Be Productive – This is so important. A crucial part of a  successful home-working day is to be really deliberate about where you spend your time and energy. You only have limited resources, and you want to do the best possible job with what you have. This means cutting away at the tasks that drain your time but produce limited results; and focusing on what will really move things forward for you.

One way of prioritising tasks is to use Eisenhower’s Urgent / Important principle, which helps classify tasks according to two categories: their level of urgency and level of importance. The goal of this method – and any other task-prioritisation activity – is really just to give you the power to see what needs your attention and to pin point the tasks that will help you to do your job well. It also helps you weed out the unimportant tasks that can wait – or the tasks that are really just distractions! Its very easy to fritter away the whole day on unimportant but easy to achieve tasks that make us feel good but don’t actually move towards the major goals. (see here for a practical guide on implementing this and optimising your time).

In any case, it is always important to keep a to do list and stay focused – as it is when working in an office too. With so much uncertainty surrounding us in our daily lives at the moment, this is one way that we can really feel a sense of ownership over our day.