

Whether you’re planning your next video, working on a side-hustle, or just doing your conventional job, separating your work and play is vital for your mental health.

It’s also best to separate your work time at home from the rest of the household chores that need doing. Doing a bit of work, then tidying the lounge, then getting back to some more work mashes the day together into one confusing mess.

And while you may already have a place to record your videos set up in the corner of a spare room. Aim to have a particular spot in your home where you sit down to work too.

Desks are inexpensive to buy if you have the room. They come in a variety of sizes suitable for most needs, and if you have the budget buy yourself a proper office chair, too. It helps to encourage a healthy back posture while you work.

If your budget is small, keep an eye on the local ads on Facebook and Gumtree, as you can often find bargains on secondhand office furniture or even snag them for free.

If you absolutely do not have the room for a desk and chair, put a ‘work stuff’ bundle of items together. This can be your laptop or tablet and a selection of notebooks you use. At the start of the working day, set them up in the place you’ll be working in, like the kitchen table, for example.

Then, at the end of the workday, pack them up, and put them out of the way to signify that you have finished working and ready to start some household chores or down-time.

#3. Routines and Commuting

Psychologists call the separation of work and play segmentation. Some psychologists also claim that those who segment their work and relaxation properly perform better in each area.

It’s hard to switch your brain between working and relaxing in an instant — that’s why those who commute to work hold an advantage over home workers. The commute is when a worker can shift their focus on the day’s work ahead.

Similarly, at the end of the working day, a commuter has the opportunity to decompress from daily work challenges as they make their way home.

To segment your work and relaxation time effectively in these Covid times means that you need a method of transitioning between work and non-work — you are going to need to get into some routines and create a kind of ‘commute.’

Routines give us structure to our lives. They can make us more efficient and build up momentum to help hit our goals. So try to create your own ‘commute’ at home to ease into your working routine.

It may be as simple as taking a shower, eating breakfast, then 10 minutes of watching the morning news. As long as you do the same routine each day while understanding, you will be ready to start work once you have done everything.

In a few days, your commuting routine will become a signal to your brain that you are about to enter work mode.

It doesn’t matter what your best working hours are for this tip to succeed. You may be a night-owl and do your best work into the wee small hours — do whatever works for you — as long as you set a pre-work routine to help ease you in and out of work mode.

#4. Getting Stuff Done – Cut Out the Distractions.

There is a mental state that some call ‘the zone’ and others name ‘flow.’ It essentially means that you are unaware of anything going on around you while you focus on something. Not time, hunger, or even the need to pee.

You are totally at one with the task at hand.

Getting in ‘the zone’ is easier said than done, but there is no real secret to it. You just need to give yourself space to focus. The enemy of focus is distraction, so you should aim to eliminate all distractions from your workspace.

There is a great book by Cal Newport called Deep Work. It’s all about organising long periods of distraction-free time, so you can enter a flow state and produce your very best work. And it’s worth getting hold of a copy.

What are the causes of work distractions?

One study by a University showed that it could take up to 20 minutes to recover from the interruption of responding to email alerts. So if you are constantly checking your email, you prevent the chance for your brain to settle and enter into the mind frame of a flow state.

What makes the situation worse is having your smartphone within reach when you work as well. People in the US receive an average of 46 push notifications per day on their phones. So, with email and smartphones pinging regularly, it’s a wonder that anyone’s brain can settle down to focus.

Try and cut own as many distractions as you can when you sit down to work. If you don’t need your phone for work, switch it off or at least leave it in another room. There is also a choice of website blocking apps you can install to limit your time spent on distracting websites like Reddit and Facebook.

Another tool that some people find useful to manage productivity is a Pomodoro timer. A Pomodoro timer is a countdown clock that you set to work on a task for a set period. When your selected time session ends, you take a short break before starting the next short working period.

Many people work on a 25-5 Pomodoro system — 25 minutes working, followed by a 5-minute break. After four rounds of 25 minutes, you take a more extended break of 15 minutes. It works because you are only setting the challenge to work for a short time before you take a rest.

#5. Make Time to Exercise and Get Outdoors.

The pandemic has many of us glued to our sofa’s binging on the latest Netflix must-watch program like the Tiger King or The Queen’s Gambit. But, being sat on your backside for hours at a time is not good for your back, bum, or belly.

Doctors have called sitting down the new smoking. Inactivity is really bad for our health and can lead to all sorts of long-term problems like lower-back pain, diabetes, and even cancer.

I live in leafy West Yorkshire, close to some old canals. I take regular walks along the canal to clear my head and give my body some love.

Walking is a good exercise to fit into your ‘commuting’ routine, and most can find time to squeeze in a twenty-minute walk when the work of the day is done.

