Experience sharing — Remote work: 10 DOs and DON’Ts!

In order to reduce the spread of coronavirus (and practise the necessary “social distancing”), many teams are invited to work remotely. For the majority of them, it means working from home and for too many of them, it means suddenly ending up in your kitchen — slightly confused.

As a remote-first organisation, we know this situation can be quite challenging, especially if you’re new to the whole concept. At CodeControl, half of our team and the vast majority of our 600+ freelancers are working remotely.

To help support you on this new work setup, we’ve gathered a few tips from our team and talent community to help you make the best out of it!

Here are our 10 DOs and DON’Ts for remote work:

DO…

1. Find morning rituals, they are key. One freelancer from our community suggested: “Don’t work in your pajamas!”. It might sound like a simple task, but as you’re not commuting to the office anymore, you need to consciously switch your brain to work mode by going through the same physical motions you would on a regular day . So jump into the shower and get dressed. If you have only one table, clean it up and get ready!
2. Setup your workspace as if you were going to the office. Another CodeControl member mentioned, “[making that clear distinction] helps keep a nice separation between work and life, as working remotely sometimes those lines blur and you could end up burning out (overworking as you are at home all day after all) or underworking (because the TV and my bed are right there)”. Pro tip: If you’re going to be videoconferencing with colleagues or clients, check what’s behind you before you get started.
3. Communicate with the right medium. As you won’t be able to walk over to your colleagues whenever you need something (which might actually be a great thing), you need to choose the right tools. At CodeControl, we’ve formulated a Communication Protocol based on the urgency and personal vs. collective dimension of the communication. It turns out that a lot of information can be shared asynchronously (we use Atlassian’s Confluence knowledge management system as an internal wiki more and more).
4. Know when to use which communication tools. Slack for asynchronous communication, Zoom Pro for video conferencing with big groups, Google Docs for most of our collaboration on day-to-day projects… we don’t use any extraordinary tools but we’ve built consistency over the past years.
5. At the end of the day, define your “work checkout”. It can be as simple as putting your computer away, setting the table back to a dinner position, or taking a brief walk around the block to simulate your regular commute home. Anything that will help you switch back to “non-work mode”.

DON’T…

1. Freak out about trusting your team members. A number of studies have been showing that remote workers are 13% more productive. Instead of trying to control, check in more frequently and provide clearer expectations.
2. Try to squeeze in home chores. We get it, you’re home and there are a multitude of seemingly necessary but unrelated tasks that you could quickly knock off your to do list. But don’t give in to temptation. Even if launching the washing machine or emptying the dishwasher will only take a couple of minutes, these micro-distractions will create a lot of disruption in your workflow. Even in “remote work”, the operative word is still work.
3. Sit still for too long. Instead, get up, move, or even dance! One CodeController advises to go for a walk at lunch time to signify you’re halfway through the day. Combating these potentially isolating times doesn’t mean you have to go hug people in the street but it’s also good to get fresh air.
4. Stop communicating with your colleagues. Remote work can get lonely — it’s even cited as the second biggest challenge after “unplugging after work” for remote workers.
5. Go back to full office life after this remote work experiment. Or at least reflect with your team. What have you liked? What would you change?

What are your tips for surviving (or even thriving) with remote work? If you’re interested to have a look at our communication protocol, leave a comment below.

Looking for more info? Join our 30mn webinar — register on remotework.codecontrol.io:

Written from home in Berlin (thanks Logan for the remote edits!)