The FACTOIDS of Work from Home Success

How to Be a Successful Remote Worker.

So there you are, comfortable with driving 90 minutes one way to work. It has become routine. You find ways to occupy yourself during the commute like audio programs or chatting with your friends on your hands-free mobile phone. Then COVID hit, and you find yourself being forced to work from home. You love the extra three hours a day, and your carbon footprint is so much less. You want to keep working from home, but will your company allow you too after the pandemic is in the history books. A recent study has shown that 52% of workers want to continue to work from home even after the pandemic. Still, the only way that will happen is if your performance and the boss's bottom line increases. Here are some FACTOIDS on how to improve performance working from home:

Be Focused

Focus can be a problem when working from home. The distractions can be multiplied from when you were at the office. Your spouse hands you a "honey-do" then your 10-year-old and 12-year-old are at it in the other room, and you have to rush in to keep them from killing each other. Then, just when you think things are safe, you are writing an article for work. Suddenly, you get a notification of a post praising a politician that you just hate! An Amygdala hijack occurs, and you just gotta write a rebuttal or your phone rings. It looks like an important call, so you take it, and it is someone wanting to sell you solar panels when you live in an apartment. Dealing with these distractions is essential to your success.  

To quote the Bible (and The Birds), "…There is a time to every purpose under heaven…" A time to check out Facebook and a time to work. A time to exercise and a time for family….

You get the idea! Utilize a calendar, let the calendar run your life and also use the Pomodoro system where you work in 25-minute sprints and then break for 5 minutes. It is like a mini-Agile. 

Be Adaptable

Since the time of the Ancient Greeks, we've known that the only thing in life that is constant is change, yet people still have a hard time dealing with it. That's OK, though, because it means that people who do Change Management can make the big bucks. COVID is not the first interruption that has happened to the workforce, and it won't be the last. There is a spectrum of ways to deal with change, from doing nothing but whine about the transition to cheerfully adapting and running with it. Adaptability is key to having an at-home workplace, things will be done differently than what you are used to. The key to success is to run with it. Remember, The Coronavirus didn't say, "Oh, everyone is whining, we will just go away." People needed to adapt to the changing world.

Be able to Collaborate

Several applications allow remote teams to collaborate with each other. Some examples of these are Zoom, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Dropbox Business, Basecamp… The list goes on. If you are management, you should find an app or combination of apps that work best for your team, train your team on how to use them, and insist that they use them. I like Zoom, and I have found that I get more work done when I am Zooming with someone - Even when we are not working on the same project. Remote work can get lonely at times, and collaboration is a great way to deal with the loneliness. Remember, when you are working from home, there is no Foos Ball Table to gather around and brainstorm. Getting together in a Zoom can replace that by allowing you to collaborate. 

Be Trustworthy:

When working from home, the supervisor isn't breathing over your neck, making sure you are getting the job done. You have to be trustworthy so that your boss rests easy knowing that you are a person of your word, and if you say you are going to do something, it gets done. It will not work if you are someone who does not usually keep your word as to work. Now we all have breakdowns, things can get in the way, but when they do, you must communicate that the deadline won't be met and see what you can do to rectify any situation that arises due to the breakdown.

You also need to be trustworthy and honest with yourself. When you make a commitment, such as "I will exercise 1/2 hour today, and you spend the half-hour in front of the TV barely exercising, be honest about what occurred. Don't say, "I exercised, and it did no good."

Be Organized

It is difficult to get anything done when you are spending 20 minutes looking for your charge-cord and then another half hour trying to find where on the hard drive you put the file that your boss needs for the 11:30 AM Zoom. Studies show that one is more productive working from home if that person has a dedicated space. Now some of us may not have the luxury of being able to set up a dedicated home office, but you can set up an area that is dedicated to working, even if it is the corner of the kitchen table. If you are in a noisy environment, find yourself an excellent noise-canceling headset that will filter out the noise. Set up a system to organize your files where you can find them. Oh, and make sure you have a strategy to deal with the cat before she sits on your keyboard, deleting that critical document.

Be Inquisitive

Especially when it comes to learning new technology. Zoom is new; you have to learn how to use it! You have to be willing to play with the technology to see how it works. You need to be able to use technology (such a YouTube) to learn how to use technology. If you are the manager, provide training and time to train to use the technology. Be forgiving when you fail and try again.  

Be Driven

To be successful, working from home and working from the office, you must be motivated. What is the next milestone to meet? Go for it with all the gusto you can muster up. Have the attitude that you will win, no matter what. In this changing world, you will face many challenges, you must always push yourself to succeed at them. Your boss will also see that you are motivated by working from home and is more likely to see the advantages of remote work.

Be Synergetic

Whether working remotely or at the office, you need to be synergetic. In other words, you need to work well in groups. This involves metaphorically, dancing in the conversation with others, you are working totally in sync with your team. For a team to be successful, it must work well together; this is where synergy comes in. Keep the office politics to a minimum. If there is a problem with another, get it resolved, don't let it fester, and don't continue the fight. Be willing to help each other as needed. If Jim has a Zoom presentation at noon, and Jim's internet crashes, Tanesha should be available to seamlessly step in to deliver the presentation. If Lupe is having a challenge in an area that Ahmad is an expert in, she should be comfortable calling him and asking for help. Everyone works together as a team.

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So there you have it! Apply these FACTOIDS to your work from home experience, so you won't be fighting traffic and will have more time to spend doing what you love doing rather than sitting on the freeway, spewing carbon monoxide in the environment when you could be at your kid's soccer game. But remember, your client or employer doesn't care if you have to sit in traffic for even 10 hours. Your employer is concerned about your performance. If performance crashes while working from home, you will be back in the office, probably sooner than later.  

Remember, though, there is stuff management can be doing to increase work-from-home performance, which is where I come in. I offer a 30-minute Discovery Session to businesses and entrepreneurs to support their teams in working from home. Click on the link to apply and thank you!

https://calendly.com/dr_work_from_home/30min