Improve your remote work results by being smart
So you get more time for yourself
Extended remote working is something that many office workers dream of. Such an arrangement provides an interesting opportunity for people who would prefer to live outside the city, but enjoy the salary and comfort of office work. How do you think it would feel to work on the sundeck of your own reasonably-priced house?
But working remotely is a difficult topic to bring up with a manager. Would you still be useful for the company? Could you be relied upon? Getting the initial chance to show that remote work is a valid option, can be very difficult.
With the recent Corona outbreak, many companies are encouraging employees to do remote work. Workers now have an opportunity to prove their capability of delivering results even when working remotely. Now is a great moment to improve your remote working so that you can show that remote working is beneficial to your results.
The following advice is collected from some world-class performers, and/or authors, like Tim Ferriss, Naval Ravikant, Caroline Webb, and Kenneth Roman
The personal benefit of remote work
I believe that people should be compensated for the results that they produce, not the hours that they spend at work. Everyone should have the option of working more efficiently, so that they can save extra hours from work and use them as they please. Remote work is a step towards this lifestyle — your employer now has to assess your work based on the results that you produce: “Did you get the sales?”, “Did you deliver the reports?”. This is likely not how the employer thinks about the situation, but it‘s beneficial to convince them of the difference. Let me explain.
The standard way to earn your paycheck, your compensation, is to be at the office from 9 to 5 and to be working on your task. If you perform your tasks ahead of time, you are usually expected to work on something else — it doesn’t matter if it’s especially useful, but you can’t be looking like you’re slacking.
The alternative option is to get paid for delivering results. In such a case, you’re not expected to necessarily sit at your desk for 8 hours. What matters, is that you deliver results to your employer. Doing so should earn you the right for a paycheck at the end of the month. However, now you are responsible for the results. Not meeting the expectations will be much more difficult to explain.
What’s the difference between the two?
When you only need to deliver results, it creates a reason for you to deliver them faster. What you do with the leftover time, should be up to you. It could be used to improve your career advancement by learning a new skill, or maybe you just want extra time with your hobbies.
You can take advantage of the current situation and deliver the results that you normally would, just do them more efficiently and enjoy the extra time. But do keep in mind that your employer might not approve of this.
I would suggest a long term solution. Improve your results. It doesn’t have to be much, but record it. Mark it in an Excel, or mention them on internal chats, but make the improvement visible. When the crisis is over, you can make a convincing case for an extended remote work for yourself. It’s gonna be better to still enjoy the sun after everyone else returns to the office.
The rest of this article will help you achieve your results faster. You choose whether to use the extra hours for Netflix, or to gain an agreement for extended remote work.
1 — Maintaining focus
The human brain is not able to multitask. It has to readjust every time you switch focus from one task to another. This is very taxing for the working memory, which tries to keep relevant information available for both tasks. Consequently, it is tiring for the brain and it creates a drag on your performance. So let’s see how we can regain that brainpower.
Turn off the notifications. Alerts and pop-ups are notoriously bad at disrupting focus with their unexpected nature. Turning off alerts from e-mail and instant messaging apps like Slack and Skype is a great improvement. Both of the example apps offer a “Do not disturb”-mode, for which you can choose what kind of notifications to receive.
To further reduce the distractions the “Do not disturb” mode can also be used on phones. Personally, blocking everything but calls has increased my ability to focus immensely.
The fear of people needing you instantly can be quite overwhelming. However, you’ll soon notice that rarely anything requires answering within the first half an hour. If you are worried about your colleagues requiring your help, tell them to reach you by phone. The hassle of a call will likely make them re-evaluate if they need your help immediately.
I urge you to give this one a small trial and decide for the benefits yourself.
Answer messages in bulk. E-mail and instant messages can take a big chunk of the workday. That is hard to change, however, we can control the amount of distraction it creates. It is, however, possible to reduce the number of interactions that we have with those messages.
