7 Remote Productivity Tips
Being productive while working from home is a significant challenge—possibly the most significant issue for remote employees.
Know seven strategies for working and performing better remotely:
1. The perfect start: How you begin your day frequently influences how you conclude it. If you check Facebook just after you get up, you’ll likely continue to do so throughout the day.
There’s some science to back this up: your energy and willpower are at their most excellent in the morning. Your resolve weakens during the day, making you more vulnerable to distractions. When you’ve already been lazy since the morning, a three-hour Netflix binge seems a lot more enticing.
2. Dynamic work environments: I work from home, but every now and then, I go to a coffee shop or a local co-working place to liven up my work atmosphere.
Contrary to common opinion, a little background noise can boost productivity, such as gentle talk inside a coffee shop. Light noise (at about 70db) increased concentration more than quiet in one research published in the Journal of Consumer Research (at around 50db).
Then there’s the well-known Hawthorne Effect, in which people improve their conduct while they are watched. That implies you’ll be less inclined to slack off on Reddit if others are watching, which is why those who work from co-working spaces claim an increase in productivity of 6-7 points.
However, not all environmental changes must be as severe. Even simple changes, such as switching from a sitting to a standing desk, can instantly increase productivity.
3. Understand your strengths and weaknesses: Willpower is a uniquely human quality, although most of us don’t fully comprehend it. Willpower, like energy, is a finite resource, according to research.
Every day, you begin with a limited number of “willpower points.” You spend those points as you go through the day, making (and postponing) decisions. When you’re exhausted, you’re more vulnerable to temptations and diversions.
The key to productivity is managing these “willpower moments” to have more energy to make difficult decisions (and ignore distractions).
4. Separation of the work and personal space: It’s easy to cuddle up in bed with a laptop and pretend you’re “working” when you work from home, and I should know since I did it for years.
I saw the most productivity benefits when I started considering my professional and personal regions as separate locations. I utilized my bedroom only for sleeping, the living room for entertaining guests, and a separate home office for business.
This lays the groundwork for increased productivity. You don’t go into your home office expecting to nap or watch TV, and your brain becomes spatially wired to conceive the workplace as the location where work takes place.
When working from home, you receive extra points if you dress up in professional wear (or at least something more official than PJs).
Furthermore, the gap generates a tiny “commute.” Simply stepping from the bedroom to the workplace indicates a physical separation between work and personal space. When your brain perceives the workspace as a place to get things done, it immediately shifts into productivity mode.
5. Productivity tools are not just a fad: Everyone I know that is produced has their own “recipe” for productivity tools. Some of them keep things simple, just utilizing a few tools at most. Meanwhile, some use complicated combos to keep track of everything.
A brief list of my tool-kit are as under:
- Trello for task and project management
- Invision app for sharing and collaborating with clients/partners and team members.
- Music for concentration and creativity
- Physical post-its for reminders/events/priority tasks
To be focused and productive, you’ll need your own collection of applications.
6. A/B testing is not just for clients: The pages of the most popular blogs on the internet are jam-packed with “game-changing” productivity ideas.
Pomodoro Technique: Based on the 25/5 concept, you work for 25 minutes and then take a 5-minute rest.
GTD (Getting Things Done): You create lists to delegate and prioritize your chores in this approach.
ABC and the Pareto Principle: This approach is frequently utilized in corporate management. Tasks are classified into three types: A (urgent and essential), B (important but not urgent), and C (not urgent) (neither urgent nor important).
According to the Pareto Principle (80/20 rule), the activities that require the least amount of time from A are handled first.
But here’s the catch: these methods seldom work for everyone. For example, the famous Pomodoro Technique asks you to take a five-minute break after every 25 minutes of work.
If you operate on a “manager’s schedule,” with your day divided into hour-long segments, this seems ideal. However, if you’re writing, coding, or doing anything creative (i.e., adhering to a “maker’s schedule”), two breaks every 50 minutes is two too many.
Sometimes we use A/B management strategies; instead of pushing one plan to match your work style, we can test several time management strategies. You won’t be flying blind this way, and you’ll be able to hone in on your ideal plan for personal productivity.
Using this method, you would try technique A on Day 1 and technique B on Day 2. Keep track of your mood and productivity for a few weeks, and you’ll have a good sense of which approach works best for you.
7. Build habits: Most of these strategies necessitate forming a new habit, which is the holy grail of productivity. So, how much time will that take?
Phillippa Lally is a University College London health psychology researcher. Lally and her colleagues presented a study in the European Journal of Social Psychology. They attempted to determine how long it takes to establish a habit.
After studying 96 people for 12 weeks, they discovered that it takes two months on average for a new habit to become automatic—66 days, to be exact. I’m not going to tell you that’s a hard and fast rule; you won’t enter habit mode until 66 days. More so, it is an excellent starting point.
In conclusion: How you choose to approach following issue will decide your productivity, future success, and even happiness. Applying these suggestions, you could discover that your free time is also more productive.
Source: Dmitry Dragilev and Dan Shure, Evolving SEO
