You're working remotely. How do you make sure you're not just spinning your wheels?

Remote work demands a unique skill set characterized by intention and dedication. While the allocation of time is flexible, recognizing and striving to meet goals and expectations remains crucial. Furthermore, identifying your optimal working hours—whether in the morning or afternoon—allows for scheduling deep work during peak productivity times. Establishing team-wide expectations regarding preferred communication methods (email, Slack, or meetings) and individual working styles enhances collaboration and workflow efficiency.

Working remotely can present challenges in maintaining productivity and focus. To avoid spinning your wheels, begin by setting up a structured daily routine with clearly defined work hours. Establish concrete, manageable goals for each day and use productivity tools to keep track of your tasks and deadlines. Regular breaks are vital to maintain mental agility, so integrate them into your schedule. Maintain regular communication with your team to stay connected and aligned on tasks. It's important to create a designated workspace at home to mentally separate your personal and professional life.

Remote work can replace and even magnify the benefits of in-person work with a bit of extra intentionality and planning. Remote leaders need to be thoughtful about how they monitor their team members' work and motivation, how they facilitate connection, who they collaborate with, how communication happens, what is being documented, how information is shared, how work flows, what processes matter most, and how to build trust. It can all be done successfully, allowing a positive work experience to exist alongside a rich and vibrant personal life. Just be intentional with everything from meetings (who's invited? what's the agenda? what's the goal?) to personal connections to tracking progress to info-sharing and everything in between.

In remote settings we tend to have more control over our schedule. This also means we can usually prioritize when we work. We can set it up with a manager to work the hours that best align to our specific energy level. If we know that we complete tasks best in the morning right when we wake up, we can spend a couple hours in A.M. knocking things out before most people even get online. Taking a break once we complete the majority of our tasks. Likewise, if we know we know our best collaboration happens in the afternoon, we can ensure that our meetings fall during those hours. The trick is to hold ourselves accountable to block that time on the calendar and say "no" when non-priority tasks come in.

Creating a designated workspace for remote work is highly beneficial. Allocating a specific area solely for work aids in setting clear boundaries and allows for easier disengagement when needed. Additionally, a dedicated workspace helps in: 1. Minimizing Distractions:Having a designated area reduces interruptions and enhances focus, promoting productivity during work hours. 2. Psychological Association: Associating a particular space with work helps signal to the brain that it's time to focus, enhancing concentration and task performance. Establishing a defined workspace fosters a sense of professionalism and commitment to remote work responsibilities.

Creating an environment that is free from distractions and interruptions will go a long way towards helping you be (and stay) productive when you don't have colleagues or bosses around to motivate you. When speaking about your environment, isn't just about what is around you but also what is on your screen. If you have social media tabs open, this will be a sure fire distraction and time sink. Another thing to consider is creating boundaries between your 'work' and 'home' environment even if they're technically in the same space. You could put away your laptop at the end of the day to transform that space back into your home space. That way, the productivity element that relates to work, will be attributed to work when your laptop is out.

Self care is an essential and not an option. Remote Work can make you disconnect with both personal life and professional work environment, which may make you feel unfit jigsaw puzzle piece. This will definitely drown your energy both mentally and physically. Hence maintain regular work schedules with fixed breaks during your planned work hours Spend time with family and friends after work hours. Don't involve your work with your personal life, the heart which is already there is enough to take care of your personal life

Remote work is exhausting if you don't know how to manage yourself. Your body and your brain are inner connecte, but being physically exhausted is not perceived as mental one. When your body feels tired you really get it pretty soon. There are lots of signals. But when is your brain which is exhausted signals are not so clear. So you'll have to set active stops when working remotely, to prevent your brain to unplug. Set a break every 40-45 minutes. Get out and take a breath Let your eyes to rest looking ahead Listen to music, dance, move your body Refresh your environment Build a resting policy Surround yourself with positive people and talk about friendly and nice areas. Don't always be focused on work.

I've had roles where I traveled 11 weeks in a row to different locations. Most of the time coming home for the weekend, but that wasn't always the case. What helped me was to create margin during these long stretches. How? I was intentional to block out time to read a book, workout, talk with friends, or just do nothing. What I've realized is if I don't schedule something it doesn't get done, so I needed to block out time on my calendar before others tried to occupy the space. Granted I was early in my career with this excessive travel and today I would push back, but if you find yourself in a similar situation, take the time for yourself. But first you need to know yourself and that's a topic for another time.

With remote work also comes flexibility. In the in office 9-5, we were limited to our immediate surroundings. However being remote, we have more power to determine what we can do. A mid day walk has been proven to aid in cognitive function. So scheduling time for being outside can help us to perform better and just feel better. We can also prioritize our health much more. Without a commute, that frees up time for physical health like creating a workout plan and sticking to it. We should also be intentional about our connection. If we have free time one more, it might be worthwhile to grab coffee with a friend and start the day in a social capacity.

When we work remotely, we need to forget about the "old mentality" of the 9-5. We have immense control over our time and should use it wisely. When we were stuck in the office, we would complete our tasks for the day and have to fill the rest of the time with busy work. Being remote changes that dynamic greatly. If the tasks are complete, we can offer to help others for a specific time of day. Since we arent stuck in the confines of helping those immediately around us, we can offer that help globally. We also need to use that time for us. Taking 30 mins to work on personal development, an online course or just to read. Anything that will have a positive value add to our life, we should use the time to do it. It will only make us better.

I've had the ability to work remotely and hybrid in few different roles because of the nature of the work I do in engineering and the travel it involves. One key thing is to establish proper communication with your manager. It's important that you communicate with her or him and are clear on what you're working on and make sure that's aligned with the business need and what they're expecting. I've had times where I had to realign, but this never took longer than a few weeks because I was intentional with setting up touchpoints every few weeks and had specific things to discuss.