As the pandemic sweeps the world and many of us begin working from home, it\u2019s common to feel apprehensive yet excited about\nthe prospect of remote work. No more commute? No more annoying coworker? No more angry bright fluorescent lights? Plus, more\ntime in the day! It seems like remote work is a huge boon to productivity, and many people agree.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Office environments can indeed be distracting and even bad for your health, due to their harsh lighting, constant noise, and cramped layout. Working from home, the library, or even a coffee shop provides a comfortable experience that many people say boosts productivity. But does it, really? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Productivity stems from many factors, not just comfort. Let\u2019s look at some factors that affect your productivity, then look at some\ntechniques to help you get s#!% done.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many people confuse productivity with progress. When you say that you had a productive day, do you mean that you got a lot done,\nor that you got a lot done in a small amount of time? The former is busy-ness; the latter is productivity. In true productivity, you can\nget your tasks done and also have time for relaxation, hobbies, chores, and so on. If you\u2019re sacrificing something to get it all done,\nyou\u2019re not being productive, you\u2019re being busy \u2014 and you might just be burning yourself out.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
True productivity happens when you can maximize your available time to get the most important s#!% done. Note that I said \u201cavailable\u201d time and \u201cmost important s#!%,\u201d not \u201call your time\u201d and \u201call your s#!%.\u201d Packing your day full of tasks is not true productivity. Yet many of us take long periods of time to check email, organize files, or work on tasks that don\u2019t support our overall goals, then we wonder where the day went. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rather, to maximize our productivity, we must optimize our time and energies for the most important tasks we need to do. Everything else can wait. This is the true meaning of productivity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As I mentioned above, remote situations might seem ideal for productivity, but they can detract from it for a couple of reasons. First, working remotely lets us avoid the process of traveling to our workplace, walking into the building, setting up our stuff, and so on. While that may seem like a good thing, those rituals also provide a buffer between us and our work. They give us a chance to disengage from \u201cwork mode.\u201d When working remotely, especially from home, we don\u2019t have that buffer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Working from home can be especially dangerous because many of us are inclined to roll out of bed and immediately get to work.\nProductivity seems close at hand when we needn\u2019t even change out of our PJs. However, that blurring of the line between work and\nhome life can make it hard to \u201cleave work at work, which, in turn, contributes to feelings of burnout and fatigue.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To be productive in a remote setting, then, we must create a workspace and a work time, then stick to it. Let\u2019s discuss some strategies to do that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just as many people confuse busy-ness with productivity, it\u2019s easy to confuse a full schedule with time management. True time management isn\u2019t just a matter of making it to each meeting on time or making all your deadlines (although those are certainly important). It\u2019s the practice of doing your tasks at the optimal time so that you don\u2019t waste time. As productivity guru Stephen R. Covey said, \u201cThe key is in not spending time, but in investing it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When you think about your time as money, as the saying goes, you can get a sense of how it\u2019s being spent. Are you doing your\nmost challenging work at the end of the work day, when you\u2019re likely getting tired? Are you wasting your caffeine-fueled morning\nhours on email and meetings? These are the equivalent of spending higher prices on low-value items at a convenience store. With\ntrue time management, you would devote your highest-energy times to the most demanding tasks.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here are some techniques for proper time management:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eat the frog<\/strong>. Mark Twain famously said, \u201cIf it\u2019s your job to eat a frog, it\u2019s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it\u2019s your job to\neat two frogs, it\u2019s best to eat the biggest one first.\u201d In the context of productivity, this means identifying your most important \u2014 and\npotentially unpleasant \u2014 task, then doing this first. This technique is also a great procrastination-buster.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Do one task at a time. <\/strong>While multitasking may seem like productivity, it\u2019s actually busy-ness. In fact, research shows that workers are less productive when they attempt to <\/p>\n\n\n\n Block your time. <\/strong>As I mentioned above, it\u2019s all too easy to allot our productive hours to tasks that don\u2019t further our goals. The average worker spends 30 hours a week just checking email \u2014 what a waste! Time blocking, according to productivity expert Charlie Gilkey, optimizes your productivity by helping you do your tasks when you\u2019re in the best shape to them. In his scheme, there are four types of time blocks: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Focus: <\/strong>The blocks in which we have strong mental energy and can do intensive work. Gilkey advises you to block out your schedule with these blocks, then schedule your tasks to be done within them. That means that\nif you know you have a surge of energy at 10 a.m., you should assign your intensive work for that block. This, in turn, helps you get\nyour s#!% done in less time, because you\u2019re optimized to do the task in that block.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n When working from home, you need to dedicate a space solely for work rather than working from the couch. Keep it clean and professional-looking, just like you would at the office, and try to have it be away from distractions such as the refrigerator or TV. Then, spend your \u201coffice hours\u201d in this location. This helps you get into work mode, so that when it\u2019s time for a recovery block or work break, you can properly disengage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n To ensure that you stick to your time block assignments, track what you\u2019re working on through a program like RescueTime or Harvest, then set reminders to take breaks or switch gears. There are oodles of free time-tracking and timer tools available on the Web and the app stores. These tools can also help you feel less disoriented when you\u2019re getting used to working from home. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Let\u2019s not forget that most of your work is not done in a vacuum. You have colleagues, coworkers, clients, project managers, and supervisors that you need to talk to. And in a remote setting, it\u2019s not as easy as walking down the hall to their office. It may not even be easy to call them once you\u2019re outside the office network, and email can quickly turn into a tangled mess of files and messages. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Make sure that cloud-based collaboration tools are in your arsenal. Free apps such as Trello and Slack are ideal ways to keep in\ntouch with your team. One of the most common drains on productivity is the time spent emailing people, searching for files, and so\non. A collaboration tool can streamline this process so that you can better devote your time and energy to getting your s#!% done.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Working remotely and getting your s#!% done can go hand-in-hand, if you do them both correctly. Avoid the temptation to pack\nyour day with tasks just because you can. Especially in these troubled times, it\u2019s crucial that you leave time for self-care, housekeep-\ning, relaxation, and time with your loved ones. Put true productivity into practice by striking a balance between work and life \u2014 even\nwhile working from home. That\u2019s how you can most effectively get your s#!% done.\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As the pandemic sweeps the world and many of us begin working from home, it\u2019s common to feel apprehensive yet excited about the prospect of remote work. No more commute? No more annoying coworker? No more angry bright fluorescent lights? Plus, more time in the day! It seems like remote work is a huge boon … Continue reading Working Remotely and Getting S#!% Done<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":893,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","_eb_attr":"","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-logo-design"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flocksy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flocksy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flocksy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flocksy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flocksy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=892"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/flocksy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/892\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":894,"href":"https:\/\/flocksy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/892\/revisions\/894"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flocksy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flocksy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flocksy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flocksy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nAdmin: <\/strong>The blocks in which we have less energy and need to handle meetings, emails, etc.\nSocial: <\/strong>The blocks in which we interact with family, friends, and people outside a work context.\nRecovery: <\/strong>The blocks devoted to our self-care and relaxation.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\nRemote Environment Techniques\n<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Collaboration Tools\n<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Wrapping Up\n<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n