August 9, 2009

Remote Working Part 2 – Why self discipline is important

The top reason members of both sexes fail to succeed at working remotely is they fail to recognise the neccesity of excellent organisation and robust self management.

I have been operating remotely for nearly 8 yrs since I first uncovered Quickbooks online an 'on demand' small business accounting software service and was inspired by the fact that if you can perform accounting on the net then why shouldn’t it be possible to do other important types of work away from the conventional office?

Whilst working remotely has a lot of positives there are numerous pitfalls which evolve into problems that cause lower productivity and lower motivation. The most cited reason for reductions in productivity in remote professionals is disruption and it is a confirmed and well known fact that it can take a employee up to 0.33 hours to establish their original productivity level after experiencing a disturbance.

Studies also show that people who are continuously affected by disruptions are more likely to suffer from reduced memory ability and are prone to developing mental health issues in later life. We live in an over communicated era and it is essential that you are aware of the issues this causes before you start working remotely. Whilst working remotely you have to do everything possible to reduce the probability of being disrupted.

Here are the essentials:

1, Get a routine, tell everyone about it and rigidly adhere to it!

Good examples are a regular time of day when you look at or send mail and make or will accept telephone conversatiions. Before I began working remotely I used to get as many as a couple of hundred e-mails over a period of twenty four hours. Now I think I am unfortunate if I get in excess of four. To start over with my electronic mail experience I altered my e-mail address and obsessively took precautions to defend the details being passed on to anyone. I then ‘trained’ every individual who I gave my e-mail address to, to use it prudently. I also set up an auto-responder that swiftly told anyone sending me mail my schedule for processing mail and if someone must have my immediate consideration to mark it as ‘Urgent’.

2. Get rid of alerts.

Disable every feature that can send you a visual or audible alert. This includes cell and
conventional handsets and forms of alerts from electronic mail such as on screen pop ups, warning sounds, display changes to your inbox folder and of course facing a window. Get a door on your office and put up a ‘do not disturb’ sign on it.

In 'Remote Working Part 3 – Best online software' I will reveal my favourite tools and software.