When you work from home, make sure you have a designated place to work. Having a designated area in your home where you do your work is essential when you’re in your workspace, you’re working. It can be difficult to differentiate between personal and work life when they are in the same space.
Content...
The positive thing about remote work is that it’s getting easier. It’s not just feasible but often preferable and sometimes necessary.
To be successful at working remotely requires more than a mindset shift and a disciplined approach to planning your activities.
For people who are working remotely, there are numerous benefits. Working from home gives you more flexibility, productivity, and fewer distractions. But it’s not without challenges. If you’re not careful, it can feel more isolating, have more distractions and make it harder to separate work from your home life. To be successful at working remotely, you need to plan your activities and seek opportunities to interact with your co-workers.
Ready to dive in?
Start Your Free Trial Today
Finding the right tools, remote work is much more effective. People are increasingly working remotely, and some people may even prefer it. But to be successful, you need to be clear about what tools will work for your business and help you be more successful.
Start with personal steps, then look for great software and apps that can make working remotely easier.
Routine, routine, routine
When you’re working remotely establishing a routine, it’s so important. Maintain and mimic your normal, in-office workday routine in order to feel like you’re still working, Following normal work times and schedule is vital to feeling like you are really working.
Start the day at the same time as normal, and make sure you get dressed, as wearing pyjamas might be comfortable, but getting dressed sets your mind to prepare you for work.
You need to stay focused when working remotely, so don’t allow yourself to get distracted. This will help you feel more like you’re in working mode, make you more productive and enjoy the work more if you work this way.
Working Remotely Success Toolbox
Dedicated Workspace
Regular Breaks
Take regular breaks and utilise spare lunchtime. When at home you will tend to take less breaks. Don’t just sit at your desk and eat lunch. Consider a walk to get some fresh air and exercise. Move away from the workspace and let your mind rest.
Communication and Collaboration
Communications is essential so take some time planning software. apps and equipment you need for communication and collaboration.
Videoconferencing: Regularly schedule video conference calls for work but also social events to enable you to bond with the team.
Slack: Slack chat feed
Zoom: Online cloud software for chat, meetings, webinars, and events.
Microsoft Teams: Communication platform
Google Meet: Video-communication
Document Sharing and Cloud Storage
A central repository for documents everyone might need access to
Dropbox: File and document hosting
Google Docs: Create, edit and collaborating on documents online.
Task Management
Task management is vital is both the office and working from home. Know wheat you need to do and by when. Think of it as a todo list but with much more power.
Business Knowledge
The hardest transition is the ability to find the right person to ask a question or locate the right document which could be in the form of an email, in a spreadsheet or someone’s computer. How much time is spent in the office trying to find the answers but how does it work when remote working?
Process Management Software like Checkify can help this problem. By documenting business processes you are creating a how-to guide with a checklist that stops you from forgetting vital steps in a process.
Integrations
Effortlessly move between web applications and software automatically and automate processes.
Zapier: Tool to connect different apps together
IFTTT: Automate repetitive tasks.
Mental Health and Relaxation Apps
We sometimes forget that our mental health is critical to think about using mindfulness, meditation and other relaxation methods. When your home is also your workplace you can feel you never get relaxation time.
Time zones
Many remote teams are distributed across many different time zones. Respect the working hours of each team member so that they can work effectively from different locations.
We have a number of other articles on working from home that might help you. Working from Home: Bad Habits Hampering Productivity, How to Work At Home Checklist and Employees Working From Home Checklist.