Eight Proven Strategies for Better Remote Work

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After years of working in coffee shops and on sofas, one thing is certain: working remotely is difficult. Incredibly difficult. On paper, it sounds like rainbows and unicorns: you choose the watch yourself, you don’t have to deal with a boss looming over your shoulder, and you can even work in your pajamas.

This post originally appeared on the Zapier blog .

But working from home can just as easily be defined by low productivity, low power consumption, and the slippery slope of procrastination. You spend half of your time dealing with distractions and half of your time fighting the guilt that comes from succumbing to those distractions.

How can you work from home without getting distracted from your attention? I have worked remotely for over nine years collecting productivity tactics with my friend Dan Shure. These tricks keep us productive no matter where we work.

1. Start your day right

How you start your day often determines how you end it. If you log into Facebook right after waking up, chances are good that your behavior will continue for the rest of the day.

It turns out there is some research to back this up: your energy and willpower peaks in the morning . During the day, your willpower decreases, which means that you are more susceptible to distractions. This 3-hour Netflix booze sounds so much more appealing when you’re already chilling out in the morning.

In addition to the usual ones like exercise, diet, and meditation, I have developed four habits that help me start my day right.

Get started as early as possible

Hemingway wrote every morning . Richard Branson got up no later than 5:45 am – even on his private island.

You will find that getting up before sunrise is the habit of most successful people.

This makes sense from a productivity standpoint: you have willpower and fewer distractions early in the morning. By grabbing your to-do list as soon as you wake up, you avoid the desperate rush at the last minute to get things done.

Plus, waking up early can make you happier, according to one study .

Make your bed first thing in the morning.

Before doing anything in the morning, I make my bed. I received this advice from William McRaven, a former US Navy admiral and 9th USSOCOM commander.

Here’s whathe says about making the bed after waking up:

“If you make your bed every morning, you have completed the first task of the day. It will give you a sense of pride. And it will prompt you to complete another task. By the end of the day, this one assignment will confirm the fact that the little things in life matter … and if you can’t do the little things right, you can never do the big things right. ”

Productivity guru Tim Ferris swears it too: making your bed when you wake up gives you a sense of accomplishment and strikes at least one task off your to-do list. Plus, no matter what awaits you that day, it’s the only thing you can control.

I found that it also prevents me from checking my phone in bed – a huge productivity killer.

Drink a glass of water upon waking

It may sound trivial, but drinking enough water can have a pretty big impact on productivity. 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated – they do not get the recommended intake of about 3.2 liters of water.

This is bad for your health as well as your productivity because:

Drinking a glass of water right after waking up solves two problems: it starts your metabolism and helps you drink 3.2 liters of water. This is a simple solution to a big problem.

Get ready for success the night before

“The most effective practice is preparation,” says Stephen Nachmanovich in Free Play . He talked about doing art and music, but that also applies to work.

Basically, by setting up your environment before the start of your day, you can jump right into your most important tasks without worrying about meaningless details distracting from your mental gas tank.

So clear your desk of distractions – even washing the surface will increase your productivity. Try to plan your activities the night before. And prepare lunch and snacks for the day ahead of time so you can fuel your body without spending the effort of making decisions.

Also, empty as much of your mailbox as possible the night before. That way, even if you’re tempted to open your email or need to check something in your inbox, new messages won’t upset you.

2. Change your work environment regularly.

I work in my home office most of the day. But sometimes I go to a coffee shop or local coworking space to change my work environment.

Contrary to popular belief, little background noise – like quiet chatting in a coffee shop – can actually increase productivity. One study published in the Journal of Consumer Research found that light noise (about 70 dB) improved focus more than silence (about 50 dB).

Then there is the famous Hawthorne Effect , where people improve their behavior when they are watched. This means you’ll be less likely to ditch Reddit if others are watching – this is one reason people who work in collaborative workplaces report 6-7 point improvements in productivity .

However, not all environmental changes need to be so drastic. Even something as small as switching from a seated table to a standing table can immediately increase your productivity.

3. Understand your willpower and use it.

Willpower is a typically human trait, but most of us don’t understand it.

Research shows that willpower, like energy, is a finite resource . Figuratively speaking, you start each day with a limited number of “Willpower Points”. Throughout the day – making (and putting off) decisions – you spend those points. When you are exhausted, you are prone to temptation and distraction.

The key to being productive is managing these “points of willpower” so you have more energy to make tough decisions (and ignore distractions).

Here are two things that work for me and Dan:

Select “Path of Least Resistance”

Every time you fight temptation, you spend a few points of willpower. Actively resisting the urge to eat the donut is harder than giving it up altogether.

I call this “choosing the path of least resistance.” Instead of fighting temptations, you remove them completely from your environment.

No temptations, no wasted willpower.

If you’re trying to lose weight, you won’t be stuffing your freezer with ice cream. You would curb your impulses by denying them access. Likewise, if you’re trying to avoid social media, blocking sites entirely will save you more willpower than actively avoiding the urge to open Facebook in a new tab.

Design your environment to avoid disruption

When I go to the office every morning, I already have three things:

  • My laptop is in working order
  • To-do list
  • My main working tools – Google Calendar, Google Docs, and Photoshop – are already open.

That way, I don’t have to mess around while I wait for my laptop to boot, or figure out what tasks need to be done during the day.

By creating my work environment in this way, I got down to business right away instead of fighting distractions. It preserves my willpower and ensures that I don’t lose momentum.

4. Keep work and personal space separate

When you work from home, it’s easy to curl up in bed with your laptop and pretend you’re “working.” I have to know – I’ve been doing this for years.

