Working better from home

Though working from home or remote working can be beneficial to team members, many challenges need to be managed. Freedom and flexibility in scheduling are wonderful opportunities. However, a lack of supervision, indiscipline, and distractions can reduce productivity and disrupt work schedules. Spending time alone at home can also have negative impacts on physical and mental health. The difficulties and challenges of working from home must be clearly understood to implement effective coping strategies, including the right methods, tools, and mindset.

Work from home creates millions of unique workspaces in homes shared by very different family members, friends, and even other remote workers. We are now in the era of super customisation of the workplace. Our proposed approaches can be tailored to meet individual needs.

Manage priorities & Time

When working from home, the most critical resource —time —has to be managed effectively. Though you have increased freedom to use your time the way you want, the responsibility to use it productively is also yours. Time management depends on prioritisation. It assumes higher importance as you now have to balance between personal and professional demands within the same space and time.  

 This change in work practice requires you to:

·        Evaluate time investments based on their urgency and importance

·        Schedule them on your personalised calendar 

·        Develop monthly, weekly, or daily plans

·        Establish clearly how different family members will share the household work. 

Manage time

Once you finalise a schedule, it has to be implemented with strict discipline. A schedule clarifies time allocations and deliverables and can be used to differentiate between working hours and personal time. Now that technology provides continuous connectivity, you have to:  

• Establish the hours during which you will be available for work. This is essential to manage the expectations of supervisors and clients.

• Clearly and consistently communicate the agreed-upon working hours to colleagues and customers.

• Ensure that technology remains your friend by utilising scheduling systems and automatic reminders to keep you on task and prevent interruptions to your personal time.  

Create a schedule and stick to it strictly.

It is an enormous advantage to work whenever you want, but you shouldn’t work all the time. A regular work routine increases productivity and makes it easier to separate work and personal time.

• Subject to external demands, build your working hours around the most productive time of day for you, taking into account any core working hours within your organisation.

• It is a good practice to schedule regular time with your colleagues and team members, allowing for open communication and project alignment, especially if you are working across different time zones.

• Get ready as if you are headed to the office before starting the day. Physical cues can prime the mind for work, ensuring productivity and concentration from the outset.

• Share your work schedule to ensure that others are aware of and respect your availability.  

• Work for only 90 minutes at a time. Taking scheduled breaks to stretch your legs and give your eyes a break from a computer screen can improve overall performance.

Balance the conflicting demands of work and family 

When working from home, family demands can increase. It is essential to set boundaries. It is natural for family members to feel that you are always available. To address this:   

• Clarify your working hours and personal time with family members and friends. Make it clear that disturbing you while working from home does not differ from interrupting your work at the office.

• If possible, creating a separate workspace at home can be a good way to ensure children or other family members know when they can and cannot disturb you. A closed door or other agreed-upon sign can allow you the focus time to complete important tasks while recognising that you may need to be available to your family at different times.

• Any interruption in scheduled work time by family members or friends should only be for emergencies. For normal matters, they should try to use the scheduled breaks.

• Plan for others to care for young children while you work. This is no different from using these services when you work from the office. It is challenging to provide care to small children and work simultaneously. Having sufficient childcare is essential for both their and your well-being.

• If you cannot rely entirely on external childcare support, planning your work around the schedule of those in your care is crucial. Aligning your breaks with their eating and sleeping schedules can ensure that they meet all their essential needs.

  
  

Stick to switch-off times.

It is essential to establish your working hours with your supervisor. This matter should be treated exactly as if you are going to work at the office. This will clarify and ensure expectations are matched.

• Establish Switch-on and Switch-off times. Clarify when you’re available for a chat conversation or video call and when you’re not. If you’re using any collaborative work tool, set your status to “busy” when you’re unavailable so that your coworkers will not disrupt your work.

• Clarify and establish the rules for overtime work with your supervisor, ensuring that working from home does not lead to a constant increase in hours.

• Turn off alerts for incoming work messages and switch off official email, WhatsApp, etc., at the end of the agreed working hours.

• Avoid answering work questions outside of your agreed working hours.

• Establish that you are not chained to the email or messaging systems 24/7. Any urgent contact should be by phone.

• Start these discussions proactively if your organisation is not addressing these issues.

 

Create a Dedicated Workspace.

A dedicated workspace enables you to create a separation between your personal life and mentally enter a working environment. Different living situations will limit what this space looks like, but even if you don’t have the room for a home office, an assigned corner can go a long way. Other advantages are:

• All documents and work tools are stored in one place. This saves a great deal of time as you switch in and out of work.

• A space with access to sunlight helps boost productivity and improve mood.

• We associate different spaces with different activities. If they get muddled, it can affect sleep and productivity. Not working from places normally used for relaxation, such as a bed or a couch, is better for you in the long run. Though it sounds simple, keeping the workplace clean and ensuring you have the right tools in place helps productivity

• Utilise ergonomically designed desks and chairs to promote comfort and prevent pain and stiffness often caused by poor posture.

• Use tools that support your work, such as a music player, a whiteboard, or air ionisers.

