Remote working has now become a typical lifestyle for many of us. As the Covid-19 pandemic is grappling the world, many of us had to adapt to a new working model. With numerous benefits to both the employees and employers, remote working is becoming more and more popular.
Since employees are working from the comfort of their homes, they can now spend more time with their families. Also, they can save money and time that they previously spend commuting to work.
But like every other thing, remote working has its pros and cons as well. Though the pros outweigh the cons, few things simply can’t be ignored. A few distractions can get off the rail in remote working, and you can lose your complete focus and attention.
Nevertheless, we are here to let you know how to avoid these distractions. Whether it be your children’s activities or procrastination, you will learn how to avoid them by the end of the article. The advice given below will help you move in the right direction.
1. Schedule Your Day
It would be much better and helpful if you plan your day ahead of the beginning. It is something many people would recommend you to do whether you are working remotely or not. Not only that, you can set your objectives for the week, fortnight, or even months.
As an aspect of prioritizing and optimizing, simply allocating time for projects is one method of limiting disturbances. You are pretty less prone to be having any trouble or disruption if you divide your day into set duration. Try your best to ensure that you get a particular task done in the time that you have assigned for it.
2. Implement Consistent Boundary Lines
As we have mentioned in the previous section, you have to ensure to get a particular task done in the time that you have assigned for it. It is equally important to complete the task on time as to scheduling it. There is no point in doing all the scheduling if you are unable to complete it within the completion deadline.
Find those hours of the day when you are usually quite productive. If your best thought occurs after midday, schedule all your important meetings and intensive work hours after the first half of a day. Also, as you complete the day’s goals, you can mark them off your list. It would give you a sense of accomplishment and increase your motivation.
Feel free to reward yourself after a task is complete. It would act as a motivation to get a particular task done on time.
3. Avoid Multitasking
Though you might hear that multitasking can help you become much more productive, we recommend avoiding it. The reason might be that you would not be able to focus on the most urgent task with so many disturbances. You might find yourself dabbling through a lot of stuff.
And at times, you would find yourself doing work that is not that important. It is more than possible that your mind is giving importance to projects and things that should be lower on your to-do list. It would ultimately affect the progress of those projects that require more of your time and attention.
People who are constantly multitasking do not have a lack of focus. They need to develop their prioritization skills where they can properly work on one thing at a time. If this describes you, prioritize your most relevant activities to make sure to finish them by the end of your workday.
4. Keep Your Phone Away
Working remotely can be a difficult task sometimes. With all these noises and distractions, you might find it difficult to focus sometimes. But one of the main distractions that would bother you from time to time is in your pocket. The urge to check your phone, again and again, can get you off track. You might be focusing on something extremely important, and all of a sudden, there is a notification on your phone.
That notification is the point where you would lose all your focus and divert your attention towards your phone. And later, you would realize that you have spent hours on your phone. It would drain all your energy and lead to procrastination.
So, in order to avoid this situation, you must keep your phone away from yourself, especially during productive hours. Though it is improbable, you can completely stay away from it, and it would be better that you set a time for it. When you schedule your day, you can set aside a few minutes to spend time on your phone. It can be to answer important emails or messages or simply surf through social media to relax.
5. Walk Away When You Feel The Need For It
Many studies indicate that workers’ productivity increases as a result of working remotely. Remote work eliminates time-wasting habits and activities such as driving, workplace dynamics, politics and chatter, and lengthy and ineffective meetings.
However, many employees tend to neglect their health and development. Also, at times it can be difficult for them to focus on a particular task. In both cases, it is essential that they walk away from their workstations.
Employee health and wellbeing is a top concern for many businesses. So, if you don’t feel like working or can’t focus, then you can take a quick break to get yourself back on track. You can read, watch TV, spend some time with your family or do anything that can help you relax and focus.
6. Don’t Stress Yourself.
Sometimes there are few things that you simply can’t get control of. These things might affect your work, and you might not achieve specific goals for the day. In such instances, you should not stress yourself. Instead, you should simply let those things slide away.
Stressing on it would be a time-waster, and you would not be able to focus on other priority tasks. You might end up thinking about it for hours which would create a backlog of work. All of this will have an impact on productivity and motivation levels as well. So, if you are unable to complete a task for any reason, don’t stress about it; instead, simply move on.
Conclusion
Remote working is no doubt going to be the future of work. As more and more companies are embracing it, it would sooner or later become the new norm. Large corporations like Twitter have given permission to their employees to work remotely for an indefinite period.
And this is just the beginning, as more organizations are now following its lead. Since companies can hire dedicated remote team from any part of the world, they are now shifting towards this new model.
That been said, it is time to start thinking about your business incorporating remote working. Though there would be hiccups along the way, you can efficiently deal with them along the way. But if you are still not sure where to begin with, you can take the help of Aspired.
Aspired is a remote agency that can help you build a remote team in no time. They have a clientele that speaks for itself. Collaborate with them to take your business to the next level.