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Try these free fixes, and you can enjoy a faster computer, quicker Wi-Fi, and better battery life for your devices.

Many companies have had their employees work from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. And while this move was initially made for safety, some are sticking to it because they’ve found they can cut costs and improve their employees’ efficiency.

Whether you’re working for a company from home or running an online business from your couch, the last thing you want is tech glitches holding you back. And in the day-to-day routine of someone who works from home, these glitches can kill efficiency:

• A slow computer.
• A spotty Wi-Fi connection.
• Devices with batteries that constantly die.

Follow these tips, and you shouldn’t have those problems anymore. And you won’t have to hire an expensive tech expert to help you or replace your devices either.

Enjoy Better Battery Life

Devices like smartphones, tablets, and laptops give you mobility when working. Since they don’t have to be constantly plugged in to operate, they let you work on the go from anywhere in your house, in your car, or elsewhere so you can bring your office with you.

What can prevent such mobility? Batteries that are always running low, which requires you to plug in those devices to charge them.

While this comes with the territory, here’s a hack that can extend your battery life by preventing overheating:

1. Charge a device when the battery hits 20 percent.
2. Let the device charge until it reaches 80 percent.

Such charging limits overheating, which can help your devices’ batteries hold a charge better, so you don’t have to plug them in as often.

Boost Your WI-FI Signal

We are sometimes limited by our home office setup due to Wi-Fi. Your service provider may have your Wi-Fi router in one room when your home office is on the opposite side of the house. This can result in connectivity problems that can interrupt your workflow. Luckily, there’s an easy, affordable, and unorthodox fix:

1. Cut a piece of tin foil. It should be large enough to fit behind your router (to see this in action, look it up on YouTube).
2. Have the tin foil face your home office, as if you’re trying to direct the Wi-Fi signal towards it.

What does this do? The foil creates a mini trampoline that allows your Wi-Fi signal to bounce off, giving it a better chance of reaching your home office.

While this move extends your Wi-Fi signal where you want it, it also limits your connection to the outside world. By letting less of your signal escape your home, hackers will have a more challenging time stealing your Wi-Fi.

Supercharge Your Computer

Do you let your computer run several days, weeks, or even months without ever restarting it? If so, that can make your computer sluggish and cause occasional freezing, which will hamper your productivity.

To prevent such sluggishness, reboot your computer at least once a week. This will shut down programs running in the background that can sap your computer’s speed and make it impossible to get work done.

To get an even better handle on sluggishness, use the Task Manager on your Windows computer to see all the running programs. You can do the same on a Mac with the “Force Quit” feature.