Remote work is here to stay, with 52 percent of the global workforce working from home at least once a week. However, while the internet loves to prosper its advantages, remote employment isn’t something you can just get into.
You are fully alone in how you organize and manage your time without physical limitations to your office or managers supervising your job. Having a large amount of unorganized time on your hands may soon become stressful, especially when you realize you won’t be able to just follow an office routine pattern.
With half of my team working remotely full-time, I learned a thing or two about it. Here are a few of the most important remote time management difficulties to consider:
- There are no physical distinctions between “work” and “play.”
- To compensate for the loss of visibility, you will feel pressure to be quickly available on Slack and email.
- Nobody will plan your week for you, but they will put claims on your time if you don’t set your own boundaries.
- It might be difficult to determine how well you are utilizing your time without immediate feedback.
5 Tips to Manage your Time in Remote Working
So here are my few tips to manage your time when you are working from home:
Keep track of your time
To fit your time into an efficient plan, you must first understand how you utilize it. Time monitoring allows you to understand how long different tasks take so that you can set aside the appropriate amount of time for different pieces of work throughout the week.
And it also assists in highlighting inefficiencies and distractions, allowing you to continuously improve your workflow. It shows you how many hours you work each day, allowing you to adjust any gap.
Maintain a relaxed routine
Set regular core hours for your work, including availability hours, so that colleagues know when to reach you and anticipate a response. Formulate a list of what you want to achieve by the end of the week, as well as the steps you would be taking to get there.
Examine which environments are most suited to those tasks if you wish to work from a number of locations. Even a simple plan might help you keep on track and accountable for your daily activities. It’s a good idea to plan this at the conclusion of each working week to reduce the difficulty of returning to work on Monday mornings.
Determine when you are the most productive
Not everyone works in the same way. Some people feel that they are the most productive in the early mornings, while others like to work late into the night. You may start scheduling the most challenging chores during those times once you’ve identified when you’re most productive.
Plan your downtime
According to studies, remote employees are 13 percent more productive than their office colleagues, but that productivity comes with a risk: burnout. Remote work is ideal for focused deep work because there is no one else around to distract you. However, if you don’t take frequent breaks and make clear boundaries between work and personal time, you’re setting yourself up for a severe crash.
In this context, it is unsurprising that remote workers work longer hours and use fewer sick days. Do your downtime the same way you treat your work time: plan activities, breaks, and downtime into your day to make time for them.
Keep an eye out for upcoming events and gatherings
Few things are more frustrating for a remote worker than getting yanked out of their flow for an hour-long meeting they completely forgot about. While you have an unprecedented chance to conduct more productive deep work, you must still keep an eye on team activities and responsibilities – else, they will sneak up on you and throw your plans off track.
I hope that these tips help in your remote job the same way they helped me out.