I experienced the greatest productivity gains when I began to view my work and personal areas as separate spaces. I used my bedroom only for sleep, my living room for the entertainment of friends, and built a separate home office just for work.

This helps tune the frame for better performance. When you walk into your home office, you don’t expect to take a nap or watch TV. Your brain is spatially wired to think of the office as the place where work happens.

You earn bonus points if you dress in office clothes (or at least something more formal than pajama clothes) when you work from home.

In addition, the separation creates a little “commute”. The simple transition from bedroom to office signals that you are physically moving between work and personal space. Your brain automatically switches to productivity mode when it sees the work area as a place to do something.

5. Better use productivity tools.

Every productive person I know has a recipe for productivity tools. Some of them make it sparse using a couple of tools at the most. Others use complex combos to keep track of everything.

Here are the tools I use to improve my productivity:

  • Music / Ambient Sound : I switch between Noisli for ambient sounds, Brain.fm for service music, or a custom YouTube playlist .
  • List of affairs : I switch between Any.do and Todoist, to manage tasks.
  • Caber : I write a lot. This tool helps me type faster so I can get more done in less time.
  • Trello : I use Trello to track long-term projects and collaborate with others on Kanban boards .
  • Tasker : A powerful application for creating custom “automation” in Android. You can set it to automatically turn off notifications when you’re working, or read messages aloud when you’re driving.
  • StayFocused : A Chrome extension that blocks access to distracting sites (like Facebook or Reddit) after a specified number of minutes. Very helpful if you’re struggling to stay away from social media.

You’ll need your own set of apps to stay focused and productive. Check out Zapier app reviews and reviews to find the best software and make sure your toolkit helps you productively. If the tool isn’t doing its job, it’s time to switch to another application.

6.A / B Testing Various Productivity Methods

The pages of the most popular online blogs are filled with game-changing productivity techniques. Here are some of the methods I’ve tried:

  • Pomodoro Technique : This technique follows the 25/5 principle – you work 25 minutes followed by a 5 minute break.
  • GTD (Getting Things Done) : This method allows you to delegate tasks and prioritize lists.
  • ABC and Pareto Principle : This method is often used in business management. Tasks are divided into three categories: A (urgent and important), B (important but not urgent), and C (neither urgent nor important). After that, the tasks that take the least time for A are first solved based on the Pareto principle (or the 80/20 rule).

But here’s the problem: these methods rarely work for everyone. For example, the popularPomodoro technique requires you to take a 5 minute break every 25 minutes of work.

It’s great if you’re on a manager’s schedule when your day is broken down into hourly blocks. However, if you are writing, coding, or doing something creative (that is, following the “creator’s schedule”), two breaks every 50 minutes is two too many breaks.

Instead of forcing one method to fit your work style, try A / B testing different time management techniques yourself. This way, you won’t be flying blind and can focus on your ideal system for personal productivity.

With this approach, you would try Technique A on Day 1 and Technique B on Day 2. Track your mood and productivity over several weeks to get a clear idea of ​​which technique works best for you.

7. Track and Play Your Productivity

Management science has a simple principle: what can be measured can be improved.

This also applies to performance. If you keep track of how many hours you worked, your mood, and the number of tasks completed, you can identify weaknesses and improve your productivity. Once you have the data, you can even raise the stakes by playing on productivity – say, by rewarding yourself with a favorite treat if you work more than 8 hours for 5 days in a row.

You can track your productivity with an app like RescueTime , but I prefer the old-fashioned method. I create a spreadsheet for each month and keep track of the number of hours I work each day using a time tracking app like Toggl to count the minutes. You can connect it to Google Sheets with Zapier integration for automatic daily logging.

To push myself further, I create a low and high limit (in daytime hours). Falling below the lower limit incurs a penalty. Exceeding the upper limit brings me a reward.

Then I create a monthly chart to see if my productivity is increasing or decreasing. This is what your table might look like:

And here’s the accompanying chart I’m adding to quickly gauge my productivity:

At a glance, I can see if I’m doing well, when I’m relaxing, and how many hours I work each day / week / month on average.

8. Develop habits with the X-Cards technique.

Most of these tactics require developing a new habit – the holy grail of productivity. So how long will it take?

Philip Lally is a health psychology researcher at University College London. Lally and her research team published a study in the European Journal of Social Psychology in which they tried to figure out how long it actually takes to form a habit.

After examining 96 people for 12 weeks, they concluded that on average it takes 2 months for a new behavior to become automatic, 66 days to be exact.

I’m not going to tell you that this is a hard and fast rule – you won’t magically enter habit mode after 66 days. But this is a good benchmark to strive for.

One way to measure your progress is by using the X-card technique . (Some call it the ” Seinfeld Technique ” after comedian Jerry Seinfeld, who dedicated himself to his daily work to hone his craft without breaking the chains.)

The technique is simple enough: start by creating an “X-Card,” an index card divided into a 7×7 grid of 49 blocks. You can also use a dedicated app like 7 weeks or a good old calendar.

At the top of each card, write the habit you want to stick to. Every time you practice this habit, you mark it with a large cross in one of the squares.

For example, if you decide to go to bed every day before midnight, your X-card will look like this:

Cross the boxes one by one before going to bed every day. But here’s the catch: you need to save the streak. Developing a habit means doing the same things every single day. Whenever you need extra motivation, remind yourself that the absence of an X means your streak is lost and you need to start from scratch.

Keeping productive while working from home is a big challenge, perhaps the biggest challenge for telecommuters.

How you decide to tackle this problem affects not only your productivity, but also your future success and even your happiness. If you adapt these tips to your life, you may find that your time off from work is also more productive.

Be Productive Anywhere: 8 Proven Strategies For Better Remote Work | Zapier

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