Essentials to Survive Your Work From Home Summer

The summer months allow many college students the opportunity to pursue employment in local businesses or large offices, but now many are choosing to work from home. Popularized and necessitated by the worldwide COVID pandemic in 2020, working from home allows a degree of freedom to workers not afforded to them in a more stringent professional environment. Workers get to choose how much or how long they work every day and get to spend more time with their friends and family. This style of labor is especially popular with college students as it lets them make money while not basing their entire schedule around their job, as well as allowing them time to enjoy summer leisure activities. It’s important to note that a remote job has its own downsides the same way an in-person job does, but having these work-from-home essentials will help you maintain productivity and focus during the summer.

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Stable internet connection

If you are working from home, it is likely that you’ll be submitting your completed projects online. You will also need to communicate with your employer and coworkers either through email or video conferencing software. Thus, a reliable internet connection is imperative; without it, you won’t be able to do your job. Go to a wifi speed test website to calculate the speed of your home’s connection. Pay particularly close attention to the upload speed. Consumers tend to pay the most mind to download, as it is often marketed to them most directly, showing off blazing-fast speeds. However, when working from home, upload speeds would be more important, as it gives you an idea of how fast your projects can be sent to coworkers or exported and uploaded to shared company drives. If your speeds are subpar, consider purchasing wifi boosters for your home. These will ensure you are getting a better connection while also extending the range, allowing you to work in different rooms if you need to.

Use a planner

Working from home offers an amazing level of freedom to the individual employee, but that can be a gift and a curse. You may want to go out with friends instead of finishing your project. Maybe you have a season of television you want to keep binging. Your phone is sitting right next to you, going off constantly with notifications and providing the perfect excuse to get off task. For all these reasons and more, a planner is an incredibly important tool. Using a planner will allow you to allocate your time in an appropriate manner. You can designate certain days or times of day for productivity, ensuring that your work will be completed on time. This also helps break up big tasks and make them more manageable. If you are assigned a large project by your employer, using a planner can help break down the workload into smaller assignments you complete each day, ultimately removing the stress of the greater project from your mind and allowing you to put in your best effort.

Schedule regular breaks

However, focusing on work shouldn’t preclude you from having designated time for yourself. While it’s important to stay on task and get your jobs done, the quality of your work may heavily decline if you let your career consume you. Burning out is no joke, and so it’s smart and healthy to take breaks and do something for yourself throughout the day. When you eventually return to your work, you will be able to look at it with fresh eyes and fix any mistakes you may have made previously. Taking breaks will also help you appreciate the flexibility of the work-from-home experience, as you’ll be able to pursue personal activities during the workday in a way that is not available in a traditional work environment.

Stock up on caffeine

Working from home is an incredibly flexible lifestyle; you can work at almost any time you want, as long as your tasks get done. As such, you may be hit with a sudden surge of motivation to work late at night, or perhaps you wake up in the wee hours of the morning and decide it might be a good time to make some progress on your projects. Caffeine is going to be your friend. It will help you operate on the irregular hours that working from home affords you, letting you power through the early mornings and late nights. It can also help you focus on your work, allowing you to be more efficient in the short term. Just don’t go overboard; too much caffeine can have deleterious effects on your health, particularly your heart.

Working from home is an exciting new way to interact with the workforce, and it only gained traction in recent years due to the global pandemic. While it certainly seems alluring to college students due to its unstructured nature, it has its own hurdles, just like an office job. However, if you have personal discipline, are able to stay on task, and can follow these steps, this guide will make sure your summer work-from-home experience is a success!