How to rock remote work?
Demonstrate productivity, be visible and separate work and personal life.
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Demonstrate productivity, be visible and separate work and personal life.
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Remote work is gaining momentum. Many startups and some big companies are becoming remote friendly. If you work remotely, there are some things you have to do differently compared to the traditional in-office working style.
Tackle productivity paranoia
As per a recent Microsoft survey, 80% of employees feel that they are more productive when working from home. At the same time, 80% of employers are not confident about their employee productivity. Help your manager and company see that you are productive. If your company follows sprints, add any sizeable task as a story to your sprint. Share a demo of your work in a common slack channel. Find a way to demonstrate your work and progress to your team.
Water cooler conversations
One of the main reasons why companies want their employees back in the office is for non-planned encounters - both within a team and between teams. In-person routine allows for social activities like going out for lunch together, walking to train station together etc. Actively setup conversations with your team and across teams to continue to develop relationships with your colleagues. Be a minute early for your virtual meeting. That is the closest to a water cooler conversation opportunity in the remote work world.
Show your face
Turn your video on in your Zoom meeting. First of all, this will make the new water cooler conversations more likely. A lot of communication happens non-verbally. Wouldn’t you like to see your team mates laughing(on mute) when you attempt a joke? Choose an angle for good lighting and presentable background. It does not have to be professional. I would prefer a badly lit video over a black square box any day.
Virtual commute
The highlight of working from home is that there is no commute. The average commute in cities like New York and Toronto is 1 hour. Saving two of your waking hours is close to magic, and remote work is a magician. But on the flip side you loose a sense of beginning and end to your work day. Virtual commute is a solution. It is an activity that you do to mark the start of your work day. It can be a morning walk, a workout or just changing into office clothes. The goal here is to clearly mark that your work day is starting. You can plan for something similar to mark the end of the day, so that you can stop sub-consciously monitoring your slack.
Follow a schedule
Following a schedule is always helpful, more so when working remotely where there are more distractions than an office1. Block focus time to do deep work, set aside time to check your mails and slacks.
Dedicated work setup
Dedicating an exclusive space for work is a good idea. Keep a notebook handy. Dedicating a space for work will also help you switch off your work brain after your virtual commute at the end of the work day.
Good luck to rock your remote work.
Open offices are very distracting too. I am not a fan of open office even though my entire career till the pandemic was spent in open offices. Headphone is your friend.