My top 3 tips for working remotely
Photo by Vadim Sherbakov
These days working from home is a norm. We all know why. This f.cking virus is all over the globe. I bet there are tons of articles on how to work remotely efficiently but I wanted to give my two cents.
I’m working remotely for ~10 years now. And I love it. In fact I don't think that I can work in a office place anymore. Here are three tips that I find most important:
Discipline
That is the biggest challenge for almost everyone that just started working remotely. The truth is that when people are out of their usual working environment they simple have no discipline to sit and work. My advice is to gamify the process. Make a list and cross the tasks over time. Aim for 0 unread emails. Aim for 0 tabs open. Define slots for work and slots for slacking. Get a clock next to you 🕰️. It may be a bit stressful but it helps. You may even try the Pomodoro technique.
Separation
The trivial advice of separation is indeed important. Pick a place where you will do your job. No TV or your favorite XBox games. Keep the kids away while working. If not possible (like it’s with me) get a good headphones and put them on. Music helps. Play on your favorite tracks to get into a mood and suppress the noise around you.
Social interaction
Schedule meetings with other if you need social interaction. We (the programmers) can do pair programming. That is a nice trick to get a quick chat and also do some work. Yesterday I join a meeting which was not in my calendar. I did it just so I see some real faces.
At the end I want to emphasize on one big benefit - working remotely means working asynchronously. You will get less distractions from your colleagues simply because they can’t take you for a “quick” question. Use that. Organize your work into timeboxes and you will see that you can be quite productive while working from home.