Transform your home office into your school office in 7 easy steps

During these difficult times and widespread school closures, it’s all too easy to fall into bad habits. Luckily, there are some simple steps you can put into practice to help you transform your home office into your school office – and avoid a huge work pile-up at the end of self-isolation.

It’s time to treat working in your home office the same way you would at school. There’s never been a better time to set up your home for remote working, so here’s our top seven tricks remote workers use to help them get the job done!

Accept your team may need to change their working patterns

The school day may have been dramatically altered, but the finance office hasn’t. Based on our PS Cloud user data, we’ve seen the same number of sessions logged and hours completed – so busy school offices haven’t lowered their output.

However, what has changed is the working day. Normally, peak activity would be at 9am before tailing off around 6pm. Now, however, work starts at 7.30am with a shallower surge in activity.

With children at home and a range of distractions, it’s easy to see why this has happened. People are altering their work hours to fit around their families’ needs.

Stick to a routine

Working from home has become the new normal, and that’s thrown many of our schedules out of the window. However, that’s not to say you can’t make a routine out of it – even if your working hours have changed.

That’s why it’s so important to start establishing new routines to help us keep a sense of normalcy. Once you start working, try to shut out any outside distractions and only leave your office for the bathroom, lunch and tea or coffee breaks – just like you would at the office.

Of course, this can be complicated if you have young children at home, but you should still aim to keep your routine as regular as possible.

It’s tempting to work on a more ad-hoc basis, but it’s best to avoid doing this as it could lead you to become complacent and neglect your duties.

Don’t stop commuting

For many of us, it’s our least favourite part of the job. However, like it or not, with the daily commute gone from our lives we’ve lost the bookends to our working day. The time you spend in your car, on public transport or walking would normally reprogram your mind into working mode.

To claw back that after-commute feeling, use household chores to bookend the working day. For example, clean and tidy one thing every morning and then do the same immediately after work. You’ll be surprised how much more alert this can help you to be.

Perfect your workspace

Your home may not be the ideal setup for work, but there’s a few things you can do to transform it into a productivity hotspot.

Whether you’re working in the kitchen, bedroom or even a dedicated office, ensure it’s well-lit and has plenty of natural light. Open up the window to get some fresh air circulating and shut the door to keep any unwanted visitors out.

Wherever you’re sat, remember to keep your elbows level with your keyboard and your eyes level with the top of your monitor.

Work as a team

It’s possible to work just as productively – more so, even – using online tools than it is working face-to-face.

Cloud-based administrative tools are here to stay, and the current self-isolation situation has made them more important than ever.

With a powerful cloud-based suite such as PS Cloud, your whole team can work together using the same data and tools. This has huge advantages over traditional ways of working:

• Cut down on duplicate work
• Eliminate time-consuming processes such as ledger consolidation
• Collaborate from anywhere and at any time

If you’ve not tried a cloud-based administrative tool before, consider visiting the PS Cloud website to see how it could help your school both now and in the future.

Look to automate key processes

It’s not possible to predict the future – a fact that the COVID-19 crisis has thrown into sharp relief. For schools, the situation changes on a daily basis, and there’s a possibility that key processes can get lost along the way.

That’s why trusts should look to automate these processes so they never get missed out again. The home office workday is also incredibly busy – automation can be a huge help.

For example, your purchasing approvals could be automated by PS Purchasing – which works hand-in-hand with PS Cloud. As requests come in, they’re automatically routed to the appropriate key stakeholder for approval, so you don’t have to lift a finger.

Get help from the experts

If you’d like some help transitioning to the home-based school office, or even if you’re preparing for the masses of work that will need to be processed once schools open again, PS Cloud could be the ideal solution. Visit the website today to find out more and to book a free demonstration or consultation.