Here’s how to make your remote work more productive!

Hello readers! Welcome back to this space. Have you followed me yet? If not, do that now! Now let’s talk about you and your remote work. We have got quite used to working from home now, and some of us want to continue doing it even if everything does open up at the maximum capacity.

Working from home comes with its own pros and cons that should be looked at very carefully and evaluated more so. Before we jump right in, let’s take a look at the pros and cons one by one.

strike the right work-life balance

Pros:

1. Better work-life balance: Believe it or not, working from home has helped many of us strike the right work-life balance that we were seeking for a very long time. Right work-life balance helps employees stay motivated in their work and helps them produce better results. Clearly a win-win situation for both parties!
2. Saves time: Getting ready for work and then commuting to reach the workplace is not a cakewalk for most of us. Some employees stay far away from the workplace and have to take crowded trains just to reach work on time. They end up wasting a lot of physical and mental strength as commuting is not always a piece of cake. Working from home helps save time and again circles back to better work-life balance.
3. More nutritious meals: Say “Aye” if you also ate store brought meals at least once a day. Working from home has solved this for us. Many of us are having more home-cooked and nutritious meals every day.
4. Time for self: A little “me-time” helps a lot to keep our mind calm when work gets stressful. Earlier, the commute, an actual office space, and sometimes tedious work hours made it difficult for a lot of us to find time for ourselves. But ever since remote job is reality, me-time is a lot more feasible. A lot of us realised that me-time is not a luxury, but a necessity!
5. Time for peers and family: For someone who has always been so social, spending time with family and friends has always been my favourite weekend activity, and so many of the readers would be like me. With remote work, we are able to make more time for our peers and friends, which has helped us again in striking the right work-life balance.
6. Saves money: Commuting and eating out often doesn’t go as planned and is a cause of stress. Work from home brought our office to our homes, thus reducing our monthly expenses.

Now let’s take a look at a few cons, very quickly.

Cons:

1. Living at work: With no physical boundaries between work and home, at times it can feel that one is living at work. This disturbs the work-life balance that we are trying to achieve by opting for remote work in the first place.
2. No conversations with real human beings: Swamped with work, we can lose touch with real humans real quick. Because of video calls, geographical boundaries seem to vanish, but there is hardly anything that can replace real humans.
3. Excessive screen time: With no real human around, the only way we can keep in touch with others is through the screen. This then results in excessive screen time.
4. Interpersonal communication: A human is only a social animal. This means communication is an integral part of humankind. Remote work somehow hampers interpersonal communication, and the only way to counter that is to take extra efforts to bring it to par.

Now that we have evaluated both sides, it’s time to get ready for the remote work and take a look at how to make it more productive.

How to make remote work as productive as possible:

1. Have a routine in place: Most folks think working from home means only leisure, but to much dismay, that shouldn’t be the case. A routine, a schedule, a timetable helps get a structure to the day. A structured day often mitigates helter-skelter at the last moment.
2. Dedicated workplace: A desk, a lamp, a chair, and a bottle are the only things you would need to set up your workplace at home. A dedicated workplace helps to overcome the con of living at work.
3. Dressing for work: Wearing new and trendy outfits to work is what we also miss. Favourite outfits lift your confidence like nothing else. But so what if you are working from home, you can still wear your favourite outfits at home. Dressing for work is said to elevate your productivity. So who is ready to feel amazing working from home, but now in cute and chic outfits? I am!
4. Being in touch with team members: Your team is your gang of friends at work. Kat and Jane to your Sutton, or Johnny Rose to your Stevie Budd, if I may! Keeping in touch with them helps you to have some human interaction as well as ensures goals and tasks are aligned. Believe it or not, this is one of the keys to maintaining the right work-life balance.
5. Enough physical movement: Some stretches, and light yoga before you start your day can help you focus a lot more. Exercising is as great for your mind as it is for your body. With no commute and no stairs to climb, it is essential for your body to get enough physical movement. Another key to unlocking work-life balance!
6. Enough interaction: As said earlier, human is a social animal. Conversations are something that helps our sanity. Even if you choose to work from home, try and interact with people from different walks of life. This helps to gain a broader perspective.
7. Limiting our screen time: To interact with others outside your home, the screen is your ticket. But it also very important to control screen time and do other non-screen activities. Reading a paperback book, or playing board games, painting, or even cooking are some of the ways you could control screen time.
8. Being able to switch between work and family: To be able to switch between your work and pay attention to the family may seem like a task in the beginning. But having a routine and a work desk helps you to switch the mental buttons and get in another mode. It is a key skill that one should master when opting for a remote job. This acts as an escape from work and thus improves your work-life balance!
9. Staying updated: Updates in and around your industry has a lot of impact on your work, directly and indirectly. Thus, staying updated is essential. In a conventional office space, this becomes easier, but when working from home, one needs to take extra effort to stay updated and stay in the competition.
10. Rewarding yourself: Not getting appreciated can be a bummer, but it is the times like these that you should be your own cheerleader and start rewarding yourself! Reward yourself for achieving goals and targets. Rewards are also a great way to strike the right work-life balance.

cheer for yourself to strike the right work-life balance

We can make anything fun if we put our minds to it! So what are you waiting for, make your remote work happening and fun by following these tips and tricks. If you see an improvement, let me know!

Stay tuned for the next article. I will see you again with yet another topic and we will explore it together! Take care and have a productive week ahead!