Walking is also a simple way to remove digital distractions. So, get some fresh air and think about your channel. I get all sorts of ideas for video content while I’m away from the desk having a stroll.

If you’re house-bound during the Pandemic because you’re shielding some who is extra vulnerable, then head on over to YouTube. Jo Wicks has a channel that uploads new home workouts several times a week.

You can do all the workouts with stuff you can find around the home, so there is no excuse not to give your body a little TLC and try to keep in shape.

#6. Make Time to Socialise.

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You don’t want to end up like Jack Nicholson in The Shining, hunched over your keyboard pretending to work while descending into madness. But it’s also quite easy for the more introverted amongst us not to make time to have other human contacts every day.

So you should try to find some time for your friends and family now and again. But It’s a tricky balance to strike, as the primary way we keep in contact with friends is with our smartphones, and as I mentioned above, smartphones are awful for our focus.

A new approach is to schedule a time for socialising. How about organising a Zoom lunch with your friends? Set an agreed time that you’ll all eat your lunch, and you can have a natter and a catch-up over a video conference.

One way to be more sociable and work on your YouTube channel is to try collaborating with other YouTubers, which will bring more human contact as you plan some joint content together.

#7. Mind Your Mental Health.

Mental health problems are one of the biggest risks we all face as we endure lockdown. Humans are social creatures, so the enforced home confinement naturally takes its toll on our mental wellbeing.

There are a few techniques you can use to improve your mental health.

Try and limit the amount of news you watch. You should keep up-to-date with the latest developments in your area, but becoming obsessed with increasing daily numbers or the length of time until life returns to normal is not healthy.

If you find yourself obsessing, take a news break for a few days. Trust me, not much changes in a few days, and you can turn your focus to learning a new skill.

Practice touch typing, improve your photoshop skills, or learn about those weird camera functions you don’t currently understand. It’s doesn’t really matter. Finding a new project to focus your mind on can benefit your mental health immensely.

Finally, try practicing mediation. Many assume that mediation is sitting in the lotus position and chanting. It’s not. Mediation is really about breathing. Sit or lie in a relaxed position, close your eyes if it helps, and focus on your breath entering and leaving your body.

That’s all. Just focus on your breath.

Meditation is scientifically proven to reduce stress and control anxiety. YouTube has plenty of excellent content around meditation; Headspace’s channel is an ideal place to start, with lots of content to help you learn how to meditate and improve your mental health.

Conclusion

Yes, lockdown and pandemics are rubbish! But don’t use it as an excuse not to work on your YouTube channel.

Surviving the new normal of working from home means you need to take a little care of how you structure your day.

Set a defined working schedule, and ideally, a place to sit where you only do work. Getting into routines can help your body and mind know when it’s time to work or play.

I hope this post has been helpful. Why don’t you try applying a few tips and see if they can help make you a happier and more productive YouTuber during this Covid pandemic?

 

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BUSINESS TIPS DEEP DIVE ARTICLE MARKETING MINDFULNESS TIPS & TRICKS

How To Work From Home for Beginners (10 Life Changing Tips)

Many people are going have to work from home in the coming weeks and months. I’ve been working from home for about eight years, so here are the lessons that I’ve learnt that can help you shortcut the learning curve as you fight the urge to watch crappy morning tv and binging on chocolate for breakfast…

How To Work Home for Beginners

Start Early

You will be amazed by how much stuff you can get done starting earlier than you would have done from your normal clock in at nine o’clock. At the moment, I have a human alarm clock that wakes me up at around about six o’clock anyway and she wants feeding and she wants entertainment and Hey Duggie and anything else on TV. But the advantage there for me is that no matter what, whether she’s going to nursery or whether she’s staying at home, I can wake up at six, seven o’clock in the morning and hit the ground running – making content for my YouTube Channel.

Even before my stepdaughter came into my life, I still got up at six o’clock in the morning, let the world wake up around me, grabbed my life saving massive cup of tea and focused in on that days to-do-list.

I find at that time in the morning, you could be the most motivated, and most rested that you will be all day. Time to hit the floor running, tackle the things that you need to do, organize your day!

The sooner you start, the sooner those creative juices can tackle what you need to tackle.

Now, if you’re like me, it might just be the very first thing you do is tidy up the things around you. I’m one of those people that needs a tidy environment work in. So I’ll get up, I’ll make sure that all of the dishes are done, I have a nice cup of tea, I clean the living room, and then I can sit down and then I’m focused because if I’m setting that at eight, nine o’clock in the morning, my brain would be like, “Whoa, I need to pick that up,” and “Oh, you need toast or whatever,” whilst other people might dive straight into their hardest task and get it out the way, knowing that it’s all easier for the rest of the day.

