5 habits of people who are especially productive working from home

Address the “garbage work” that fills our day, like emails, meetings, protocols, and paperwork that drain the critical capacity of work-from-home teams.

These low-value activities can become a barrier to getting to the important and meaningful aspects of your work, and reducing the burden requires a shift in mindset and language.

Have a reductive mindset, where it becomes second nature to get rid of unnecessary things. Developing a reductive mindset means you adopt a habit—a reflex, tendency, effortless first inclination—to eliminate, or cut the unnecessary.

We must dismantle the additive instincts most companies and professionals have developed.

Taking breaks during the day is popular advice, but knowing when and for how long can be confusing. For example, the Energy Project tells you to follow the circadian rhythm of your body and take a break every 90 minutes, while the Pomodoro Technique suggests taking a break every 21 minutes.

Timed breaks don’t always fit well with your work. A more intuitive model suggests paying attention to your individual internal cues.

Your inbox can derail your productivity if you let it. Instead of keeping the gateway to your email open all day long, productive people decide when they indulge and when they abstain from email.

You can check at the top of every hour, for instance, or at the top and bottom of every hour. Some people check at mealtimes. Such a purposeful, periodic schedule creates vacuums between email checks into which your truly deep work can flow.

Productivity can hinge on compartmentalization, which is a vital habit of work-from-home professionals. Anytime you can put something in a box, literally or figuratively, it helps you focus.

Email checking is compartmentalization. The paper anchor is compartmentalization.

Use this concept to end your day visually by opening a literal compartment, such as a drawer or a cabinet, and placing all of your work-related items inside. Tuck them in and clock out.