I’ve Worked Remotely For 8+ Years — Here Are My Top ‘Work From Home’ Tips
How to actually be productive in your own space while a million things are distracting you…
Greetings Work-from-Homers!
As I believe Nina Simone once said… It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, it’s a new life… and you’re wooorking from home.
So yea, times are crazy and I’m hoping that you’re healthy and well.
And I also hope your transition to remote/home work is smooth and productive.
Speaking of that…
Let’s get to it.
I’ve been working remotely/from home/from around-the-world since 2012 — so 8 years.
Actually, the only time I ever worked “in an office” was for 3 months in NYC back in 2007.
It’s been many years of trials and errors, ups and downs, pitfalls and progress, pivots and new paths to creating this effective life of working wherever I want, however I want.
Since starting, I’ve worked remotely and consistently for 2 incredible startups, dozens and dozens of high-level clients and founders around the world, and provided top-notch work while bringing in my income.
(for those who know me as a musician/writer… this is in my professional capacity as a story-driven copywriter and content strategist, although the roles have evolved over the years).
Over the last 8 years, I’ve made a living for myself, paid my bills, traveled the world, and lived my personal dream all WHILE making my range of clients happy and serving their businesses remotely.
So the question today is…
…how do you work WELL while working remotely?
The Three Most Important Things You Need To Work Remotely
Working remotely can sound like the dream (which it is in many ways), but it can very quickly dissolve into a million distractions, a lack of good work, and the inability to focus and actually get stuff done.
That’s why, all your success in remote work is completely tied to three vital things:
Mindset.
Discipline.
Productivity.
With the right mindset you can be disciplined. With discipline you can be productive. With productivity, you can actually get great work done.
And that’s all your job, your clients, your students, your customers want.
Great work.
After many years of remote work bumps, errors, lessons and trials — to having a pretty smooth and awesome home work flow…
…I figured I’d share a post with my top tips, techniques, and tactics I’ve learned and implemented over the many years in order to be productive, effective, and disciplined while you work remotely.
NOTE: I’m a single, 32-year-old guy — so I understand that people with kids working from home is a much larger monster, especially in these times. That said, these rules and tips still apply and try to find ways to navigate and apply to your situation!
OK? Ready to rock?
Let’s roll with our 3 sections…
MINDSET — Work is Work, Home is Home!
The MOST important thing when working at home (and in life in general) is your mindset.
Your mindset will make or break you.
To be successful, you must have a mindset of productivity, focus, and actually “getting the work done” to be successful — which can be one of the MOST difficult things to have when working remotely.
It’s easy to get distracted, or lazy, and slip into an “unproductive” work mindset.
Whether the distractions come from…
…your family or friends, your kids running ‘round, your keyboard-walking cat, ball-catching dog, or squawking Senegalese parrot, that ol’ guitar in your corner, the dishes in the sink, the Facebook tabs and Insta-stories scrolling by, the unread books on your bookshelf, that quick run, the chips and Guac on the counter, an online game with friends, a quick YouTube sesh that turns into hours of cat videos, SNL clips, and Corona-updates… or a BILLION other distractions…
…the things that were NOT there when you had an official “work” space are now blended into your home and your new work life and attacking you from all angles!
So here are my tips for getting in the RIGHT mindset so you can actually do the work…
Bottom Line, Get To Work
Whether you are literally working from home, at a coffeeshop, or from a co-working space… there is a vital phrase that I learned from one of my favorite OG self-development and mindset speakers from the 1980s.
“When you work, work. When you play, play. Don’t mix the two.” — Jim Rohn
And unfortunately… most people mix the two.
The thing is, when people start working from home, they lose the forced “container” for work and every element of their life can blend into their “desk”.
This means that “play” (aka distraction) can blend into “work” time.
When working from home, you must do EVERYTHING in your power to create a powerful mindset of focus, productivity, and discipline — and create a space where you are actually doing the work.
This mindset is fortified by your actions and practices.
You have to mimic elements of the “container” of your normal workplace and create that at your remote space.
Here are some more of my tips to create that space and mindset:
Contain The Hours (A.K.A. Time Blocking)
If you’ve got a remote job to check into (which many do these days), that helps…
…but even the regular “hours of work” can get a little fuzzy and flimsy once you don’t have the office, the boss, and the work institution around you.
The common term is “time blocking” but I just like to call it ‘containing the hours’. Don’t let your work hours spill all over the place and get loosey goosey.
I’ve been freelance writing in different capacities for 8+ years… and I contain/block my hours hardcore.
I work everyday, M-F, from 830–430pm, on the dot (which is actually so freeing and liberating when you’re at your own home and space).
With no boss or company to check into or hold me accountable…
People are always like: “Duuuude — you work from home… can’t you work whenever you want and do whatever you want?”
