Remote Working Part 2 – Managing yourself
August 5th, 2009
The top reason workers fail to adjust to working remotely is they fail to realise the criticality of having good quality organisation and robust self discipline.
I have been working remotely for almost a decade since I first uncovered Quickbooks online an ‘on demand’ small business accounting software online system and was energised by the fact that if you can perform accounting on the net then why shouldn’t it be workable to perform other important types of work at a distance?
Whilst working remotely has a lot of positives there are numerous traps that people easily fall into which turn into issues that result in decreased productivity and reduced morale. The key reason for low work output from remote professionals is interruption and it is a established and well known fact that it can take a worker up to 20 mins to establish their original productivity level after experiencing a disruption.
Research also shows that persons who are continuously affected by disruptions are more likely to be susceptible to reduced memory capacity and are prone to developing mental health issues in later life. We exist in an over communicated time and it is important that you know the problems this causes before you start working remotely. When operating remotely you have to do everything possible to reduce the probability of being interrupted.
Here’s how I do it:
1, Get a routine, communicate it to absolutely everyone and obsessively maintain it!
Good examples are a specific time of day when you look at or send mail and make or take telephone calls. Before I began working remotely I used to get in the region of 200 e-mails a day. Now I think I am unfortunate if I receive over five. To ’reset’ my electronic mail experience I changed my e-mail address and vigorously took precautions to guard the details being made known to anyone. I then ‘trained’ everyone who I gave my e-mail address to, to use it wisely and sparingly. I also set up an auto-responder that swiftly informed anyone sending me mail my schedule for attending to mail and if someone required my immediate attention to mark it as ‘Urgent’.
2. Get rid of alerts.
Disable absolutely everything that can send you a visual or audible alert. This includes mobile and
ordinary phones and forms of alerts from electronic mail such as visual alerts, warning sounds, display changes to your inbox folder and of course facing a window. Get a door on your work place and put up a ‘do not disturb’ sign on it.
In ‘Remote Working Part 3 – ‘Tools of the trade’’ I will reveal my favourite tools and software.
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