Pretend You Are Going To An OfficeHow To Work Home for Beginners 1

There’s that mental block for the first two to three months when you’re you get to work from home where you’re like, “Oh yeah, I’m home,” For love for all the Tea and Coffee in the morning, make sure that you’re in the right mindset.

If you can set it in your head a set time, you switch into work mode or there’s a set chair that you sit in or there’s a set area that you go to, as soon as you know that you’re in work mode, you can focus much more. Rather than, Oh, just sit down and I’ll have my cup of tea, I’ll watch GMTV, I’ll flip through the morning news, now it’s 11 o’clock, now you’ve wasted half the morning. Getting the right mindset. This also includes getting dressed. You can’t just sit there in your PJ’s all day, you need to act like you have any other job.

Get up, get wash, get dressed, brush your teeth and then put yourself in your mindset because then that way you’ve prepared your brain to work.

How To Work Home for Beginners 2

Structure Your Work Day

Whether you’re in retail, whether you’re in an office, whether you’re in any other job, there will be some form of to do list, whether it’s from your manager or whether it’s from yourself. This structure is the thing you need to inject into your working from home life, that will allow you to accomplish some things throughout the day. For me, I have a to do list that I write on my desktop and they have set days Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday etc etc

I know that that’s the thing that I need to achieve that day. If I want to bleed into other days and get more done than I can do so, and it shuffles stuff up through that list and by the end of the week I have a little bit more free time to myself, but at least I know that as long as I do those three or five things that that same day I’m on top of my workload, for don’t do those five things. I know I’m behind my workload, these are the things that helped structure me.

For you, it might be your Google calendar. You can set tasks in there, like blocking out time to bulk record YouTube videos, you can have set times, you can have recurring things, you can have your computer alert you when you are five, 10, 15, 20 minutes away from it and even remind you to do them. You can even set your own lunch break so you’ve got a pattern and a routine.

How To Work Home for Beginners 3

Set A Designated Work From Home Area

This could just be a set work chair or a set place on your dining table or a set room in your house, reset corner of your living room, but a dedicated space helps you click into that mindset, it has everything around you.

I am very lucky that I can work from home and we’re in a three bedroom house. Which gives me the very precious space, the home office! It makes my YouTuber life a little easier as I’ve already got my YouTube filming set set up so I can record in front of it, I can talk in front of it. There is an L shape sofa that I sit on an edits and maybe watch the rolling news, with the TV which is literally just there. But because I have a dedicated efficient workspace, you’ll be amazed how quickly your brain turns on rather than always sitting in the same place on your sofa, whether your Netflix and chilling or whether you’re working.

You need to dedicate a space where you brain can turn on.

Just like they say, if you go to bed and there’s a TV in your bedroom, your brain will associate the TV in staying awake rather than going to bed. You need workplace hygiene, to help you work at home properly, as well as sleep hygiene to help you sleep at night properly.

How To Work Home for Beginners 4

“Work From Home” Doesn’t Have To Mean “Staying At Home”

I know this can be hard right now, (early 2020), but in an ideal world you’ll get a chance to go out, make sure that you take your laptop with you! Coffee shops, parks, woodlands… you could be anywhere as long as you have a wifi enabled device!

Or if you don’t have to take your laptop, you can take a notepad and just write things down. Just get out of the bubble.

At this point in time I understand that that may be hard, but if you’ve got a balcony or if you’ve got a back garden, as long as you keep yourself in a reasonable safe distance, then you can still do it. Plus, let’s be honest, social distancing still works when you’re working. I know that I prefer not to have people around me when I’m working because if people talk at me whiles thinking it gets me frustrated and annoyed. if I’m sat out in my backyard and all I can hear is the birds and the wind, it’s fantastic for my mental health.

Take the advantage of strolling to your local corner shop that five, 10 minute break, that fresh air, that mind reset because if you’re frustrated on a task, you’ll be amazed what a little bit of eye distancing can do.

Have you ever heard of the phrase of just like computer blindness or task blindness – where you’ve been staring at the same thing for 30 minutes, 40 minutes, an hour, and no matter how much you look at it, it seems to be doing the same thing or it’s the same trouble. You step away from it and you come back, you’d be amazed how quickly you can find that jigsaw piece that you were missing from the puzzle just two minutes ago.

How To Work Home for Beginners 5

Make It Hard To Muck About On Social Media

Now this has become more and more prevalent in the last few years because everybody can flip through their phone or everybody can just tab over to Facebook or Instagram or take talk or whatever. I know from focusing on editing a video and it hits a hot spot, it can drive me off to Facebook out of frustration, but I’ll come back to it.

But if you can eliminate those entirely and just focus on the thing that you’re doing, maybe even turn off the computer, move your phone away, putting your phone on silent, put it in the up side of the room, whatever, if you can not give yourself the chance to distract yourself, you will get so much more done.