Concretely, schedule a block of time each day to answer your messages. While the amount of messages stays the same, the number of task switches drops, easing the work of the working memory and the brain. Such blocks could be scheduled, for example, twice a day. Just before lunch, and as the last task of the day — those moments are generally difficult for focus anyway.
2 — Focusing on the important tasks
This is a no brainer, but it is difficult to stop and think without a rush under the watchful eye of a colleague. Now that there’s no-one watching, it is possible, and even desirable, to take a step back and look at which of the current tasks is the most important. Working an hour towards an important task can be multiple times more valuable than working towards a not-so-important task.
If identifying important tasks seems difficult, you could try to reflect on the following phrase:
“If this is the only thing I accomplish today, will I be satisfied with my day?”
- Timothy Ferriss, 4-hour work week
For a deeper dive on the topic, give my previous article a read:
Why this step matters more than it initially seems to
Some tasks produce more value. Value is the thing we aim to produce while we are working. We produce value to our employers by bringing them more business. For the customers, we produce value by making sure our products are as good as they can be.
You are expected to produce some amount of value to the employer, to be considered a worthy employee. If you create the same value faster than you used to, there’s no rational reason for your employer to be unhappy about your work.
3 — Make the most of your time
Assuming you decided to work to produce results. Then the amount of hours you have to work is now dependent on the amount of time it takes to finish your tasks. With this in mind, we preferably want to minimize the time used on everything other than working on value-creating tasks.
Reduce the amount of information that you consume. Most of the available information is not useful for the moment. The reports and messages contain all too often information that “could be useful” for us in the future. While such information can help you in the future, it requires a considerable effort of time and energy — making that information inefficient for your overall productivity.
Direct your time towards information that helps you now. Such information is guaranteed to improve your results.
Avoid consuming information on topics that are not related to what you’re working on. Keeping your mind clear from unrelated ideas and thoughts, will allow your brain to use more energy towards your current goal. As an additional benefit, a clear mind is a great step towards mindfulness — potentially making you a happier person.
Push for fast and concise communication. Communication is serving two purposes. Collaboration, and creating trust. If you are doing both at the same time, you’re likely performing rather badly on both. Thus it can be greatly beneficial to separate the two.
Let’s see what’s the difference in practice:
- Collaboration: “Hey! I’m working on the last month’s numbers and would need the documents X, Y, and Z. Could you send them to me?”.
- Creating trust: “Nice job with the presentation yesterday. How did you learn to speak like that?”.
To be a successful member of a team, you need to do both. However, I argue that they are more efficiently done when they are not done at the same time.
While collaborating, try to stay only on the topic of the collaboration. Try to avoid getting to the social chatting, that can be considered a weak form of trust creation. To make this easier for you and your colleague, aim to use the more concise communication mediums: short messages over phone calls; and phone calls over (video-)meetings. Messages(even e-mail) take the priority here as they require the sender to summarize their information. Doing so will cut out the unimportant information, making the messages an effective way to collaborate. If a message is too structured, you should aim to have a phone call over a meeting. Phone calls are easier to set-up than meetings (requiring less time), and if needed they are easier to steer back towards the goal in the case of a chit-chat.
When creating trust, or trying to bond with a colleague, reserve time for it. If you end the conversation right after you have shown interest towards your colleague, it will leave a bad memory of you. Allow yourself to get genuinely interested in the other person’s situation and thoughts. Really knowing your colleagues is the way how you build trust and potential friendships at work. Sure, you can give a compliment when asking for help, but leave the personal questions for moments when you can spare the time to sit down and talk.
Moreover, we’re facing difficult times, and it feels good to have someone that cares.
This article summarizes the many books and podcasts that I’ve devoured. By no means am I an expert on the topic, but I strive to implement the above steps in my life. I do not have a startling career as proof of results, but I only share what I’m confident about. However, make your own decisions, and let me know if you disagree. -Janne
