Methods Remote Employees can use to Master Productivity

July 22, 2014 BG&A Staff
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The economy has seen better days, and with so many companies looking to save money, it’s become a common trend for employees to work remotely from home. Those who think working from home is ideal typically focus only on the upside – like “freedom” from scheduling – associated with this style of work. If you don’t have a routine set in place though, your dream job could become a nightmare.

 

Remote Employee 1Setting up a strategy and using tactics that are tailored to the way you work is critical for effective performance. Given the level of flexibility we have achieved at Bob Gold & Associates, we have become fully capable of working remotely if needed and have identified some methods you could use to reinforce good personal/professional routines if you work from home or freelance:

1. Start with the right business strategy.

I identified how we could create a sustainable approach in building my “work routine”. Without this sustainability, you can work hard and still fail miserably.

I started with a good promotional strategy, the strategy ensured that my efforts create more successes than failures, which translates to sustainability in the long term.

2. Create a work routine that maximizes energy level and time.

This involves creating routines and tactics around time efficiency and mental energy management. Below are the steps taken to accomplish this goal.

Establish a consistent schedule for recurring events. For us, this includes waking up around the same time every day, driving a child to and from school and to extracurricular activities and going to the rock-climbing gym two to three times a week. This creates “packets” of time so that you can then plan ad-hoc and semi-recurring project-specific events. We are not living by the clock, but have a general sense of where we need to be at a given time of day.

Prioritize tasks based on personal effectiveness. If you are most effective after the first hour of waking, deal with less-demanding administrative items that first hour. Then tackle the tough projects or mentally demanding tasks.

Concentrate. This means when working on a task, there are no more than five browser tabs/windows open (and only if most of these tabs are task-related), no email notifications of any kind (We learned to disable desktop email notifications more than a decade ago, and never looked back) and no chat or instant-messaging service turned on.

Use time-saving hacks like autocorrect, hotkeys and auto-texts/canned responses. If you find that your constantly typing the same types of responses on email, set up a “canned response” email template that you can customize. You can create hotkeys for emails and links you frequent, as it takes less time for you to type two keys versus move your hand to the mouse, then find the bookmark and then click the link (you don’t want to create a shortcut for any financial account information/links).

3. Create boundaries and find ways to keep yourself motivated.

Yu have had to learn to say “no” to prospects that you know won’t be good clients — even if the money sounds good. Ultimately, the mental angst will cost you elsewhere in productivity and personal happiness.

Some of us keep electronic “kudos” files of positive feedback and comments we receive. This file keeps us grounded and reminds us what is meaningful work, and helps when we might feel disconnected or isolated. This file also balances the self-doubt some may occasionally feel about whether or not they are on the right path.

So go ahead and try out some of these methods and let us know how they work for you.

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