Remote Working Part 2 – The art of working smarter
The main reason individuals fail to succeed at operating remotely is they don’t see the essential requirement of first rate organisation and sustainable self management.
I have been operating remotely for almost a decade since I first unearthed Quickbooks online an ‘on demand’ small business accounting software online system and was amazed by the fact that if you can perform accounting on the Internet then why shouldn’t it be practical to do other key types of of work away from the conventional office?
Whilst working remotely has substantial gains there are numerous things that workers don’t realise which evolve into issues that result in reduced work output and reduced morale. The most cited reason for decreases in productivity in remote workers is distraction and it is a established and well known fact that it can take a worker up to twenty minutes to return to their original output level after experiencing a disturbance.
Research also shows that individuals who are consistently subjected to distractions are more likely to suffer from lower memory power and are prone to developing mental health problems in old age. We exist in an over communicated era and it is critical that you are aware of the issues this causes before you decide to work remotely. Whilst operating remotely you should do everything possible to minimise the probability of being disturbed.
Here are my most important tips:
1, Get a routine, tell everyone about it and stick to it!
Good examples are a regular time of day when you check or send mail and make or receive telephone calls. Before I began working remotely I used to receive nearly two hundred electronic mails a day. Now I think I am unfortunate if I get more than five. To start over with my e-mail experience I modified my e-mail address and obsessively took steps to look after the details being passed on to anyone. I then ‘trained’ every individual who I gave my e-mail address to, to use it wisely and sparingly. I also configured an automatic reply that swiftly told anyone sending me mail my schedule for processing mail and if someone needed my immediate awareness to mark it as ‘Urgent’.
2. Get rid of alerts.
Disable every feature that can send you a perceptible alert. This includes portable and
conventional handsets and forms of alerts from e-mail such as display events, warning sounds, display changes to your inbox folder and of course facing a window. Get a door on your office and put up a ‘do not disturb’ sign on it.
In ‘Remote Working Part 3 – Must have online tools’ I will reveal my favourite tools and software.
