Check out the ultimate guide to 16 return-to-work programs in India for women
Women who work from home can boost their productivity by setting up a comfortable and efficient workspace at home.
By Prerna Malik
For most career women, the office and home tend to overlap. Whether you’re a high-powered executive who brings home projects from work or a working mother with a home-based business, chances are you have a niche that you use to work in.
A home office can be a dedicated room with a door that shuts out the television and the household sounds or it could be an area in your dining room. Regardless of how big or small your home office is, here are ways to organize and improve it to boost your own productivity and efficiency:
Organizing is a working woman’s best friend
You can increase your productivity at work instantly by keeping your home office organized and clutter-free. Have a system that helps you to deal with paperwork and project work. Whether it is a workflow system or a simple “File, Trash, Act” system, make sure you don’t let paper clutter pile up and files get disorganized.
Sangeeta S Bahl, Founder and Director of Impact Image Consultants and a working mother is a firm believer in dealing with mail as it comes in. She says, “Handle mail within 24 hours and you’ll never have paper clutter to deal with.”
Organizing is also key when it comes to your desk. Since I have a small working area (read, my dining table), I have to make sure that everything on it helps me to work quickly and easily. So, I have a small basket with stationery supplies, a tray for files and paperwork, and a shelf for books.
You can increase your productivity instantly by keeping your home office organized and clutter-free.
A place for everything
Your home office can quickly sap your productivity if every single moment is spent hunting for something or the other. Not only that, it can really impact a working woman’s mood and make her very irritable indeed. That is why, you need to make sure you have a place for everything and everything in its place.
A few ideas to help you improve space management in a home office are:
– Shelves: Invest in a few smart bookshelves that can go up on the wall or stand in the corner so that you can stash your reading material, boxes of stationery and other important things easily and quickly.
– Boxes: To hold papers, stationery supplies and miscellaneous items. These can be both artistic and functional. You can get several affordable and attractive options from most office supply stores.
– Filing Cabinet: If your business involves a lot of paperwork, it would be a good idea to invest in a filing cabinet so that you can keep all important papers organized and safe. Bahl went a step further and got herself some beautiful foldable file folders that not only organize her filing but also look aesthetic.
– Labels: To help you remember where everything is and where everything goes. I use premade ones but you can easily use a marker and label things by hand.
Sit right; work better
The right kind of furniture can make a HUGE difference to the way a working mother works and feels. Investing in a good, ergonomically designed chair and desk can not only boost productivity but also make staying pain-free possible for women at work while at home. In Bahl’s office, the furniture also includes a sofa along with the desk. She recommends investing in office furniture that is workable to make your work time easier and more efficient.
Aesthetics and technology do matter
At the end of the day, a busy career woman should enjoy working in her home office. So, make sure it looks pretty and appealing to the eye. A vase of flowers, a few photos of fun holidays or some great artwork on the wall can really help keep you inspired and motivated as you meet clients or deal with deadlines. Manika Awasthi, a working HR professional and busy mom, has books, pictures and photos to brighten up her home office and keep her inspired and energized.
At the end of the day, a busy career woman should enjoy working in her home office.
Awasthi, also, strongly recommends investing in technology. A reliable, high-speed Internet connection, a laptop with the right configuration for your work and a smart phone, she feels, are the best ways to make your home office a productive space.
Regardless of the space you have for an office, a few simple improvements to your workspace at home can make it the best, most productive place for YOU – the multi-tasking, ever-on-the go career woman.
*Photo credit: nkeppol
Women's Web is a vibrant community for Indian women, an authentic space for us to be ourselves and talk about all things that matter to us. Follow us via the read more...
Stay updated with our Weekly Newsletter or Daily Summary - or both!
I huffed, puffed and panted up the hill, taking many rest breaks along the way. My calf muscles pained, my heart protested, and my breathing became heavy at one stage.
“Let’s turn back,” my husband remarked. We stood at the foot of Shravanbelagola – one of the most revered Jain pilgrimage centres. “We will not climb the hill,” he continued.
My husband and I were vacationing in Karnataka. It was the month of May, and even at the early hour of 8 am in the morning, the sun scorched our backs. After visiting Bangalore and Mysore, we had made a planned stop at this holy site in the Southern part of the state en route to Hosur. Even while planning our vacation, my husband was very excited at the prospect of visiting this place and the 18 m high statue of Lord Gometeshwara, considered one of the world’s tallest free-standing monolithic statues.
What we hadn’t bargained for was there would be 1001 granite steps that needed to be climbed to have a close-up view of this colossal magic three thousand feet above sea level on a hilltop. It would be an understatement to term it as an arduous climb.
Why is the Social Media trend of young mothers of boys captioning their parenting video “Dear future Daughter-in-Law, you are welcome” deeply problematic and disturbing to me as a young mother of a girl?
I have recently come across a trend on social media started by young mothers of boys who share videos where they teach their sons to be sensitive and understanding and also make them actively participate in household chores.
However, the problematic part of this trend is that such reels or videos are almost always captioned, “To my future daughter-in-law, you are welcome.” I know your intentions are positive, but I would like to point out how you are failing the very purpose you wanted to accomplish by captioning the videos like this.
I know you are hurt—perhaps by a domestic household that lacks empathy, by a partner who either is emotionally unavailable, is a man-child adding to your burden of parenting instead of sharing it, or who is simply backed by overprotective and abusive in-laws who do not understand the tiring journey of a working woman left without any rest as doing the household chores timely is her responsibility only.
Please enter your email address