Work-from-Home Hacks: 500+ Easy Ways to Get Organized, Stay Productive, and Maintain a Work-Life Balance While Working from Home!

by Aja Frost

Be as productive as possible at work while never leaving your home with these 500 easy-to-follow hacks that will instantly improve your work-from-home experience.

As many have discovered during the Covid-19 pandemic, working from home certainly has its perks. From the easy (non)commute to your computer to the extra time you can spend with your family and pets to the benefits of customizing your environment to your own personal needs, many are continuing to enjoy the work-from-home lifestyle. But it also comes with its challenges. How do you avoid distractions around your home? How can you remain as productive as you are in the office?

That’s where Work-from-Home Hacks comes in to help! With over 500 quick and easy solutions you can implement in your daily life, you’ll find yourself staying more productive, organized, and happier than ever.

You’ll learn useful tips
-Create a designated workspace at home
-Figure out what background noise works best for you
-Use a different internet browser for work
-Change your clothes before you start work
-And so much more!

So whether you’re adjusting to a new, permanent work-from-home schedule, are looking to make some changes to a long-standing remote work routine, or just need some advice for the occasional WFH days, this book is here to help you stay as productive as possible so you can maintain a healthy work/life balance and make the most of your days outside of the office!

Genres: Nonfiction, Self Help, Productivity, Business, Personal Development, Management

256 pages, Paperback

Published December 29, 2020

About the author

Aja Frost is a writer specializing in productivity, professional development, and technology. Her work has appeared in more than 100 publications, including The Muse, TechCrunch, The Next Web, Forbes, Business Insider, USA Today, Newsweek, Entrepreneur, and TIME Magazine. She currently leads English SEO for HubSpot.

Reviews

[Carri · Rating 4 out of 5]

First chapter is underwhelming but I thought the rest of the book had some new helpful hacks and solid reminders.

[Mrs Mommy Booknerd http://mrsmommybooknerd.blogspot.com · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has been such a help, since I am working from home 4 days a week. This book has everything you need from setting up your space, to routine and schedules to overcoming those nasty distractions and so much more. I loved that it was practical advice and not some crazy off the wall ideas! Much needed, as I am still getting used to this new normal of WFH!

[Amanda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wow, was this basic. Pretty much any article online could cover this topic in five minutes and you'd get about the same information. You don't need a 150 page book with the same 20 tips reworded. I don't think I learned anything new here--that was applicable to me--out of all these "500" (actually 503) tips.

2 stars

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been working from home for a year and 3 months, due to the Covid situation in the Philippines. Though we wont know if the arrangement is permanent, the hacks can still be applicable even if we do return to the office. I found this book insightful, topics were organized from the set up, building routines to Work Life Balance. I also liked the recommended apps, found myself actually checking them out!

[Siena Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a helpful and informative guide! I have been searching for a book like this since March when my partner and I both switched to remote working, and I can't wait to apply these tips in the new year. The section on maintaining a work/life balance was especially applicable to me.

[Kbeckermann · Rating 1 out of 5]

Save yourself the trouble of reading this. Many of the hacks are a slight variation of another. The 500 boil down to about 40.

[Shammah Godoz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, I liked it. I would read it again. But I cannot say that it changed my life.

[Charmin · Rating 4 out of 5]

