Working from home has meant more opportunities for procrastination and distractions. If you are relatively new to working from home you may have noticed your inboxes have exploded with many more emails than normal as you are not working as closely with your colleagues so email is often used as an alternative method to communicate to each other.

Our personal and professional lives have also merged into an endless to-do list. Even when we are motivated, new distractions creep in and all our tasks take longer to accomplish.

It’s often the little things that affect our ability to achieve our daily goals. It may not always be possible to completely remove distractions from the working day, but trying these five steps may help guide your journey on the path to achieving positive results.

1. Start the day with exercise - research has found that people who exercise during the day have more energy and a more positive outlook. Just get your body moving even for just 10 minutes, it will do you the power of good.

2. Get up at the same time every day - if you stick to this you then stay in a good repeated routine. This also allows you to have set times for set activities, for example, ensure you are up, washed, dressed and ready for the day by 8.30am/9am. Break for lunch at 12pm, have a mid-afternoon break for 15 minutes at 3pm. Doing these activities at set times helps keep your mind focussed knowing what lays ahead.

3. Write out your daily schedule - whether its using your online calendar or on a piece of paper. Block out portions of the day to spend on specific things, you don't need to rigidly stick to it but it does gives you a rough timeframe to spend on certain tasks.

4. Check in on that to do list - in the afternoon check how your to do list is going, being able to tick tasks off is hugely rewarding and will help you feel like you have had a productive day.

5. Schedule time for yourself - how many of us have eaten our lunch at our desk whilst also working. This might seem like a productive way to work but this might not always be the case, if you don't give your brain a proper break from work even for around 10/15 minutes you may find by mid-afternoon your mind is racing and you can't concentrate properly.