Staying Home For Work: The Remote Workers Survival Guide
It’s not just freelancers and entrepreneurs that work from home anymore. In fact, there is an ever-growing number of us choosing to work remotely. Whether that is from a space in our own home, or sitting on a beach somewhere. Of course, there are plenty of excellent benefits from choosing this working style. From reclaiming the time and energy, you use for your commute, to having the real peace and quiet that you really need to focus on. However, some challenges come along with remoting working as well. A topic you can read about in more depth below.
Staying in a routine
The first challenge that many remote workers can experience is the difficulty of staying in a regular routine. After all, if you haven’t got the pressure of needing to get dressed and out the door to catch your bus or train, or to miss the traffic, it’s effortless to let things slide.
In fact, rolling over and giving yourself just five more minutes in bed can become a problem. Especially if you do allow yourself enough time to properly wake up and go through your morning routine before you are expected to be working. After all, showing up for a video meeting in your PJs is just as unstable at home, as it would be in the office!
With that in mind, being strict with your routine can really help. That is going to bed at the same time every night, getting up at a set time, and always beginning at work at the same time each day.
Staying sane
Those of us that are more introverted may enjoy long swaths of time at home alone, without being disturbed. However, even the most introverted personality types can sometimes find remote working lonely. Not to mention the suffering that it can cause to extroverts that need to be around people to correctly process information.
Happily, there is a solution to the loneliness and isolation of remote work. It’s to use a coworking space that will allow you to sit alongside other people as you work. In fact, if you pick one that has plenty of communal work areas, you can get that ‘at work’ feeling and a little social interaction to boot. No matter where you are in the world.
Staying focused
It can also be challenging to stay focused on the task you need to do if working remotely. In fact, it’s very easy to let your mind wander or to get caught up in doing other things around the home.
Of course, you may think that the solution here is to try harder, but that is not actually the case. In fact, working in a focused way for smaller amounts of time is a much better approach. Then you get plenty of breaks and opportunities to be refreshed. Still, you will also ensure that you are entirely focused when you are working.
In fact, many people choose to use time management systems like Pomodoro for this. Something readily available for use online for free and that can transform you working practices whether you are at home, or remotely working from any other location in the world.