Sure. If I want to starve and lose all my clients.
The benefits of working from home are the mental and physical freedom of having your comfortable surroundings, the ability to be in your own space, the option to go run errands and feel more free, and having no commute…
….BUT you must still treat work as serious work.
And you can do that by “blocking your time” or “containing your work hours”.
I find getting to my desk at 830am with my coffee gets me into work mode. Then I block my hours throughout the day to do effective work (in 2–3 hour chunks). And then I log off at 430pm, and shut off email and the laptop — which gets me out of work mode.
Find what works for you but create your own Time Container and use Start and Stop times to signal the beginning and end of the “work day”.
Some people work at 5 am. Some people don’t start til 10 or 11am. Some start at 830 or 9am.
But everyone who is successful at working remotely creates focused time blocks to “work in” and not “play in”. Find yours and stick to em.
Treat Your Phone, Your Social Media, and Your Messaging Like You’re At Work
Once you’re working from home, again, it all comes back to the container of office or work life being removed.
So, you might find yourself on IG even more. On FB even more. On YouTube even more. Scrolling through random websites even MORE.
Cut. It. Out.
Self-discipline and control is even more vital when you’re working from home, otherwise you’ll get caught in a 2-hr InstaStory carousel and not get any work done.
Whether it’s airplane mode, keeping it in your pocket, or just practicing self discipline — you need to keep the phone and the browser tabs on a leash!
PRO TIP: I’ve been using the Chrome Extension — “The News Feed Eradicator” for almost 2 years and it’s the BEST thing in the world.
It gets rid of your FB News Feed BUT keeps your FB — so you can interact, message, add, and click people’s profiles and look at your own wall BUT it gets rid of that dopamine-addicted newsfeed so it doesn’t distract you.
SECOND PRO TIP: You can leave FB on your phone (once you’re disciplined enough) so you can still check the newsfeed in little scheduled chunks if you need that FIX of seeing what your world is up to… but you just don’t want it on your computer/browser while working.
Start to think of all those distractions as: “If I were in an office, would I be so openly and constantly using/checking these? Probably not. So cut it out!”
OK. Once you’ve got your mindset framed and set for a successful workday, it’s time for…
DISCIPLINE — The Best Ways To Prepare For The MOST Effective Work Vibe
To successfully work at home, you have to prepare for it and cultivate daily discipline.
As I keep repeating, you don’t have the institution of a physical business, co-workers, or leadership and bosses right next to you.
You don’t have people creating the work environment and hierarchical structure that guides you at an office, a school, a business, a workplace or beyond.
You’re much more free.
But with freedom can come chaos, laziness, distraction, and UNproductivity!
On the other hand, discipline and preparation can lead to solid productivity.
And as we know… productivity is the goal.
Here’s what I (and many other remote workers and entrepreneurs) do to prepare for the day:
Morning Routine
I think outside of just working from home, a daily morning routine is the most important thing you can have in life.
Many of the most successful business people, creatives, world changers, inventors, and work-from-homers throughout history have done this.
Think about this:
You can NOT control what happens to you during the day.
Craziness at work. Bad traffic. Long lines at the grocery store. Someone spilling a Mocha-latte on your jeans. Angrily sent emails. Upset customers, clients, co-workers, and cats.
Coronaviruses…
What you can control, is what you do to start the day.
And that’s cool.
You can 100% control how you frame your mornings — and how you set up your body and your mind.
The BEST way to do that — is with a proper morning routine.
Morning Routines look different for everyone but they generally have something meditative, something movement related, something intellectual, and something reflective.
For me, every day, for over two years I’ve done this same routine (and of course there are some blips here and there, but I mostly do it all the time).
Brett’s Morning Routine:
530–630am**: Wake up (I try to wake up naturally so wake up time depends in that range and I adjust accordingly)
Let’s say I get up at 6.
6am: 20-min Yoga + 20-min Meditation
640am: Make Coffee
645am: Read books (1 fiction book and 1 non-fiction book)
730am: Write fiction (work on my novel)
8am: Breakfast, get dressed, check emails, check FB/IG
830am: Day-planning and Goal-setting and then WORK
**No Phone use (besides music) is allowed from 6–8am
So in those 2 hours, there is stretching/yoga, meditation, reading a fiction book, reading a nonfiction book, and writing/working on my novel.
After breakfast (where I allow myself 30 min to scroll on the internet, check FB/IG, etc), I get to day-planning and goal setting.
That 2-hr morning routine is my favorite part of my day.
It makes me feel amazing, clears my mind, relaxes and strengthens my body, supports the beginning of my day, and sets me up for discipline and success.
Every day.
But, you don’t have to go all out and do a 2-hr routine.
You can do an hour. Or 30-minutes.
