A remote career allows you to work in your space from anywhere, increasing productivity, saving commute time, work-life balance, and many more benefits. However, if not managed properly, the career choice could lead to stress, burnout, distractions, isolation, and more over-time.
Inculcating some proactive habits into your routine could help you save from the consequences and enable you to manage your time better. Here are some proactive habits you could follow to build the successful remote career you have always wanted.
1. Plan Your Schedule
The first step is to plan your schedule for the day. This could be your morning routine before work, your schedule during the day, and even your plan after work. It’s necessary to structure your day to get your tasks done on time in your regular hours.
Breaks are just as important as your work. Along with your focused hours, schedule your breaks too to prevent burnout. Maintain realistic goals for yourself and take on only as much work as you can manage.
You can use these apps to schedule your tasks and be more productive. Moreover, you can go ahead and plan for the whole week, a month, and even a year to keep your long-term goals in mind.
2. Create and Organize Your Workspace
When you’re working from home, it’s easy to find yourself tempted to work from the comfort of your bed. However, your productivity could be affected, and over time your brain may be conditioned to associate bed with stress rather than relaxation, affecting your sleeping patterns. Hence, it’s important to make your home more work-friendly and have a dedicated workspace where you’ll be able to focus more on your tasks.
Try to create your workspace far from your bed and keep it organized by regularly maintaining your desk. Make sure to choose a comfortable place with ample lighting and noise-free. Keep your workspace clutter-free by removing unnecessary items and replacing them with something that keeps you motivated at work, like a motivational poster or a list of your long-term goals.
3. Limit Distractions
Distractions can keep you from being productive and achieving your goals while working remotely. As you’re working from your own space, distractions like your phone, social media, and constantly getting up to grab things to move around can make you procrastinate while working.
Whether you’re working from home or in cafés and co-working spaces, make sure you have everything you frequently need at hand to stay organized. Moreover, consider a place to work where there is less noise to avoid interruptions.
You can set alarms for breaks and timers on your phone to keep your mind from wandering. Furthermore, try using these apps and extensions to avoid distractions while working that help you focus for longer productive hours.
As remote workers and virtual teams become more prevalent, so is the number of software that caters to them. To advance in your remote working career, you need to know about tools that help you collaborate with your teammates effectively.
Remote work tools are necessary for a stress-free environment and help you maintain workflow in small and large teams too. It can also help you keep track of your teammates’ work and help them stay focused. Moreover, you can try the best remote work tools to boost your productivity and achieve your goals.
5. Maintain a Checklist
Maintaining a checklist while working will help you monitor and maintain the list of tasks you have planned for the day and achieved. As you tick off your planned tasks as completed on your checklist by the end of the day, the more you’ll feel motivated at work.
We’ve rounded up the most beautiful apps to maintain a to-do list that helps you stay productive while working.
6. Focus on Communicating Effectively
While a remote career can become challenging when it involves the contribution of your teammates to accomplish tasks due to a lack of in-person connection. It becomes necessary to be able to communicate and put forward your feedback often with your teammates to avoid any confusion or delay in tasks.
For your communication to be effective, you should utilize video meetings, text messages, emails, and phone calls. There are a variety of tools available to use for promoting productive communication when engaging with people virtually.
Video conversations while working remotely are the best way to maintain a human connection with your teammates. While in remote meetings, try to define your goals and expectations clearly during the meeting and keep everyone involved to deliver your message clearly.
7. Upskill With Online Courses
While working remotely, you’re mostly on your own without a manager or teammate beside you to assist you in person. Hence, upskilling becomes necessary to keep up with the new technologies and innovations in ever-growing industries. Moreover, it helps you distinguish from the crowd and gives you an edge while applying for any job role.
If you’re an entry-level professional, trying to get into remote work could be challenging due to fierce competition in the industry. However, with an enhanced skill set, you can stay updated on the desired domain you’re applying for and showcase your profile with the latest skills to your potential employers.
You can leverage some popular online learning platforms like Udemy, Coursera, and LinkedIn Learning to upskill yourself.
8. Encourage Self-Care
Remote work can feel liberating with the flexibility to choose your own time and space for work. However, with time, it could create a work-life imbalance leading to stress, isolation, and lower productivity. So it becomes equally important to prioritize health and self-care to ensure the working lifestyle doesn’t impact your work-life balance.
Take a sufficient amount of breaks, have virtual coffee breaks with your remote co-workers, and create virtual water cooler chats to allow yourself to relax from your work. Moreover, you can utilize your freedom to work remotely and socialize in co-working spaces or cafés.
Take Charge of Your Remote Career With These Proactive Habits
The above-mentioned proactive ways, if followed, can help you build the remote career you want by boosting your productivity, helping you manage your time well, and maintaining stronger relationships at work. Ensure to follow these habits and inculcate them in your daily routine to advance in your remote career.
