Work From Home Productivity Tips: Time Management That Works

If “working from home” looks like answering emails with one hand while damp Cheerios get mushed on your desk by a toddler or the delivery guy rings the doorbell instead of just leaving your package, you’re not alone. Staying productive while working from home is an art and skill that’s essential in today’s working world.

In this episode of Ditch the Chaos, we’re breaking down 9 Ways to Stay Productive While Working From Home—real Productivity & Time Management moves that protect your focus without burnout.

You’ll learn:

• A wind-down routine that improves sleep and sets up tomorrow
• A simple morning intention to anchor focus and reduce mental clutter
• The “2 work + 1 personal” priority method for compressed days
• Why your calendar and a weekly planning system beat the email inbox
• Task batching to cut context switching and boost deep work
• Hydration and lunch habits that prevent the 2 p.m. decision fatigue spiral
• Do Not Disturb and pause-inbox settings on phone, laptop, email, and messaging
• Fast resets that work in 60 seconds to 15 minutes
• A shutdown ritual to organize your workday and close open loops

These lessons come straight from what I teach inside Chaos Detox—mind management before time management, flexible routines, and white space as strategy so productivity feels like peace, not pressure.

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CLICK HERE → 9 Ways to Stay Productive While Working From Home

Transcript

# (24) Work From Home Productivity Tips: Time Management That Works

[00:00:00] if working from home looks like answering emails with one hand while damp Cheerios gets mushed into your desk by a toddler, or the delivery guy rings the doorbell, instead of just leaving your package, you're not alone. Staying productive while working from home is an art and skill that's essential in today's working world.

[00:00:20] Whether you're an entrepreneur, running an online business, or an employee or a freelance contractor, learning how to stay productive is key to meeting your goals and deadlines. Today, I am walking you through nine ways to stay productive while working from home without pressure or rigid rules.

[00:00:37] Welcome to Ditch the Chaos, a snackable podcast for busy women who are done with burnout, rigid routines, and productivity guilt. You'll get clear, actionable strategies to reclaim your time and energy without planners pressure or one size fits all systems. I'm Cara Chace, entrepreneur since 2015, mom of two wife to one, and I am [00:01:00] unapologetically caffeinated.

[00:01:01] Let's dive in.

[00:01:02] Most work from home, women I talk to fall into one of three groups. You've been working from home for years as an online entrepreneur. Or you started working from home during the pandemic or more recently, or you're doing some sort of hybrid situation with your employer. I've been at this since 2011 and I've learned most of these lessons the hard way.

[00:01:26] So now you get the shortcuts. The through line here is simple productivity and time management only happens if you protect your energy and your attention.

[00:01:37] And you stop doing the things that drain them. Productivity should feel like peace, not pressure. The first thing you do to set your work from home day up for success, is to actually start the night before by having a wind down routine. The quickest way to kill your productivity is to get a crappy night's sleep, which often happens when you have a whole bunch of [00:02:00] electronics in your room, going to sleep with your phone right in front of your face, and all that blue light and stimulation is just not good.

[00:02:08] Not to mention the doom scrolling, troll comment, reading, or the bad habits of just getting sucked into social media. The number one change I made in the last few years is to charge my phone outside of my bedroom.

[00:02:22] This change affected not only the quality of my sleep, but my mood, my attitude, and how I feel starting my day and ending my day. My bedroom really has become a quiet sanctuary where I get to rest both my body and my mind. So here are some ideas to create your own wind down routine.

[00:02:42] I replaced my phone alarm with a sunrise alarm clock. I also have a salt lamp diffuser that sets the mood to warm and cozy, and I get the added benefit of diffusing some essential oils to help me relax. I shoot for the same bedtime every night, 9:00 [00:03:00] PM Don't laugh.

[00:03:01] We get up super early and I usually read a bit before the lights go out. If you love to read before bed and you use a Kindle, which I do too, enable a blue light filter for the screen. However you create your routine, the goal is to detach, let go of your day and set yourself up for restful sleep.