Just do it.
I think the most important parts are: Stretching/Moving, Meditation, and either Writing or Reading something.
If you can even do 10–15min of each (and then build up to larger) your day will be WAY better.
And you’ll find you can work more effectively, think clearly, and react to things more smoothly.
Make Your Bed
After my morning routine…
I make my bed.
And so many incredible leaders stress this.
Check out Admiral McRaven’s “Make Your Bed” Speech with 10M views.
Why make your bed??
If you make your bed, you start the day with a tiny WIN. And it just looks nice.
You feel accomplished and ready to roll when it looks tidy, and especially, if you’re working from home and walking around and you see your bed, a clean bed makes a clear mind.
You build the muscle of doing something small, proactive, and disciplined into your morning routine and it sets you up for being proactive and disciplined throughout the rest of your day.
And that repeats with every day.
I used to laugh at this advice… and then a couple years ago I started doing it.
I seriously noticed an INSTANT change.
And it felt better with each day.
It created a daily habit of “getting something done” to kick off the day.
It made my room and my life look and feel better.
And it created a kind of “ceremony” that helped kick my mind off from morning/wake up mode to work life.
Go make your bed!
The Big One…. Get Dressed!
This is actually one of the MOST important tips.
It’s the thing that most stay-at-homers, and especially NEW stay-at-homers mess up.
Get dressed for the day.
It’s that simple.
And it’s so unbelievably powerful.
So many people start working from home and they’re like “Yay! I can work in my pajamas or my underwear or just go super duper causal!”
Sure, you can, but you’ll pay for it.
Think about Batman.
He has his super awesome Bat Suit. When he puts it on he BECOMES Batman. Strong, focused, determined, powerful. If he were just out there in pajamas… or even a t-shirt with a bat logo and some taped up bat ears… he’d probably be way less effective and productive.
He’d be less powerful.
Read “The Alter Ego Effect” by Todd Herman to learn more about this effect… but what we wear actually psychologically influences how we think, how we act, and how productive we are.
So you need to dress for the day.
Now, I don’t dress “up” BUT I do put on my nice jeans, a nice sweater, my light scarf and my nice shoes. Every single day.
PRO TIP: Yes, actually put on good shoes. I put on good shoes if I’m working from home (not dress shoes, but nice boots). And that’s vital.
Because it locks my mind into “Let’s Get To Work Mode” and when I’m dealing with serious clients and business people around the world, it actually steps me up into better communication and output.
If I were talking to the CEO of a company and helping them write sales copy for their new product… but I was lounging on my bed and in my PJS and socks… there’s no doubt that slacker energy would subconsciously come through.
But, if I’m dressed well, that energy comes through in my work and my communication.
Again, this is one of my most important tips for people.
Even if you CAN work from your pajamas, I highly advise against it.
There is a mental switch that ticks when you get ready to work in your work clothes.
So get dressed… put your grown up clothes on. And get to it.
You’ll thank me later.
Clear Your Desk or Create a Separate Space
Another important one (side note: everything I’ve included here is important) is the clean desk.
Clean desk = Clear mind.
Clear mind = Productive mind.
Productive mind = Productive work.
When people work from home, there can be a range of working realities and changes.
Lying on the bed or the couch. Stretched out in front of the TV. Sitting at the cluttered desk in your bedroom, or your living room, or the dining room table.
Find what works for you BUT… you need to create a work space that is truly for professional work.
Take your desk and clean it up.
Make it look nice. Have notepads, pens, and your favorite books.
Make it feel like when you’re sitting down to it you are “sitting down to get to work.”
For my desk, I have my favorite writing and business books on either side of me, motivational pictures, green plants, and my big journal/to do list. And I keep it simple.
And sparse.
People often start to collect things on their desk, have tons of papers and random doodads, and things can get cluttered quick.
Again, cluttered desk, cluttered mind.
Keep your desk as your “work desk” — and if you have space to dedicate to be your “office” — even better.
But not necessary. As long as you have a desk and you treat it as your clean and clear “work spot”… that will be great.
PRODUCTIVITY — Brett’s Insider Tools For Massive Success
OK… this is all building up to our guiding light… our ultimate goal… the name of the game in remote work…
Productivity.
If you can get effective, powerful, and important work done in your hours at home, then you are being productive.
Then you’re actually “doing the work”.
And unfortunately, everything in the world is fighting for your attention.
That’s why building and maintaining productivity is so important.
BUT… why did I start with things like “mindset” and “get dressed” and “meditate in the morning”?
Because these next things are tactics and strategies on being productive to DO the work.
AND all of this is worth nothing if you don’t have your day set up to be productive with a strong mindset and with a container for creating GREAT work.