HIGHLIGHTS:
1. MEETING STRUCTURE:
- Rotate the order of speakers for recurring team meetings. changing up who speaks first, second, third, and so on ensures the same people don’t always get stuck with the undesirable last speaking slots—which
- Rotate meeting leaders. anyone can play this role—in fact, you may want to rotate who moderates each time if it’s a recurring meeting. the leader is in charge of guiding the discussion, calling on participants, and sending out the recording or follow-up notes after.
- TALKERS: Put chatty talkers near the end of the agenda.
- WRAP UP: Always close with a four-sentence recap. this gives you a chance to clear up any miscommunications—which are more common during virtual meetings than in-person ones—and gets everyone motivated. four sentences are perfect for summarizing what happened and what’s coming next.
- WRAP UP: Volunteer to write up your takeaways for the rest of your team.
- WRAP UP: Pretend you’ll have to give your boss a CliffsNotes summary of the meeting.
- AGENDA: Presentation of each group’s favorite idea: everyone (15 min) next steps: Adam (5 min)
- FORMAT: Talking about a, b, and c. Our ultimate goal is z. We decided (name/team) would do x by (date), and (name/team) will do y by (date). we’re going to (meet again/check in on) z day.”
- FORMAT: p: the point, or your main idea r: the reason, or why your idea makes sense e: the example/explanation, or how your idea manifests itself s: the summary, or what to do with the idea
- FORMAT: next time a colleague is rambling, politely say, “Thanks (name). in the interest of time, should we (table this topic for now, have so-and-so give their thoughts, and move to the next discussion item)?”
- PAUSE: pause after making a point. your powerful point will get lost if you don’t. however, when you’re nervous (or chatty by nature), it can be tough to stop speaking. take a deep breath and force yourself to go silent so others can react.
- WALK & TALK: Do walking one-on-ones. an easy way to squeeze in some extra exercise and get away from your desk? call your coworkers on the phone and take a walk while you talk.
- OFFICE HOURS: Host office hours. open your virtual door for an hour every one to two weeks so your reports have a chance to ask questions, get guidance or clarification, solicit feedback, or simply get to know you.
- INVITATION: Keep the list of attendees as short as possible. the more people on a call, the harder it is to manage the conversation.
- INVITATION: Take advantage of the event invitation or description so participants know what to expect.
- INVITATION CRITERIA: Only schedule a meeting if they meet all of the following qualifications: the group needs to make a decision. you can clearly articulate what that decision is. that decision requires input from the entire group. that input must be given in real-time.
- ROLES: Having a leader does a few things: it keeps the meeting on track, ensures you hit all the discussion points you need to without going over time, and ensures you’ll remember to record and/or take notes. rotating your meeting leaders means that everyone will have the opportunity to participate and practice important leadership skills.
- ROLES: Designate a timekeeper. do your meetings often run over schedule? ask someone to be the timekeeper. this person is responsible for communicating how many minutes each participant has to speak and letting them know when they’re close to—and at—time.
- TIMEKEEPER: call attention to the time to keep meetings moving on schedule.

2. MEETINGS - VIDEO/ZOOM
- Make prerecorded presentations inclusive by adding captions.
- ZOOM: Create one meeting “room” for back-to-back calls.

3. EMAIL
- TEMPLATES: Creating templates is a great way to save time while still getting your message across. Software like text expander. T save time, create templates for your most-used responses.
- Schedule your emails instead of sending them during off-hours.
- Ask for a deadline. if your coworker or boss doesn’t provide a deadline along with their requests or assignments, don’t be afraid to ask for one directly.
- FORMAT: Make it clear what you need in your email subject line. Adding a label to your subject line will help them see at a glance if they need to open and respond to your email immediately or if they can give it some time.
-FORMAT: “I’m available for meetings from (x to y times) on (a to b days). if you call or email me when I’m out (on Friday, after 4 p.m., etc.), I’ll respond asap (on Monday morning, the next day).”
- FORMAT: Labels to include in your subject line: no response necessary action required please let me know you’ve read this by x date please take y action by z time
- Save examples of effective professional writing for inspiration. create a folder on your computer or in the cloud; every time you come across a well-written piece at work,
- FORMAT: ‘timely’ in the subject line”
- FORMAT: Give specific deadlines. you might feel awkward giving your peers due dates, but they’ll appreciate the specificity. knowing exactly when you need something done helps them prioritize the work and avoids confusion.
- FORMAT: Put your pronouns in your email signature and chat profile.
- REPORT OUT: Create a daily or weekly “wins” log to reference with your manager.
- REPORT OUT: Don’t just say what you did—explain what you learned or why you think you were successful and how it can be useful in the future.