[00:03:22] When you wake up, before you start work, turn on your computer and before you start clicking around and shuffling things around your desk, make sure you set your intentions for the day and before you set your intentions, take a minute to ground yourself.

[00:03:38] This is the same concept as winding down the night before. You really just wanna take a beat and take a breath before you jump into your day. What I do personally is 10 to 15 minutes of meditation in the morning. Sometimes that's complete silence where I'm just tuning into the noises I can hear.

[00:03:55] Sometimes I will listen to some sort of binaural beats or meditation tracks. [00:04:00] Sometimes it's a guided meditation. I don't do anything super specific. I just go by what feels right for me that morning. After I feel like my head is clear and calm, I'll write down my intention for the day in my journal.

[00:04:13] Something like today, I will pause and breathe before responding or making any decisions.

[00:04:20] Knowing your top priorities is super helpful when you feel like you're grinding through your to-do list and the important stuff doesn't really happen or get done. Or maybe critical projects keep getting put off because you're not doing the important things.

[00:04:34] You're overloading yourself with too many not important things like checking your email and Instagram messages. We have all done it.

[00:04:41] It's so much easier to stay productive when I know exactly what needs to be done on any given day. And here's a pro tip. If you have a compressed day and you're a busy work from home parent like I am, you probably don't work from eight to five. I typically work half days every [00:05:00] day because of the priorities I have for my other family commitments, so I don't actually have time to get three work priorities done. Try to set two work priorities and one personal priority. The personal priority is usually a health habit I want to make sure I do like going for a walk or drinking enough water.

[00:05:20] So if you feel like you have a time crunched, really compressed day because of your schedule or your other priorities in life, try that tip to substitute a work priority for a personal one. The other tip I have for this habit of setting your priorities for the day is to not do anything else before you get at least one of your priorities done. I don't even open my email inbox before priority number one is accomplished, which leads us to the fourth way to stay productive.

[00:05:49] And that is once you've grounded yourself, set your intentions, and you know your priorities, I recommend checking your calendar and your project management system [00:06:00] to start your day, not your email. Too many of us habitually work out of our email inboxes, and that is what sets the tone for your day.

[00:06:09] It becomes your default to-do list. What you're doing is reacting to what everybody else needs from you instead of being proactive with your business and what you need to do to grow your business. Email is never the place to start your workday. There are a lot of tips and tricks you can do from pausing your inbox to just not even opening it.

[00:06:31] And once you have your top priorities down, you need to know what else is going on with your day. Refresh your memory. Do you have meetings? Anything going on with your personal life or appointments,

[00:06:43] whatever it is, check your calendar and your project management system. Your project management system doesn't have to be fancy. It can be a piece of paper, but whatever you use, you have to actually use it. You have to check in with it, make it work for you, and develop a routine with it, for it to be [00:07:00] effective.

[00:07:01] So the first thing I do when I turn on my computer in the morning is check in on my calendar and my project management to see what I need to do to keep my business moving forward. Email does not enter the picture. Sometimes not even until the end of the day, but certainly not during the first couple hours of work.

[00:07:19] Okay, onto the next tip. It's super easy when you're working from home and you've got a million things on your plate to have 50 tabs open on your computer and in your head. When you group similar tasks together, you have less context switching. Context switching is when you stop doing something and you go do something else, and you lose a tremendous amount of brainpower energy and time in trying to onboard with whatever the next task is.

[00:07:47] That you're doing that doesn't have to do with what you were just doing 30 seconds ago.

[00:07:52] Eliminating as much context switching as possible will give you so much momentum in your workday to [00:08:00] really take care of those priorities. Okay, let's recap your day so far. You hopefully got a good night's sleep. You grounded yourself and set your attention for the day. You wrote down your top priorities.

[00:08:13] You checked your calendar and your project management for the day so you know what you're doing when, and hopefully you've grouped a bunch of like tasks together so you can get in a good block of time. That is gonna minimize context switching and that brain drain.

[00:08:28] So on a typical day, this takes us through the first couple hours of the morning. Everybody is different, but for me personally, the first couple hours of my day are when I'm the most productive, the most creative, and I have the most energy for work. I'm excited to get to work every morning.

