How to Have a Productive Day Working from Home

It seems as if it should be straightforward – if you have the whole day to work at home, you should be super productive. Just work all day, long, right?

If you are able to consistently have days where you sit in front of your computer and write for hours on end, then kudos to you. I, on the other hand, find that if I am not mindful about how I spend my time, a day that is free of appointments can end up being a frustrating, unproductive day.

I love my home office!

My very best writing days are the ones I have at my annual writing retreat, where I am in a beautiful location, surrounded by amazing women writers. I try and replicate that experience about once a month by meeting up with friends at a mountain café and then going on a hike with them afterward. Alas, I can’t do a mini-retreat every day or even every week.

I can, however, work my schedule such that I have at least one day where I work from home. And, how I cherish those days!

Here is my recipe for a productive day of work from home:



Wake up: 5:45am (I know … I am an early riser)

5:45-6:00am: Prepare my almond milk latte and sit on my couch and savor it.

6:00am-7:00am: WRITE!

7:00-7:20am: Take my daughter to school (We live in a small town so I can do a round trip in 20 minutes)

7:20-8:30: Go for a run and have breakfast.

8:30-9:30am: WRITE!

9:30-10:00am: Shower and get ready for the day (I always need a little break after a long writing session)

10:00-11:00am: Reading and/or data analysis

11:00am-11:30: Lunch prep (I do love putting things in my Instant pot and then getting back to work).

11:30-12:30pm: Reading and/or data analysis.

12:30-1:00pm: Lunch

1:00pm-2:00pm: Email (It is important to avoid email for most of the day to stay focused but I can't ignore it all day, so after lunch is a good time to check it.)

2:00pm-3:00pm: Review papers. Take care of administrative business.

3:00pm-3:30pm: Youtube Yoga session

3:30-4:30: Meet colleague for tea or have phone call.

4:30-5:00pm: Final email check of the day

5:00pm: Shut down work for the day


If you are counting (and I know some of you are), that’s 2 hours of writing; two hours of reading and/or data analysis; 90 minutes of email; one hour of meetings; and one hour of administrivia.

For me, that would be a super-productive day at home. What is most important to me about this schedule is that I get all of my focused work done in the morning. In my experience, the single most important thing I need to make this happen is to avoid email and social media before finishing all of my focused time. The second most important thing is to have a clear cutoff time for email – where I stop checking email for the day.

Having this schedule is also helpful because, when I am writing, I might start thinking: “I really should put a load in the laundry.” If I have some light housework on my schedule, I can just tell myself that I will do it at the scheduled time. Likewise, if I remember an email I have been meaning to send, I can make a note and then send it when my email time comes around.

I also will schedule phone calls in the afternoon of my stay-at-home days because I often can take those calls while going on a nice walk around my neighborhood. Having this schedule in mind makes it easier for me to time those phone calls well.

How about you? What does an ideal work-from-home day look like for you?

PS: We have had a couple of cancellations for our retreat in Belize this June. Apply here today and we may be able to get you a spot!

Don’t Check Your Email in the Morning

You likely have heard this advice before. You may have even followed it for some time. You may have even read the book: Never Check Email in the Morning. But, if you’re anything like me, you tried avoiding email in the morning, and it worked for a while before you slipped back into your old habits.

We tell ourselves all kinds of stories for why we have to check email in the morning. Here are a few things I tell myself:

• It’s efficient to check and delete emails from my phone while drinking my morning coffee.
• It’s important to know what’s coming for the day.
• There may be something urgent I need to respond to.
• I can quickly scan my emails and then move on to other tasks.

Despite what I may tell myself, I am not that important. Nothing will happen if I don’t check my email all morning. And, although it may seem efficient to scan my email in the morning, it is not.

I recently read this great book by Cal Newport called Deep Work. In that book, he describes research which reveals it is harder to focus after checking email or social media. He explains that any activity you do affects your level of focus in the next activity you engage in. Thus, even if you take five minutes to scan your email or scroll through Twitter, that experience will leave a residue. The “attention residue” from email or social media is detrimental to your ability to focus on the next task. Email and social media are particularly detrimental to activities that require a high level of focus such as writing.


You will be able to achieve a higher level of focus and clarity in your writing if you get your writing done before checking your email and social media accounts.

I am Department Chair this year and I have to respond to lots of emails in that and other administrative capacities. During the Fall semester, I was able to handle those responsibilities while also getting my writing done in September and October. In November, however, I added three out-of-town trips to my already packed schedule and my writing fell by the wayside. Looking back, one of the main reasons I got so little writing done in November is that I began my days responding to emails. Once I opened my emails, it was difficult to achieve the focus I needed to make progress on my writing.

When I couldn’t focus on my writing, I turned to social media, which was a further distraction from my writing.

Thus, in the coming Spring semester, I am going to avoid email and all social media until I complete my writing tasks for the day. Then, I will limit both activities to specific times of the day.

My plan is to wake up at 6am, write for one hour, take my daughter to school, go for a run, have breakfast, and then sit down for my second writing session. Once my second session is over, I will check my emails. I then will close my email and check it again at the end of the day. At 5pm, I will log out of my email and close the program until the next day. In Deep Work, Cal Newport also recommends having an official end to the workday to allow the mind time to reset and refocus.

I also set up my phone so that I am limited to a total of 30 minutes per day on social media. I will only engage with social media once I have finished my writing and will avoid social media after dinner. This will allow me more time to spend focusing on my family as well as reading great books.

It should not be difficult for me to keep this routine during the month of January, as my semester does not officially start until January 14th and classes don’t begin until January 21st. Thus, no one expects a quick response from me during this time. My hope is that I will be emboldened and inspired by my writing productivity during the month of January and that I will thus keep this up for the rest of the semester.

How about you? What will it take for you to get your email and social media habits under control?