I work remotely 1–2 days a week, and I manage a whole team of folks who work 100% off-site. Working remotely can be tricky.
1. Staying Focused:
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When you’re working from home, it’s easy to lose track of time. Everything that makes your home life great has the potential to become a distraction: your pets, your kids, your significant other, the doorbell ringing… that Netflix series you have been binging that has *just* one more episode to finish up.
Staying focused in your personal space requires discipline to stay productive. Not everyone can do that.
2. Staying Connected:
It’s nice to be able to stroll over to a coworker’s desk and have a brief discussion about a business issue or have a quick coffee to work through a problem. There’s also value in just being present and socializing with your peers, building the relationships you need to get things done. We’re social animals, after all.
When you work remotely, you have to work extra hard to make these connections and build relationships. It’s critical to spend time and effort learning about your coworkers’ communication styles and getting to know them… even if you don’t go to the workplace.
3. High-speed internet and Wi-Fi connections:
As all the work you are going to do or manage is to be done online, having a good internet connection is the most important thing. Your all business meetings, conferences everything needs good internet connections. If there is any problem with internet connections, you will not work with total concentration, which is not suitable for your profession.
4. Being Recognized for Your Work:
If I don’t see you in the office, how do I know how you are spending your time? How do I understand what you’re contributing to my projects? For some projects with straightforward objectives, this can be easy. If you work in less-concrete areas (like consulting), this can be tough.
You need to ensure that your coworkers and managers know what you’re regularly accomplishing when you work remotely. It’s not about bragging or justifying your value… it’s about keeping them aware of what you’re doing and how you’re contributing. Perception is reality.
5. Managing Work/Life Balance:
This is tricky when you work at the office and more challenging still when you perform remote. The office provides a separate and distinct space from your home space, so you can mentally switch gears when you leave for the day. When you work from home daily, the borders between work and home begin to blur. When your professional life is always there in the other room, it’s not always simple to turn off and give attention to your home life.
It’s just as vital to have the discipline to stay focused at work as it is to have the field to focus on yourself and your family.
Working from home has several advantages. The important, in my opinion, is to be aware of these difficulties so that you (and your team) can be happy and productive.
6. Make some rules for your family:
By working with your full dedicated mind, you can make some rules for your family.
- Ask your children not to disturb you during your working hours.
- Make a time -table for your family members or domestic helpers for providing you things of your need like coffee, tea, or any other items on time.
- Do not hesitate to ask them for your space. It would be good to discuss with them and make them understand your responsibilities.
In this way, they could also help you to do your work from home successfully.
7. Revolving chair or proper sitting arrangement:
- Use the chair in offices; otherwise, using a couch or a bed would never allow you to work with complete dedication; there would be the temptation of sleep.
- The chair you use should be comfortable to sit on for around 8 hours.
- You can place a table to put your system on it and all the things you need a printer, pens, dairy.
- Put some drawers to manage your files systematically.
8. Choose a proper place:
- As work from home will be there for a long time, it is essential to choose a proper place for this. The room which you choose for office work should be used for this purpose only.
- If the room is soundproof, then it would be beneficial.
- Proper lights should be there so that there would be any problem in working comfortably.
- A dedicated workplace will help you work with complete dedication, and you would not lose your productivity.
9. Dress code:
When we think of working from home, a picture automatically comes to our mind: working at home in casual and comfortable clothes. But it is not a professional way of working as you might have to attend a meeting online. So, be in the proper dress code and get ready for your work.
10. Power nap:
For keeping your mind fresh and getting new working ideas. You can have a power nap by taking a gap in between the working hours. For this, you can use a comfortable cushion bench.