[00:08:44] I am thrilled with the possibilities of the day, feeling productive and excited to get to creating. Those first couple of hours really just have a lot of juice for me, but sometimes once you get through the first few hours of focused work. You might start losing [00:09:00] the thread of productivity and focus for the day.

[00:09:03] You start to feel tired and like nothing's working. You might fall into a click hole at your computer where you don't really know what you need to be doing and you're just kind of clicking around between open tabs. This is also the time you might get distracted by your inbox or social media. I'm here to tell you, I could almost bet money that it's because you need to hydrate and eat something healthy.

[00:09:27] When I started my business in 2015, there was this thing that would happen almost every single day around 2:00 PM I would get into this kind of chicken, little doomsday mindset. Tell me if this sounds familiar, you think my business isn't working, I'm just gonna go get a job. I'm too tired to do all of this.

[00:09:47] I'm never gonna get this all done. All of those thoughts would spin around my head almost every afternoon, and it really felt like whiplash. I would start the morning really excited and energetic and ready for the [00:10:00] possibilities of what I was creating in my business. And then by the afternoon, I'd wanna call today and crawl under the covers.

[00:10:06] Well, what was happening was that because my day was so compressed and I knew I had to pick up kids between two and three o'clock, I would work straight through lunch and I wouldn't make sure I was drinking enough water. And what was happening was because my body wasn't getting what it needed, my lizard brain was going into fight or flight mode.

[00:10:26] One of the ways I solve this is buying a fantastic water bottle that I love and use.

[00:10:31] And in our previous home when my office was not close to the kitchen, I actually had a water cooler in my office. That made that super easy for me. The realization that the state of my body was directly affecting my productivity and mindset was a game changer for me. I already mentioned that one of my top three priorities for the day is usually something for my health.

[00:10:52] And this tip is why even the act of writing down what I'm gonna have for lunch helps. Because when you wait until you're [00:11:00] hungry and you're exhausted and you're in a click hole, you're probably not gonna make great food choices. You're gonna want chips and crackers or something fatty and salty and all of that goodness, and it's not necessarily going to fuel your body or your brain in the best way.

[00:11:15] So even if it's something as simple as, I'm gonna make a smoothie for lunch today, that helps. You don't have to have a meal plan or have seven mason jars all ready to go in your refrigerator to make this happen. Just one day at a time, one meal at a time. It makes a huge difference.

[00:11:32] The next step is to talk about our do not disturb settings.

[00:11:37] Do not disturb settings are available on your phone. Your computer, your email, your messaging like Slack. My daughter was born in 2013. I turned off my ringer in 2013 and have never turned it back on. That was the first step I made in the direction of taking back control of my time in attention. Now I [00:12:00] have do not disturb set on my phone from 7:00 PM to 7:00 AM.

[00:12:04] Obviously I stay up later and I get up earlier than those hours, but those are not times that I wanna be checking notifications or emails or jumping on social media or anything like that on my computer. If I'm going into a focus block where I'm working hard on a project that I'm excited about for 90 minutes or two hours, I will turn on, do not disturb settings on my computer, so I'm not getting notifications or pings at all.

[00:12:29] If you use Gmail, it has a really great feature called Pause Inbox, and you can tell it when to come back on so that you're not getting pings and you're not seeing unread messages. Emails can often be the most tempting distraction, and here's why. It makes us feel like we're getting something done, but typically they aren't things that build your business. And sure some emails need to be taken care of in a timely manner, but probably not right in the moment when the email comes in. But we [00:13:00] get into this mistake of feeling like we're getting things done when we're checking our email inbox, but the opposite is actually true.

[00:13:07] You're wasting time instead of doing things like your top three priorities for the day. So use that pause inbox feature on Gmail.

[00:13:15] My next tip is sometimes even when you've set yourself up for a productive day, you're hydrated and fed. You still reach a point where your brain is just done when you've been working hard and you've been focused and using that creativity juice, and you can't force yourself to keep working at the same capacity.

