Before the pandemic, no one would have thought that it was possible for whole teams to work from home and keep the same level of performance as in the office. No management would trust their employees enough to give them autonomy over where they work from. After all, how were they going to control the remote work process and make sure everyone was working properly?
However, to everyone’s surprise, remote work turned out to be very much possible. Not only possible but also highly efficient.
Now that it is the norm, most people think it is as easy as a breeze. However, there are some things to keep in mind if you are just transitioning to remote work.
In this article, we will take a look at the 5 best practices for mastering remote work.
Let’s get started.
Set boundaries between work and personal life
When working from home, it is easy to lose the line between work and personal life. The place where we used to have rest from work, has now become the place where we do work. That is why when working remotely, work and personal life tend to become intertwined and it becomes much harder to differentiate the two.
And when that happens, the quality of both may suffer.
Some people lose track of time and may start working too much. When there is no reminding environment to finish work and “go home”, it is easy to get carried away and work till midnight. Some people even work at the expense of their sleep not understanding that no work is worth losing sleep for.
To avoid this situation, start by drawing a clear line between personal life and work. Dedicate a room to work only if possible and make sure you are not distracted during work hours. In other words, try to simulate the office environment.
In the same way, remember to finish work when it is time.
Let’s turn to these two points separately.
Dedicate a room to work only
If possible, by possible I mean if you have a spare room, dedicate a room to work only. The advantages of having a home office are numerous.
First, the environment will subconsciously prepare you for work.
Second, you will be reminded about working from home a little less.
And third, you can rearrange it the way you want to maximize productivity.
However, let’s admit it, an average employee is highly unlikely to have a spare room to turn into an office. So, most have to opt for the bedroom.
While a home office is the top solution, the bedroom is next in line. Despite being the place where we rest from work, the bedroom also feels like our comfy corner in the whole house. So no surprise why most people choose to work from there.
You can close the door, isolate yourself from family members and give yourself up to work.
Establish a routine
In order to follow your same routine and avoid overworking, establish a clear routine. Start and finish work at fixed hours. Just because you are working from home, does not mean you should neglect your routine.
You should separate hours dedicated to work from hours spent on house chores or personal life, especially because you are home all the time.
Some people make the mistake of combining work with personal life by having lunch in front of the computer, or working lying on the couch. These must be done separately.
First, to maintain the quality of work.
And second, to be able to properly enjoy things not connected with work.
Have lunch in the kitchen, lie on the couch, play video games, and do other non-work related things during break only.
Take breaks
Even when working from home, breaks are essential. In fact, they should be part of your schedule. Other than the lunch break, make sure to have regular short breaks as well.
Breaks help your brain refresh and come back to work with a new perspective. Especially if your work requires creative thinking, breaks are a must.
At the same time, while working from home can be tempting for too many breaks, you should discipline yourself to take scheduled breaks and not overdo them.
For example, you can use the Pomodoro method. It suggests working for 25 minutes, taking a 5-minute break several times, and follow with a longer 15-minute break. Of course, you can adapt these intervals to your preferences and habits, but you get the idea.
Use digital tools
To simplify remote work and help you get the most out of it, there are a number of digital tools designed specially for remote work.
These are tools for project management, communication, time tracking and management, automation, and more.
Moreover, there are tools that combine all these functionalities to spare you the effort of using several tools.
WebWork is a similar tool. It is a time tracking, remote employee monitoring, project management, and communication platform made specially for remote work management.
As a time tracker with screenshots, WebWork tracks the time spent on work and gives you detailed reports about your time-spending habits. If you are struggling with time management, WebWork helps you stay focused and work on reducing time-wasting activities.
If you work on an hourly basis, WebWork will calculate your earned amount based on the hourly rate you set.
Other than time, you can also manage projects on WebWork. The platform allows you to create projects, tasks, assign them to team members, write comments, attach files, and track the time spent on each.
And finally, on WebWork, you can communicate with your remote team.
Imagine working on tasks and jumping straight to the chat for a discussion. Moreover, for an in-depth discussion, you can have a video call right inside WebWork.
Wrapping it up
While remote work is one of the best things that has happened to the workforce industry, it requires a special approach if you want to get the best out of it. The 5 ways of dealing with remote work mentioned in this article should be enough to master remote work.
So don’t hesitate and give them a try right now.
Author Bio
Liana Papyan is a content writer and an English language enthusiast. Her current writing niches are remote work, productivity, time tracking, and the like. Liana also writes marketing copy and is trying to be a UX writer at the same time. The only thing she likes more than writing is reading.
