I’ve worked remotely full-time for 4 years now and I had to work hard at making it work for me. Remote Working is doing some or all of your work from home or anywhere that isn’t your normal office. Now I love what I do but I still needed to set some personal rules to stop myself binge watching everything on Netflix! In those 4 years, my office has looked like a shed in my garden (which is actually my office), a field while camping, a beach on holiday, my kitchen table and almost every coffee shop in Surrey!
Here are 7 simple tips I follow to make remote working successful for me.
1. Workspace
Create or find a comfortable working environment, somewhere to go to that says “this is where I get stuff done”.
- There’s a lot of people sharing home desk space ideas, but this one wins the award for most innovative: https://twitter.com/…
2. Distractions
You may need your phone for work but consider turning off all those notifications – news and social media updates can be very disruptive to concentration. If you don’t need your phone, put it on silent and out of reach!
- What Tim Urban (Wait but why) does to focus on his work: https://twitter.com/…
3. Make a Plan…
And stick to it…as much as possible anyway! Have clear guidelines, set a schedule of the working day, when you start, breaks, when you finish.
- Thoughts on how to do it: https://www.nytimes.com/…
- If there are kids on the scene 🙂 – https://twitter.com/…
4. Communicate
Let your colleagues know what your schedule is. Let them know when you have completed important tasks. Consider regular catch up calls or virtual meetings. Remote working can sometimes feel, well, remote! So being in contact with colleagues will keep you motivated.
- This is a good one from simon sinek on communications, start a huddle: https://www.linkedin.com/…
5. Trust
For many suddenly managing a remote team will be daunting – understanding activity and what’s being accomplished will be hard. Explain what you are doing to build trust in this new situation. Try to measure work on output rather than hours that people are available.
“When managers don’t understand the work, they tend to reward the appearance of work. (long hours, piles of paper, …)“
Jerry Weinberg
- The relationship between Trust and Flexible Working – https://duome.co/working-flexibly-trust-is-the-glue-of-life/
6. Technology
As the world moves towards remote working, the right technology becomes even more important. Tools like Slack, Trello and Zoom help us stay connected and manage our work.
- Here is a list of resources to help you: https://techagainstcoronavirus.com/
7. Take Breaks
Make time to get away from your desk – whether that’s to do some exercise, making a cup of tea or do that 20 mins a day guitar practice you’ve been promising yourself for 15 years! You will feel better for it!
You may also like this – https://duome.co/why-do-companies-want-you-to-work-flexibly/