4. TIME
- Keep your to-do list under control with the four-minute rule. here’s how it works: every time a new task pops up that’ll take you less than four minutes, do it immediately. this is faster than adding it to your to-do list and returning to it later or, worse, not writing it down and thinking about the work all day.
- Track how much personal time you spend doing work on your phone.
- Set an alarm for the end of your workday.
- Dedicate one or two nights a week to a recurring activity. Maybe that’s taking a workout class you really enjoy, or joining a local bowling league.
- Request specific subject lines. worried about missing urgent emails while on vacation? in your away email, ask people to put “urgent” in the subject line for anything that can’t wait until your return.
- VACATION: Give yourself a vacation minimum. perfect for people with unlimited paid time off, it’s important to make a commitment to yourself to take at least twenty vacation days per year.
- build buffer days into your vacation. going right back to work can shatter any sense of calm you’ve cultivated as you rush to get everything back in order at home when you return.
- VACATION: A personal vacation minimum will ensure you don’t short yourself on valuable r and r time.
- VACATION: schedule notifications to start and stop with your work hours. to make it even harder to check your chat at night or right when you wake up, schedule notifications for 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. (or whatever your working hours are).

5. PRODUCTIVITY
- SCHEDULE: Block out time for busy work. that could be everything from dealing with administrative tasks to updating your social media to tackling any other business-related work. if you don’t schedule these tasks, you’ll end up doing them after your “real work” has been done.
- SCHEDULE: Each day of the week has a separate focus.
- SCHEDULE: “Day Theming” can require some juggling (for example, perhaps some clients don’t want to meet on Tuesday, or you need to have a presentation ready before Thursday). but if you can make it work, it’ll allow you to delve deeply into each task type.
- SCHEDULE: Leaving a few slots open will help you readjust on the fly.
- SCHEDULE: Finish the day by writing out your priorities for the next. that way, when you sit down at your desk the next morning, you’ll have a clear sense of what you need to accomplish. this helps you get focused immediately
- SCHEDULE: Regularly audit your meetings to identify those you can stop having.
- SCHEDULE: To win back valuable time from unnecessary meetings, review your recurring meetings once a quarter.
- BRAIN: Multitask with call recordings. couldn’t make a meeting and need to catch up? This could be a great time to get some household chores done. try playing the recording during tasks you can do on the semi-auto pilot—like folding laundry, washing dishes, or weeding—instead of listening to a podcast or music.
- BRAIN: “Context switching” brain tax. if possible, try to cluster your calls. this lets you knock out all of your (virtual) face time at once—then you can tackle work that requires deeper focus.
- BRAIN: Take the same route or listen to the same thing every time you take your commute.
- BRAIN: Mental cue that your workday is about to begin or end.
- BUFFER TIME: Keep buffer time in your schedule to accommodate last-minute changes.
- BRAIN: Give your mind a warm-up before you jump into the workday. read a book, do the crossword, play sudoku, practice a foreign language, take an online course, or listen to a stimulating podcast.
- A timer or hourglass is also handy for ending conversations; just say, “That’s my cue! let’s pick this up when I’m done with work at x time.”
- Give yourself a new perspective—literally—by changing location.
- Aim to sit directly in front of your natural light source.

6. COMMUNICATION
- Set up Slackbot to monitor for non-inclusive language.
- Don’t just say what you did—explain what you learned or why you think you were successful and how it can be useful in the future.
- FORMAT: Write something like “I wasn’t sure how to read your last message. can you give me more context/would you mind rephrasing?”
- Read the company blog, wiki, or knowledge base. without in-person chatter, you need to go out of your way to stay clued in. Make a habit of spending twenty to sixty minutes each week reading the latest posts on your company’s internal “bulletin board.” this ensures you’ll always know what’s going on outside your immediate team.
- Create a “how to work with me” guide. this guide will help your coworkers work with you more effectively; plus, the process of writing it might give you some valuable insights into your preferences. you can include anything you think your team members and/or direct reports should know, such as the communication methods you prefer for giving or receiving updates, your optimal meeting times, any scheduling limitations, the best way to give you feedback, and other pertinent information. aim for one or two pages. you want your manual to be short and sweet so your colleagues can quickly digest it.
- Encourage your coworkers to create their own “how to work with me” guides.
- A daily ten-minute “stand-up” when everyone shares what they’re working on will keep you in the loop.
- At the end of each day or week (depending on the cadence of your projects), document your wins. review this list before one-on-ones so they’re top of mind—and then mention them!
- Save examples of effective professional writing for inspiration. create a folder on your computer or in the cloud; every time you come across a well-written piece at work,
- FORMAT: Practice saying, “I have x minutes to talk” and “I need to get back to work.”
- Foster collaboration and continual learning with lunch-and-learns. virtual lunch-and-learns expose your team to new points of view, expertise, or experience. ask the leader of another department to walk everyone through their team’s goals, operations, and challenges, or bring in someone external to talk about their career.
- Communicate important things three times in three different ways. for example, if you’re sharing next year’s goals, talk about them in the team meeting, share them over email, and post a link to your dashboard over chat.