So, once you’ve done the things in the previous two sections and you’re ready to rock and roll…
Here are some tips to actually be productive at home while you’re working:
Goal Setting
Ya can’t get anywhere unless you know where you want to go.
Goal setting is vital.
And goal setting can be simple.
Goal setting gives your mind and your will somewhere to focus and move towards, hyper-focusing towards an end point, and helping your brain to swat away distractions.
I like to set 3–4 main goals for the day. And if I complete those goals then I feel good about the day.
It gives me a sense of accomplishment and daily “metrics” to refer to.
PRO TIP: I make 2 separate lists. My “Main Priority Goals” and my “To Dos”.
My Main Priority Goals generally have 3 items and that’s it. Occasionally 4 if I’m super swamped.
These are the things I really must do and the things I will feel MOST accomplished with if I finish throughout the day.
Everything else goes on to my “To Do” list.
So it could be:
MAIN PRIORITY GOALS:
- Finish Sales Page for Client #1
- Close Contract/Proposal with Potential Client #2
- Write 6-email sequence for Client #3
TO DO:
- Pay Medical Bill
- Write back Bob Moberson
- Call Grandma Jane Skawinski
- Fix my couch’s broken leg
- Respond back to important client #5’s personal message
- Write Janie Clobbstein
- Food shopping
- Print out Important Work Document 6AB
- Followup with Carl
What matters most is getting those Main Priority Goals done, and the To Dos are secondary.
I usually get them done at my lunch break time OR after work.
Set up your day with the main goals of what you want to get done and use them as a guiding light for your priority and your productivity.
Pomodoro Work Sessions
This is the gem I’ve been using since college — over 12 years now.
Pomodoro Timers are super popular in the freelance worker, entrepreneur, business owner, and writer world.
They are based off of those little kitchen timers that look like a little red tomato and you turn the top and they count down.
Basically, people find that if you work hard and focused for 20–25 minutes straight and then take a 5–10 minute break, you actually get more done, work harder, and you’re rewarded with more breaks.
Everyone who does this loves it.
You can go to Youtube or just google “Pomodoro” timer.
Here’s a boring one: Tomato Timer.
Or, you can work with this dude. Thousands of weirdos like me have worked along with this guy.
Study With Me — A 25-Minute Pomodoro Session.
20–25-minutes is a manageable time to be productive and then you can go for a walk, or mindlessly scroll, or have a quick stretch.
And then you get back to it with another Pomodoro.
Next Level Productivity — Ultraworking Work Cycles
Speaking of Pomodoros….
Here is THE MEGA SECRET TOOL FOR MASSIVE PRODUCTIVITY.
This startup is incredible. And this tool is free and amazing.
It basically takes most of the stuff I’ve talked about this blog, integrates it, breaks your day down into 20–30min chunks, and lets you set goals and review sessions for each chunk.
I learned about this last summer and when I started using it… it ramped up my productivity hardcore.
They have a 20–30minute intro video you should watch but basically they have this badass spreadsheet that helps you set goals and review for separate chunks of “pomodoro sessions” and integrates it into ONE massively helpful online spreadsheet.
It may sound like a lot first, which is why I recommend the video, but you get it down in like 15 minutes.
I’ve shared this with various work-from-homers, freelancers, and entrepreneurs and they all LOVE it.
Get yo cycles going.
Lastly, The Daily Review
Ahh, the end of the day.
We can’t congratulate ourselves, celebrate our wins AND/OR prepare better for the next day without doing a “daily review”.
Even 5–15 minutes is great.
This is what helps you get even more productive as the days go on.
At the end of your “at home” or “remote” work day… take a look at your goals, your To Dos, your overall day, and what you wanted to accomplish…
Did you rock it today?
Did you put on your socks and provide amazing remote work for your clients, customers, or business?
Did you get that incredible, satisfying sensation of checking off all your To Do items and daily goals?
Or… did you get caught in the FB/IG whirlpool?
Did you spend too much time eating snacks and watching YouTube and maybe missed the mark?
Whatever you did… that’s cool!
There’s always tomorrow. And every day you can keep improving, keep working on your productivity, keep working on your process, and your discipline.
But, by reviewing how your day went and what you accomplished — you’ll be better able to celebrate OR prepare to win the next day.
So, make sure to review your day at the end of the day.
Now, Get Out There Or… Like 5-Feet Over There
OK, I know that was a lot.
But, since it seems like we’re entering a time of SO many people in the world going remote and working from home… I wanted to share the best “Work Remote” things I’ve picked up over the last 8 years.
Hope you got a nugget or two of good info from that.
I think I might write some more of these with some more tips, apps, hacks, and tricks as the weeks go on.
Would that be of interest to you?
Let me know! Give this article a share, a clap, a like, a share, whatever works in these digital times.
Until the next post,
Brett
