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ATLANTA — When the pandemic hit in early 2020, life changed seemingly overnight. Gone were nights out with friends, happy hour after a long day of work, and the new normal left a lot to be desired. Offices went from bustling to bust, forcing companies to figure out how to operate with teams spread out over entire cities or states instead of in one location.
One undeniable fact has come out of the mess that COVID-19 brought; however, remote work will be around for quite some time. Despite President Biden's admonition for workers to get back to America's great cities, plenty of workers are in no hurry to return to a long commute or a 9-5 (or more) schedule that leaves them drained when they get home.
So, how do you work remotely and still get all the production without sacrificing your work/life balance? Use these seven habits to help solidify your process to maximize the best of both worlds.
Time management
Learning to manage your time is one of the biggest time savers you can implement to help curb wasted time and make your work more efficient and streamlined. Spica has excellent tools for assisting freelance and remote workers to track their time and focus on work when work is on your agenda.
Learning to be an effective time manager will also help you ensure that you can focus on the life you want to be living when you are done work for the day.
Be careful not to take on too much work as well. Extra money can be tempting, but even though evening part-time jobs can often pay well, be careful not to cannibalize your energy from your main income provider.
Create and keep a schedule
If time management had a best friend, it'd be the ever-important calendar. As a remote worker, it's not likely that anyone's breathing down your neck to make sure every billable hour includes an hour's worth of work.
This means that you are entirely responsible for meeting deadlines, turning work in on time, and smoothly operating whatever your job is with little to no interference from management. The need to schedule your day is second only to managing your time well and goes hand in hand with being able to do so.
Capterra has a list of 10 great scheduling software programs that are superb for creating a schedule that works around your life.
Freshman 15
In college, they have a phenomenon that tends to affect more incoming first-year students than any other section of students; the tendency to gain an average of 15 pounds during the first semester of college studies.
Switching from office to remote work can also cause weight gain to take place. With food readily available, it can be hard not to munch all day long while you're working.
Incorporating a workout regimen into your daily or weekly routine can help keep weight gain at bay and will also help to relieve stress.
Schedule social time
Much like keeping track of your work schedule helps you meet deadlines, learning to schedule social events helps keep loneliness and isolation at bay. One of the biggest complaints about remote work, according to Zippia, is the loneliness that can set in when working from home.
"To a certain extent, your co-workers are your social circle. Sometimes it is hard to explain to others that all your friends are online," said Cody Jones, director of partnerships at Zapier.
Learning to prioritize socializing isn't something a large portion of the workforce had to do three years ago. Then, with the pandemic came new ways of working, and isolation brought on a slew of learning curves everyone had to learn to navigate, being ever conscious of personal mental health.
Communication takes top priority
Talking is easy, communicating isn't. And when it comes to remote work, communication can seem like running a marathon for someone who sits on the couch all day. However, remote work makes good communication a must and requires more than just a one or two-word reply.
In their book, REMOTE: Office Not Required, Basecamp founders Jason Fried and David Heinemeier explain why communication is essential and challenging for remote teams. With the loss of nonverbal communication comes a greater need for verbal connection.
"When the bulk of your communication happens via email and the like, it doesn't take much for bad blood to develop unless everyone is making their best effort to the contrary. Small misunderstandings that could have been nipped in the bud with the wink of an eye or a certain tone of voice can quickly snowball into drama."
Learning to communicate well is one of the most challenging and most rewarding endeavors you can undertake as a remote worker, especially in a management or supervisor position.
Stability challenges
We all rely on stable internet connections to keep us connected and everything running smoothly as remote workers. However, spotty internet or an internet outage can be detrimental to workflow and can even cost you a job in some cases.
Dealing with technology glitches and broken or inadequate equipment is one of the most nerve-wracking and frustrating parts of a remote worker's life. Having a plan of action can save the day, quite literally.
Having a way to communicate an outage or poor reception to your team is crucial in keeping everything flowing smoothly during your workday, so plan for the inevitable, so everyone's on the same page.
Work-life balance
When it comes to working at home, the interruptions to your workday can happen much more frequently than those when you're in the office. Suddenly those little ones you miss so much during the day come to you for every problem under the sun. As a result, your little angels look like tiny monsters bent on ruining your focus and productivity.
While it's certainly not easy to navigate work and life when they're happening at the same time, there are some things you can do to ease the growing pains.
You might even consider taking the leap from remote worker to remote freelancer. If you can do what you are doing for your current company, but in a part-time role, you could seek out other clients at a higher rate. Making this switch to a self-employed consultant allows you to take certain business deductions against your income to save on taxes. If you're successful enough, you may even want to incorporate to save money and protect your assets from liability.
Being an effective remote worker is more about adaptation than perfection. Being open to change, communicating effectively, and preparing for breaks-both physical and mental, can significantly improve your work and productivity. So, take these tips and increase your effectiveness as a remote worker.