7. BUSINESS
- You’ll have much more time for billable work if you do multiple projects for one client versus one-off projects for several clients. set up long-term gigs whenever possible.
- Periodically increase your rates. try a 10–20 percent increase every three to six months. stop raising your rates when you’re happy with both your income and your workload.
- Combat “scope creep” by never taking a job without a comprehensive contract. your agreement should lay out what deliverables you’re responsible for in as much detail as possible. if the client requests work you didn’t initially agree on, you can say, “Sure. that will push the deadline to (new date) and the cost to (increased price).” don’t want to do the additional work? say, “Unfortunately, that wasn’t in our original project scope, and I’m at full capacity right now.”
- Think of yourself as a consultant who bills by the project, not the hour.
- Bake buffer time into your timeline estimates. depending on the project’s scope, add a day to a few weeks to the deadline you agree on with the client.
- Adopt summer Fridays. As the sun comes out, work tends to cool off—for some industries, at least. consider implementing summer Fridays at your team or company. Every Friday, folks log off at noon.
- App to connect with people for lunch. often find yourself working through your lunch break? apps like Donut let you set up a “lunch roulette” system. every week or month (depending on the cadence you choose), participants will get introduced to a randomly selected buddy from within the company for a coffee chat
- Share a list of key internal contacts with your team. This list will help you avoid getting pinged with it, finance, and hr requests. it should include every person your employees may need to contact for questions outside your scope, like hardware/software issues, VPN access, username and password changes, paychecks, taxes, expense reimbursements, benefits, and more.
- Keep a running list of all the tools your team is using. every three to six months, look at your list and consider the primary purpose of each program or app.
- Monitor work output, not hours.
- Have your team members update their job descriptions. this exercise is a fantastic way to track your report’s progress and make sure you’re both measuring success by the same criteria.
add a “highlights reel” to the end of your team meetings. consistently use this time to recognize your team members for their hard work and accomplishments.
- You could end every all-hands meeting by asking if anyone wants to recognize a coworker.
- Schedule your own informal reviews. if your company only does performance reviews once or twice a year, consider adding more frequent performance “check-ins.” Nothing in your annual or biannual reviews should come as a surprise. Every piece of feedback you give should have a precedent…which is where these informal reviews come in. Give your direct reports feedback whenever you have it (both positive and negative), taking notes along the way so you can pull the themes together for their performance review. one-on-ones are a good forum for this type of feedback.

8. HOME OFFICE
- Put your router out in the open and as close to your workspace as possible.
- Ethernet is less convenient than wi-fi—after all, you’re tethered to it—but it’s far steadier.
- Ellipticals and bike-pedal equipment that goes under your desk, you can exercise and work at the same time.

[713tess · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book would have been a lot better without all the fluff. While the book did contain some useful and unique tips, I felt that so many of the tips were extremely obvious and unnecessary. For instance, the section about setting up a home office contained tips like, “set up your home office in the space under your stairs,” and “set up your office in the corner of your bedroom,” and “put up shelves,” etc. These are things that go without saying, and/or are extremely individualized and do not need to go in a general tips book.

Much of the book made me feel that the author was just trying to reach a set word/tip count and was writing down whatever she could to fill up the pages. Then, other pages I felt were very thoughtful and well-planned.

