Up Your Remote Work Game: Tips on Being at Your Best When Working from Home
Admit it – the thought of working from home sounds like the dream. Working on your deliverables while still being in your pajamas. Foregoing the crucial long hours of traffic. While there’s an absolute level of convenience that comes with remote setup, it’s not a piece of cake as what you have pictured in mind.
Many freelancers and seasoned remote workers can attest to the fact that remote work requires serious adjustments and self-discipline – most especially with one’s efficiency and productivity. It’s easy to fall through the cracks of being unproductive when we are unsupervised. That said, here are a couple of hacks to up your remote work game and help you navigate through the unsure waters of remote work.
Set the stage.
Create a working space that is strictly for work. Don’t work from the comforts of your bed or your couch – your brain is wired to associate those areas as a place for resting. Hence, making your productivity in constant rivalry with slacking off. And as the old saying goes “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.”
Create a work-flow schedule.
To-do lists still work wonders – even when you’re working from home! It’s important to identify your priorities and list down all of the tasks you need to work on for that day. But it shouldn’t stop there – commit to it. When you commit to a routine, yielding positive results naturally follows.
Proactive collaboration is key!
Remote work doesn’t eliminate the structure of teamwork – and it shouldn’t dare do so. Even when strained with physical borders, collaborating with your teams is still paramount. Technology continues to outpace itself when it comes to online collaboration tools – and they’re all at our expense! Utilize all tools and resources available in brainstorming ideas and communicating with the rest of your team.
Step back and enjoy some downtime.
One of the many challenges of remote work is that it blurs the line between work and personal life. So, when you can, schedule some downtime and step back from your workspace – especially when things are getting a little bit too overwhelming. A quick sanity check or as simple as having a 15-minute coffee break goes a long way!
While many are successfully thriving in this kind of ecosystem, some employees are still trying to adjust to the new normal that is remote work. So, for those who are trying to find their way in this completely unfamiliar setup, allow yourself some timeframe to adjust to the change and slowly adapt – until it’s no longer a challenge, but rather a normal routine. In no time, you’ll have your own “method” and be at your best, even when you’re at the comforts of your home.