That also means don’t distract yourself with TV of your favorite thing on TV. So don’t sit there and watch Game of Thrones episodes if you really into them because you won’t end up working, you’ll end up watching Joffrey get killed.

How To Work From Home for Beginners - 10 Life Changing Tips

Commit To Doing More Things

You’ll be amazed, working from home, how quickly you can spin through some things that may have taken longer in an office.

When you’re in the office environment and there’s other people around, you might take a little longer to the coffee machine or to the water machine where you might every now and then glance over and see someone in another cubicle or stare at the clock or have a look at the call center, whatever.

I tend to find that you can actually do a couple more tasks than you would have done in a more social setting because you’re much more focused. If you ever hit that, the zone and then just kept piling through work, you’ll be amazed how much additional work you’ll get once you’re in the zone when Billy is not there to pass your chocolate or to ask you this question or to point at something to make you chuckle, that throws you out of the zone entirely.

How To Work Home for Beginners 6

Work When You Are Your Most Productive

Nobody turns on the computer at seven o’clock in the morning and it sprints all the way through their work in the zone, in that niche all day.

We all have our ebbs and flows! We all have moments when we know that we work better, maybe you’re a little bit more groggy in the morning, you don’t want to talk to humans in the morning, but you’re happy to edit videos and take your phone calls in the afternoon.

Maybe you’re not a morning person at all and forego a morning start up because you know that if you got up at nine, 10 o’clock you could work till two o’clock at night/in the morning, and you get much more work done.

Be honest with yourself, if you know that you’re lagging about two o’clock and maybe even you need a nap between two and four then allow yourself to do so, as long as you make sure that you allow yourself to work when you know that you’re most focused at eight o’clock in the afternoon.

Set yourself up for success based on what you know about yourself. If you know that you’re going to be wading through your brain fog, avoid that fog.

How To Work Home for Beginners 7

Save Phone Call For The Afternoon

I find that in the morning I’m less sociable and so are many others. So what I do is I make sure that I do all my solitary tasks in the morning or after the normal nine to five crowd so therefore, I know at six o’clock in the morning till about 10, 11 o’clock, no one’s really gonna pick up the phone and at 11 o’clock they’re thinking about lunch so I’m gonna start my phone calls at one o’clock in the afternoon.

It also means that it’s seven o’clock in the evening, once again, they’re not going to be there to pick up the phones. So what I do is I allocate that time for around about one o’clock in the afternoon to about five, six o’clock in the afternoon for those phone calls. Not only will my brain be more awake, but I’ll also grind you through so much work in the morning that be ready for a chat.

How To Work Home for Beginners 8

Keep Your Brain Busy

How many times have you gone to the gym and once you finally started at the gym, you got there, you finally got on the treadmill, but the entry feeling good and you wanna keep going, but the interstate, you sit down and you give yourself five minutes, you’ve seized up and you’re ready to go home. Oh, that’s it, you’re done for the day. I find that’s the same with working at home.

Keep your brain always on something, anything.

What I do in between my pieces of work is that I’ll do a task and if my work brain needs a rest, I’ll go and do the washing up or I’ll go into the clothes washing or I’ll prep my tea for the evening. The reason for that is because my brain continues to stay busy, it continues to spin and spin. It’s like a perpetual motion machine, but because your brain’s been so active, if you used to sit down and turn your brain off, it might be harder to restart that spinning.

Keep your brain going even if you’re just changing it up to make sure that you’re not bored. Edit your stuff in the morning, go for lunch, plan what your Tea happens to be, do your washing, do your hoovering, look after that kid, make sure you’re playing with their toys.

But that way you’re spinning plus by the time you get to bed, you’ve outbrained yourself and you’ll be more than happy to fall asleep, but don’t stop buzzing because the more your brain’s going, the more I find I get done because I’m not having to re-rev that engine to get started each and every time, I’m not doing a task for 15 minutes and then sitting down for 15 minutes and then having a restart, it’s quite consciously flowing all of the time and that also might be that I listen to podcasts while as I’m doing the washing up, so I’m still businessing, I’m still learning and I’m multitasking all at the same time.

For more tips to work from home, check out the video below.

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MARKETING SOCIAL MEDIA YOUTUBE

How To Work From Home for Beginners (20 Tips)

It’s time to work from home 2020. I work at home as freelancer working remotely from my own home. Work at home jobs are not as easy as some people think so here are my tips for people with work at home jobs 2020 and how to fine or make your own work from home jobs during this very testing time.

Working at home online has been a real life line for me over the years. Being your own boss and keeping your own time comes with its own pitfalls. Today I am going to share you wou my productivity tips for working from home as a freelancer entrepreneur or while on lockdown.

It’s time for some working from home tips!