Remote Work

I was fortunate enough to experience and adapt to working remotely a few years before the covid pandemic when I did contract work. Throughout all these years, I've established some strategies and practices that helped me in the past and were good foundations for 2020 and beyond reality.

1. Go for a walk

Go out for lunch, ride your bike, work from another place, go to a park nearby, see the sunset, wake up early and see the sunrise. Going out helps you reconnect with your surroundings, nature, and local community and will positively impact your mood and productivity.

Even as a quiet and introverted person, I found that it's essential to see the outside, interact with random people, and breathe different air. It is also a great opportunity not to think about what you're currently working on and let your brain process it in the background.

2. Understand the best times for creative work.

It is easier said than done, but successful professionals understand how to use their energy levels to sequence their different styles of work and tasks throughout the day.

Every job comes with repetitive and boring tasks and projects. Being upset about doing these tasks may end up just taking out of your creative juices. Grouping similar tasks and listening to music often helps me go through them.

3. Set up boundaries

With no physical distance between you and your workplace, it is often easy to "get lost" and do the work, even after "work hours." It is important to establish reasonable boundaries to accommodate a healthy work-life balance and team members in different time zones.

The traditional boundary is to have a separate office room in your home, but that's probably not possible or not the priority of most people that live in big cities.

A tactic that I found pretty helpful was not to have work emails and chat apps/accounts on my phone. I established that over a decade ago and never had any work issues because of it. While that may not be applicable if you're constantly on call or work in emergency systems, I recommend trying it out.

5. Don't take on additional side work if you don't need to

Remote work may give you the impression that it is easier to manage additional work. Even if you already have a full-time job, you may still have that initial impression.

If you don’t need the money, you could gain more by focusing on learning and mastering new skills or focusing on your health by establishing healthy mental and body routines.

6. Take time off

I find it extremely important to take a break for lunchtime. Focusing on your meal and after the meal (fruits, coffee, tea) will help you disconnect for a bit and refresh your mind to reconnect to work again after lunch.

Use your PTO, sick days, and mental health days whenever you feel like you need them. Do not over-think it. Do not think about work in your off time. Unless you work on an emergency room project can ALWAYS be done in the next day and most of the time next week or next month.