Financial Advice Blog

The key reason people fail to adapt to working remotely is they fail to see the need for good quality organisation and robust self management.

I have been toiling remotely for over seven years since I first uncovered Quickbooks online an ‘on demand’ small business accounting software web application and was mesmerised by the fact that if you can perform accounting online then why shouldn’t it be practical to do other key types of of work remotely?

Whilst working remotely has significant advantages there are numerous pitfalls which evolve into problems that result in cuts in work output and lower motivation. The major reason for decreases in productivity in remote workers is interruption and it is a established and well known fact that it can take a professional up to twenty minutes to return to their original efficiency level after experiencing a distraction.

Research also shows that persons who are consistently subjected to interruptions are more likely to suffer from reduced memory capacity and are prone to developing mental health trouble in old age. We exist in an over communicated society and it is critical that you recognise the issues this causes before you start working remotely. When working remotely you must do everything feasible to reduce the risk of being interrupted.

Here are things that really do work:

1, Get a consistent schedule, tell everyone about it and obsessively maintain it!

Good examples are a specific time of day when you check or compose and reply to e-mail and make or will accept telephone calls. Before I began working remotely I used to get up to hundreds of electronic mails a day. Now I think I am unfortunate if I receive greater than 5. To start over with my electronic mail experience I changed my e-mail address and vigorously took steps to protect the details being passed on to anyone. I then ‘trained’ every party who I gave my e-mail address to, to use it with special care. I also created an auto-responder that swiftly told anyone sending me mail at what time of day I would be reading mail and if something should have my urgent attention to mark it as ‘Urgent’.

2. Get rid of alerts.

Turn off every feature that can send you a interruption. This includes cell and
conventional phones and forms of alerts from e-mail such as display events, audible warnings, screen changes to your inbox folder and of course facing a window. Get a door on your work place and put up a ‘do not disturb’ sign on it.

In ‘Remote Working Part 3 – The ‘kit’ list’ I will reveal my favourite tools and software.

Filed under: Financial Advice