Buckets Survival Guide to Remote Work in the Time of COVID

New to remote work? We’ve got you covered!

If you’re new to remote work, the new work-from-home policies may be causing more than a little upheaval in your life, and that’s okay! When you’re used to working from an office every day and keeping work and home very separate, it can be tough to integrate the two without getting overwhelmed. Our team in Buckets has embraced remote working and promoted its benefits for many years, so it’s been interesting and exciting to observe the uptake in this style of working amidst what are very chaotic times.

As an online task management platform, Buckets itself is set up to help people to connect and collaborate on their work projects from anywhere, at any time. So, in this post, we’re going to draw on our many years of experience of working together from every corner of the globe to give you an overview of how we do things and how you can make remote work, work for you.

Remote work has been gaining popularity immensely over the past few years and we’ve seen this reflected in our growing community of Buckets users. In 2017, a Gallup study of the American workplace found that 43% of employees frequently worked remotely. And a more recent study by Gartner this year has predicted that at least 5% of previously office-based employees will work from home permanently as remote work becomes the “new norm” for employees and business owners across the board. Large tech companies such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google, have all set their employees up remotely, but the challenge that these companies and employees face is that not all of them have actually worked remotely before on a full-time basis. So there’s a little bit of a learning curve when it comes to navigating this new system.

The Importance of Routine

This is a mentally taxing time for everyone and the power of routine cannot be underestimated at a time when the majority feel completely powerless over the situation at hand. If you’ve been working outside of home up until this point, then you’re looking at a total routine overhaul, and it’s important to nail this down as soon as possible so that you have the best possible setup to help you adjust to your new working environment. It might seem daunting at first, but having the opportunity to manage your own time and energy, and ditch the stress of your daily commute can have a significant positive impact on your lifestyle once you get the hang of it!

Finding a strategy and system that works for you will help you to manage your anxieties over the coronavirus pandemic, in addition to the organization of your tasks both at work and at home. In order to develop a daily routine, start by designating a workplace where you can focus without interruption. This might be hard if you’ve kids at home and/or you’re living in a small place, but you’d be surprised at the various ways it can be achieved. In a small living space, all you need is a pair of earphones and a room divider to create this little oasis of productivity for yourself. Alongside your PC/laptop, desk, and chair, of course! If you have a spare room in the house that can double up as an office, that’s even better. Or, if you want to be inventive and have a spacious closet, why not clear it out and turn it into a mini office space? You’d be surprised at what you can achieve with a little creativity.

One thing that’s very important is to set a time each day when you’re going to “switch off”, regardless of what else has to be done. When you work from home, it’s very easy to think “I’ll just get this bit finished” and then find yourself working non-stop. To maintain your energy and make sure that you take regular breaks throughout the day, try using the Pomodoro Timer app (which I’m using right now!); this will ping at intervals to remind you to take a timeout for a few minutes when needed. This could mean just grabbing a snack, watching something on YouTube, texting a friend, or some stretches to loosen up — whatever it is that helps you get a bit of a breather so you’re all set to get moving with the rest of your work. Time blocking is also a great way to manage your day. This works by dedicating specific time blocks for certain tasks, which helps a lot with preventing that dreaded procrastination from setting in. Rather than having to think about what to do next, each block is focused on a particular task or set of tasks.

Set Clearly Defined Tasks

Paralysis by analysis is a very real thing and it can have a serious impact on your productivity if you let it. This happens when you spend so much time thinking about what to do next, or how to do it, that you don’t actually get anything done. In Buckets, we avoid this by following a kanban style setup of tasks that enable you to move each task along a sequence from start to finish. If you’ve never used Buckets before, you’ll initially see this presented as a Project with 3 Columns of “to-do > doing > done”. Each Column contains Cards (tasks) which outline that work that needs to be completed. This helps you to focus on one thing at a time, which is pretty important when you’re working from home amidst more distractions than usual and out of sync with your normal routine.

In each Card, you’ll find a number of features to help you to accomplish your task, such as adding Notes with more information on the task, Checklists to break the task down into simple steps, Labels to prioritize important items, setting to manage the Notifications you receive, and Reminders to add a due date to the Card itself or to individual Checklist items. The great thing about using Buckets to work remotely is that you can add other team members to your Projects and Cards to collaborate and add comments or attachments to collaborate on each task.

Struggling to Get Organized? Note the Things You Took for Granted

When you were working in an office, most information was shared in person; it was easy to walk over to a colleague's desk to ask a Q, stop by the water cooler, or have a chat over lunch about something that was on your mind. Research has actually shown that these kinds of informal chats help employees to build healthy relationships and feel more connected and less isolated in their work. When you’re working remotely, things work a little bit differently and you have to make an even better effort to communicate properly. And you do this by properly documenting and communicating your work with your colleagues. This actually has a lot of positives that you’ll likely carry over into your work processes even when you’re back in the office!

If it feels like you’re over-communicating — you’re doing it right.

Got a question about a Project? Leave a comment in the Card related to the task concerned. Collaborating with a colleague on a Project? Make sure you note your process step-by-step and include any and all documentation they might need on each Card so that they can get all the info they need in an instant just by opening it. This reduces the need for back and forth conversations and makes the whole online collaboration process much more seamless.

Here’s a Rundown of How We Set Up a Project in Buckets

• Figure out exactly what needs to be done both in the short and long term to get a birds-eye view.
• Create Cards to represent all of the tasks that need to be completed to finish the Project.
• Organize the Cards (tasks) in a way that makes them easiest to manage (there’s no set way to do this, it all depends on your own working processes and what works best for you, which is also what’s great about Buckets — you can customize your workflow in whatever way is most optimal for you).
• Delegate tasks to team members by adding them to the Project, and specific Cards they’re involved in and ensure that they have all of the information they need for task completion. It’s important to add a high level of detail here to ensure a smooth transition and negate the need for further clarification or cause any confusion. This also makes it easier to refer back to specific tasks for any info as needed after completion.
• Trust whoever is responsible for a specific task to get it done, and get back to your own work. This applies whether you’re collaborating with one or managing a task/project. If they need your help or more information, they can leave comments in the Card for your review.

Going Forward

We know that this is an extremely difficult time for everyone, and we want to do our bit. Our goal is that our experience as a veteran team of remote workers will help you to make a smoother transition into working from home. As always, if you have any questions about your own remote work setup or would like any further advice, please get in touch with us by leaving a comment below and we’ll be delighted to help you out. Look after yourself, go easy on yourself, and remember that this is still a period of adjustment for many of us, so although you may not get used to your new working environment in a week, it’ll become second nature to you after a while!

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