Introduction
Hello there!
Since one year we are working from home. At least the most of us. For some its a huge chance of how they work and maybe some of you struggling with it. You have to deal with new kinds of distraction. This could be the children, wife, neighbor, or even yourself. Your handy are most likely the number one productivity killer. Or you are doing some kind of home work like cleaning your room, make the laundry etc.
I really enjoy working from home and i want to improve that situation for other people too. I want to share with you 3 tips how to improve working remotely.
But first let us talk about the benefits of this kind of work.
Benefits of working remotely
I really dislike big citys and too many people at once. I like living on a village but the problem is that most jobs and companys are located at big citys. This means if you live in a village like me you have to travel to work. Everyday. This can go from 30 minutes till 2 hours until you arrive at work (or at home in the evening). For example i need approximately 1 hour for one way. Thats 2 hours a day - 10 hours a week. Thats a lot of time.
Since the pandemic i save this 10 hours a week and i enjoy it to the fullest! Stay up longer in the evening or just sleep longer in the morning. More time with your partner and/or friends (at least online). Dont have to deal with the train or the traffic. Especially as a developer its a huge advantage to work alone without distractions from others and get into the zone.
These are my top benefits of working remotely. Im sure there plenty of other benefits and i dont see me working full-time non-remotely ever again. Driving to work 1 or 2 times a week after the pandemic is definitely a nice variety and i miss my colleagues but i dont see a reason to waste like 10 hours a week for no reason.
Lets dive into the tips!
Tips
Over the year i read many articles about how to improve remote work and there plenty of tips for doing so. I will share my top 3 and i hope you can learn something new and improve your workflow at home.
Tip 1: Bye Handy
How often you just check your handy because you see it right next to you? 10 times per hour? This will prevent yourself to get into the zone where you are fully concentrated and just get stuff done. Its a bad habit but its very easy to avoid it. You have two options. You can either activate flight mode on your handy and put it into your drawer or you just put it in another room. Just get it your of your eyesight.
Tip 2: Combinate house work with your launch break
Its pretty easy to get lost in house work. Jeah most of the times it just cost you 5 or 10 minutes but then you think: Okay im already did this now im just doing this quickly. I discovered that its the best for me to house work right before or after my launch break. At this time you already distracted and dont interrupt your work.
Tip 3: Make a cut
In homeoffice you are 100% available. You are most likely use something like Microsoft Teams to stay connected with your team. And this is awesome as you can do all of the things you would to at the office remotely now. But it also has a dark side. People will text and call you at anytime. If you have a company phone you will get messages and you cant get out of working mode. And this can be dangerous.
My tip here is to make a hard cut. And this for two things. One is to put yourself on DND (Do not disturb) when you are working on a big difficult task where you have to concentrate. And do not feel guilty when you do not reply within minutes when someone message you.
The second thing is when you are done for the day have a ritual so your mind and your body knows that work is over for today. Close your laptop, hide your company phone and do not check it in the evening. Go for a walk, watch a series, do a workout, play games. Like anything you want. This is your free time and its valuable!
Conclusion
I hope you learned something new and can take something out for yourself. Working remotely as a developer can be very nice but there are traps along the way we have to avoid.
Stay connected to me and my content on Twitter.
I love to improve myself every single day even if its just a tiny bit!
Stay save and healthy guys!
And as always: develop yourself!
Top comments (4)
Hey, great post! I agree with your point that we have to put our phones away. I even put mine in the guest room's drawer, lol. And, when my working hours are finished, I like to walk outside with my dog, Tim. I find walking refreshes my mind and body.
I would like to add another tip, I started using a productivity app ever since working remotely. Before I jumped to have one, I was lack of motivation in the morning because I didn't plan for the day and ended up wasting a lot of time. After I invest in one, it helps to organize the things that I should do. After some trial and error, I'm down with Quire. Although they don't have a native calendar, I can sync my iCal, and it's enough for me. It's just intuitive and straightforward.
Handy = Cellphone?
exactly :)
Hey, Thanks for writing this up.
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