5 remote work hacks to boost your productivity

Working remotely gives you so much freedom and independence. No one is telling you what and when to do. Finally, you can have a day you want. But working remotely also means that YOU are responsible for all the motivation, for being productive and passionate every day. And you are accountable only to yourself.

For the last few years, kind of accidentally, we both become remote workers, and let me tell you, this is a journey… On most days I am so grateful for the lifestyle I have. I seat down in front of my computer and count my blessings. But there are also the other days. The days where well… I struggle big time. What makes it worse is that not only I don’t feel motivated, but I also feel guilty for feeling that way. Double trouble: crazy, isn’t it? On the days like that, I could just lay down on a couch, eat chocolate and watch YouTube all day (if my daughter would ever let me…). Or I could somehow pull myself out of this despair. Of course we try our hardest to do the latter.

As we struggled a lot, we decided to incorporate some life-saving (or productivity-saving) hacks which may also be of use to you:

1. Stick to regular working hours

It does  not matter which hours are these, but it tremendously helps if they are similar every day. If you are a morning person, work in the morning, if you are an owl, work at night. If you have children, work when they sleep or are in preschool or school. Having regular working hours gives your brain a signal that it is simply time to work.

Regular working hours are something we have truly embraced only recently, after having a child. As our girl thrives on a stable schedule, we had to follow. Good for us though. I was never a morning person, but now I have forced my brain to produce in the mornings, when my daughter is in preschool. I still have late night binges of ferocious creativity from time to time, but these are an exception. They are a rare adventures which I cherish, not frantic bouts right before a deadline. Way more gets done in a “boring” regular working time, than in “exciting” bingeing time. (This post was half written in regular work time and half at night :))

There are moments when we flip our working schedule to do some exciting things in what normally would be working hours. We do it also to avoid popular times (which usually are on the afternoons and weekends) in galleries, museums or shops.

2. Develop a work routine

Making a cup of coffee, lighting a candle, seating in your favorite chair with your laptop on your lap, or putting a special “work” music on, these all are some simple routine examples to incorporate. Our brains love routine, they love predictability and pattern. Give your brain what it wants, and it hopefully will reward you with some good mood and motivation for work.

For us green tea works magic. Especially if it is paired with lots of sugar and whipped cream… Thank you Starbucks’ frappucino for making me an addict.

3. Separate your working space

Often people who work remotely, do it from home. It creates a confusion for the brain (at least my brain): am I supposed to work now, or relax, or clean up, or eat? If you can separate yourself spatially for the work time, try it. Even if the only option you have is to move to another corner of the room or table. Distinguishing your work surrounding from the ones for other activities should allow your brain to focus more easily.

We try to do as much of our work as we can from a different place than we rest/play (read home). This usually is a cafe or an office (me). Other useful places for you could include libraries, co-working spaces, or  parks. Luckily, the internet access is becoming ubiquitous, therefore it is easier to be productive anywhere.

4. Log your working hours

A simple act of logging your hours can be a powerful motivator. It is an instant reward and acknowledgement of the work you have done. Logging gives you a sense of accomplishment each day, which is especially important for long grueling projects. You can either log time you spend on work, or the amount of task you have accomplished that day (e.g., number of words written), or both – whatever works for you. It gives you a metric of progress, but also teaches you how much each task exactly takes.

We log each minute we spend on a particular task. This gives us an objective and emotionless measure of our efforts. The logger does not care about any excuses, just the work we put in. This can be a painful lesson, but also a valuable one. There were times when I was dreading a task beyond belief, just to discover that it took me half the time I was expecting. Logging allowed me to reassess my assumptions about how much time things take, and at the same time improved my planning skills.

5. Learn to negotiate with yourself

Negotiating means making deals with yourself. This skill is especially useful in emergency situations (read: deadline approaching). A stressful deadline sometimes overwhelms, and you may find yourself an hour and half into watching YouTube. The only way to break out, may be to make a deal with yourself: if I do 20 minutes of work, I can go back to watching YouTube (or do anything else which you consider a reward). Twenty minutes is usually enough to get you going. The confidence boost of starting, should ease you into at least some progress. Even if it doesn’t, you still have done more than you would without the deal.

We use negotiating to keep us motivated for big (long) projects too. For example, to keep us consistent with writing for this blog, we have set up a schedule with deadlines, but also rewards for meeting each one of them. Rewards are wicket! If an hour of browsing YouTube was a problem before, it can be a reward now. This way you get to enjoy your watching without a guilt, but still get things done.

If you have other hacks, please share them in the comments. We are always in need of good ideas to trick our lazy brains! 😉