Most of the tips were targeted towards people working as a part of large companies/teams, meaning that most sections contained tips about zoom meetings, virtual team collaboration, and long-distance team management. The last section of the book is targeted towards freelancers - since I fall under this category, this was the most useful part of the book for me, however it was also one of the shortest parts.

If you’re someone who works for a company and spend a good portion of your time working and joining meetings from home, this book could have a few genuinely good tips for you. It just wasn’t for me.

[Easy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book has different main topics/groups of positions (eg. Leading from home, working from home, work life balance,...). Under these topics you will find bold main points and an explanaition/example under them. I liked the book because on one hand it was pretty easy to read. I just flipped through the pages and marked/read whatever points I found suitable for my personal situation. On the other hand there were quite a wide variety of tips in it. As someone who only read a few online articles about this topic and is working as an full time employee for only just over two years there were some quality points in there that actually improved my wfh (work from home) but also my 'normal' work capabilities. So either if you are new to working or wfh its an interesting read and I'm sure even people with more work experience will get at least some fast insights in this read.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s a solid list of ideas to make remote work more tolerable and profitable for everyone from corporate employees to freelancers. The issue I had was that it did me very little good because the ones that worth me implementing already had been either by myself or my employer (I work for a 100% remote agency). The rest were ways to get around hybrid remote/in-office workforces and, well, that’s not a problem. Still there are great ideas here for those who are new to remote work.

[Ron · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is mostly common sense in this book about working from home. If you haven't figured out this stuff after 2020, you probably have other problems. For example,
- setting up your own office
- setting up boundaries
- conducting meetings
- managing remotely

[Suzanne Moses · Rating 5 out of 5]

While I didn’t find most “hacks” useful or applicable, I did find some that I directly copied. In addition it gave me a starting place to think about what would work better for me and think of options and solutions that I wouldn’t have considered otherwise.

[Keri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some great ideas! Given that it tried to cover a wide variety of WFH/remote working situations and conditions, not everything is applicable or feasible for everyone. However, I found a solid dozen good ideas and reminders.
Worth a quick read.

[Tom Horn · Rating 3 out of 5]

The structure of the book was good, where every tip had a headline that allowed you to quickly skim and see if you wanted to read further. It probably should have been trimmed down a bit, as many of these tips were just general "how to work well" tips and weren't specific to WFH.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

quick, to the point and super helpful

[Sharie · Rating 3 out of 5]

specific to certain apps/technology

[Kendra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some good info but also some very silly suggestions. Mostly just use common sense if you work from home.

[Corrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I felt like 1/3 of these suggestions weren't applicable to me (does everyone else in the world use Slack?!) but there were a few gems in here, and the book was short enough to get through in a day.

[Pavel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some hacks hit, some miss, but overall very informative (and much better than other tips and hacks books I tried).

[Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good resource with a lot of tips and ideas to immediately add to your work from home experience, as well as a ton to implement with your team.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good, practical tips for remote workers. 👌

[Shannon Whelan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Worth a read, lots of good tips and tricks! Some may be more applicable than others, but gives some good guidance overall!

[Ash P · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book, great tips.

[Amber · Rating 3 out of 5]

This would definitely be more helpful for someone who is new to working from home - but I did manage to get a few helpful tidbits out of it.

[Nina · Rating 1 out of 5]

I got this book as a gift. The tips are very basic and it wasn’t useful

[Jenna · Rating 3 out of 5]

A few good tips, none revolutionary.

[Joseph Hernandez · Rating 1 out of 5]

Admittedly, I only checked this book out from my library to keep my card active.
The book is full of simple ideas for working from home. Nothing terribly groundbreaking or inspiring.

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

A lot of ideas were fairly obvious, and occasionally contradictory.

[Daniel Sloan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked that this book didn't dally. It gets to the point. It only took about 20 to 30 minutes to skim through. A few of the tips are even decent. Most are just common sense though, at least in my mind. Or they are so general as to be useless. Maybe the author put a lot of work into this, and if she should come across this review, I apologize. It might seem scathing. But, if I'm picking up a book on productivity, I want to feel like it is leaving me a more productive person. I didn't get that out of this book.