How to Make Remote Work Work for You
As Coronavirus continues to spread around the world and especially throughout the United States, it’s more important than ever to prioritize the safety and well-being of your team. As a result, we’re seeing that a lot of our clients and friends are instituting remote work policies and some are even moving their companies to 100% remote work.
Understandably, this can be a difficult transition. Make it a little easier on yourself with these tips from one of our remote teammates, Bec Bliss.
Over communicate on expectations and deliverables - it will keep you and your work visible even if you are out of sight.
Create boundaries & stick to them! If you’re working from home, it’s critical to ensure that you have healthy boundaries between your work-life responsibilities and your personal life. Whether that be a location, hours, or some sort of mental check - that delineation is crucial.
Don’t cut yourself off from the rest of the world. One of the things I miss most about working from the office is the social interactions with colleagues. Apart from scheduling semi regular trips to the central office, I've found that choosing a day or two to co-work from a cafe or shared space can be a nice way to break up the week. Unfortunately this doesn’t work for those actively isolating themselves - instead, try making your next 1:1 or team meeting a Zoom video instead of a conference call.
And finally, be patient. Having the ability to work remotely can be a phenomenal perk (or sometimes a required reality - COVID19), but like any other change it takes a while to get used to. Before I made the switch, I thought mostly of how much easier it would be to lose the long commute, be ensured a quiet room to take calls and meetings from, and (as much as I loved them) the lack of office friends and distractions sounded like it would make my days free to focus 100% all the time.
The truth was that working remotely did ease up on some of these challenges, but it came with it's own new set of imperfections to contend with. For me, it was the barking storm that arose every time the mailman came to the house and the terrifying realization that I could not order a salad from my desk at 3:00PM if I forgot to take a lunch break. It took some trial and error to sort out how working remotely would logistically work for me. Be kind to yourself as you try out some of these tips and find a way to make remote work successful for you.
Written by Bec Bliss