[00:13:34] It's like pushing a wet noodle. When you reach this point, it's a good time to pause, take a breath, stretch, go for a walk outside, anything kind of in that wheelhouse. One of my favorite things to do is to take a 15 minute reset nap. I have a favorite YouTube video that is 15 minutes of binaural beats with a bell to wake me up.

[00:13:58] It's magic. [00:14:00] And while I hate to admit it, doing a quick workout makes me feel refreshed too. I always thought the people who recommended working out to feel better were kind of obnoxious, but it turns out a quick body weight workout or a walk really does the job. Whatever works for you, just see what you like doing to reset, and it might be different from day to day.

[00:14:20] That's okay. I can tell you from vast experience, if you keep pushing after you hit that point of diminishing returns, a 15 minute reset won't be enough, and you'll pretty much be useless the rest of the day. Taking that 15 minutes can give you back hours of productive time. My final tip for staying productive while working from home is to actually complete your day.

[00:14:47] There are many, many times I have left my home office thinking that I would get back to work after I picked the kids up or after I did this or that, or whatever. And the reality is it doesn't often happen. [00:15:00] But what does happen is my desk is left with all of my work from the day, and it's a discombobulated mess when you leave your office or desk.

[00:15:09] This way, you haven't actually completed your day. The act of which is super important to touch base with what you need to do for the next day. Most importantly, doing this lets you leave work at work even though you're working from home. Okay, closing out my day and preparing for the next one helps me not have those open loops in my brain when I'm trying to spend time with my family and ease into my evening routine.

[00:15:36] So here are some ideas for you to complete your day. Jot down any notes about unfinished work or to-dos in your project management system. Review your planner or your notes for what priorities you accomplished, which is such a good feeling, and look at the next day and plan a loose agenda.

[00:15:55] Put away your pens, your books, your notes, anything that you've had out that has a home where it [00:16:00] should go. Clear any dishes or water bottles you still have on your desk. Turn off the light. Push in your chair and take a moment to thank your space. Even if it's just a deep breath and putting a smile on your face, this ritual takes me 20 to 30 minutes, sometimes less, and it saves me so much time the next day because I know where I need to start with my day, and I'm not dealing with a cluttered desk and a mental to-do list.

[00:16:27] You'll be set up to come back to productivity tip number one, which is having your wind down routine the night before so you can get a good night's sleep. These steps are actually a full and complete cycle to help you minimize distractions, open loops in your brain, and stay focused and in flow with your work while taking care of yourself and your energy.

[00:16:49] Quick tie in here because it really matters. Inside Chaos Detox, we turn these simple routines and small habits into your own custom flows, [00:17:00] like a simple weekly reset, and a theme day plan that remove willpower from the equation. We focus on building white space in your calendar and breathing room in your brain with the often elusive skills around better boundaries.

[00:17:14] You can find out more about joining us inside Chaos Detox in the show notes. So here's your reset and reclaim action step for the week tonight. Move your phone charger out of the bedroom and make sure your work area is clean, picked up, and ready to start the day fresh.

[00:17:31] Let's recap your nine steps to being more productive working from home, which is really more like a daily loop that you walk through. Number one, have a wind down routine the night before. Number two, set your intention for the day. Number three, know your priorities for the day. Number four, stay out of your email inbox.

[00:17:56] Number five, group similar task together for less [00:18:00] context switching. Number six, hydrate and eat something healthy. Seven, use your do not disturb settings. Number eight, pause and reset if you hit an afternoon wall. And number nine, take time to complete your day and clear your workspace. If you remember only one thing from these nine ways to stay productive while working from home, remember this mind management and boundaries around your attention have to come before time management or productivity will work for you.

[00:18:35] Start with small changes, repeat and build until it feels like your new normal. Thanks for tuning in. If this episode helped you subscribe so you never miss an update and share it with another woman who needs to hear it. For more resources, show notes and my Chaos Detox course, visit carachace.com. Until next time, I'm Cara Chace reminding you to keep questioning the rules and making [00:19:00] your own.