• Use a reasonably large computer screen. It reduces eye fatigue during long hours of work.

 

Avoid Distractions 

Distractions destroy productivity. Several new distractions are possible while working from home, and you have to avoid or limit them. Proper scheduling and separation of professional and personal work help to a large extent. There are a few other steps that would help reduce distractions.

• Check your emails only 2 or 3 times a day. Don’t leave your messenger or email program open. It is a human tendency to check notifications of new messages immediately. Shut them out and turn off all push notifications and sounds on your computer and mobile phone.

• Use noise-cancelling headphones if you’re working in a noisy environment. They provide better focus, reduce stress, and minimise fatigue.

• Use apps that help avoid distractions by blocking social media websites. Apps like Freedom or Limit are also quite useful.

Communicate with Your Team.

Communication is the bloodstream of remote working and needs to be given enormous importance.

In communications:

• Keep things simple, provide more context, and explain things clearly. Use a friendly tone in written messages to avoid misunderstandings. More care is needed in the absence of all non-verbal aspects, such as gestures and tone of voice.

• Discuss first. Restrict the written communications to the final decisions or action points that capture the essence of the discussion. For complex matters, a direct conversation is still the best option.

• Provide action points, who is responsible, and the expected date of delivery at the end of written communications. This improves clarity and gets everyone on the same page.

• For all urgent communications, please use the phone. This practice helps you avoid being constantly glued to a computer or social media programs, which can cause you to miss urgent emails or messages.

• New work should be assigned during established working hours to facilitate clarifications and queries before the start of work.

• Do not make or take personal calls while at work, and vice versa. Use a good answering service to separate between personal and official calls. This is essential to ensure that you don’t miss important calls.

• Set up systems to get quick updates, such as collaborative workspaces. They make information available as it is generated rather than based on demand. There are several excellent collaboration tools, such as Trello and Slack.

• Use video calls to make the participants feel more connected. Allow more time for questions and clarifications in virtual meetings.

• Share fun stuff and personal anecdotes in a limited manner. They lighten the mood and keep the team spirit alive.

• Create a communication protocol. Agree with supervisors and clients about the information they need, the formats they prefer, and the expected frequency. Proactive discussions and the design of a communication system are essential to ensure the success of your work-from-home arrangement.

• Investing time in the social side of work can be crucial to maintaining a pleasant working environment while working from home. Making time to chat online for “coffee breaks” and organising in-person meet-ups can help maintain strong working relationships.

  
  

Invest in Professional Development  

While working from home, a significant loss is the opportunity for learning experiences from professional meetings, informal feedback after a key pitch, reviews after major negotiations, and brainstorming sessions to generate ideas for new products and strategies, among others. They transfer skills and promote professional growth. In the absence of these, establish alternate ways to capture some of those experiences and skills.

• Join a professional network, such as LinkedIn, and special interest groups related to your area of work or interest.

• Subscribe to professional publications and earmark some time for reading to stay updated.

• Attend online seminars and conferences.

• Join online courses. Many are being offered that address numerous professional topics. It is a cost-effective way to develop competencies and stay current with the latest developments in your profession. Your work may even be able to cover the cost of such courses.

Manage Your Performance

Performance management is expected to evolve with the growing work-from-home trend. Supervisors cannot monitor the use of time or presence. Therefore, performance contracting will shift to focus on deliverables, timeframes, and the effective use of resources. This requires several changes for the supervisor and you.

• Set SMART objectives at the beginning of the performance cycle.

• Set appropriate metrics to evaluate performance.

• Have regular and frequent review and feedback sessions

• Obtain a wide range of inputs on performance from peers, stakeholders, subordinates, and supervisors.

• Most of the time, performance assessments have been conducted on an annual or semi-annual basis. This will have to change. Assessment will need to be continuous at the end of each month for each project or delivery of important goods and services.

  • Set up frequent reviews, weekly or monthly, to review performance and course-correct

  • Obtain constructive feedback for professional development.

 This approach will strengthen your relationship with your supervisor, as well as enhance your performance and career growth.

Ensure Regular Backups

While working from home, backing up your work is extremely important.

• Store files in a cloud-based file storage program like Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, Backblaze, or SharePoint, and save them frequently.

• Invest in an external hard disk to back up your work.

• Use software programs like Allwaysync to sync and back up data automatically.

• Use a password management program, such as LastPass. With several passwords to manage and the need to regularly change them, using a program helps.

• Invest in backup equipment and services that align with your budget requirements. Some of these include an extra laptop or desktop, wireless and fixed Internet connections, Mobile Phones, VoIP (“voice over IP,” such as Skype), landline phone services, and an uninterrupted power supply system, among others.  

  
  

Do What’s Good For You

Remote working offers many new opportunities and new challenges. Figuring out the system that works best for you will take time. The steps outlined above provide a framework for initiating this process. No one way of working is perfect for everyone. Instead, focus on tailoring these suggestions to your needs, creating solutions that fit your unique requirements. This is a learning process. Mistakes will be made, and adjustments will be required. Remote work is an evolving landscape, but if you take your time, you’ll find how to make it work for you.