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Remote Working Part 2 – Effective working styles
Filed Under (Blogging) by peter on 17-09-2009
The key reason members of both sexes fail to adapt to working remotely is they fail to realise the need for good organisation and robust self management.
I have been working remotely for almost a decade since I first found Quickbooks online an ‘on demand’ small business accounting software web application and was blown away by the fact that if you can do accounting on the web then why shouldn’t it be feasible to do other key types of of work at a distance?
Whilst working remotely has numerous upsides there are numerous pitfalls which convert into issues that result in decreased work output and reduced morale. The number one reason for low productivity in remote workers is interruption and it is a established and well publicised fact that it can take a professional up to 0.33 hours to return to their original efficiency level after experiencing an interruption.
Research also shows that persons who are continuously affected by disturbances are more likely to be susceptible to lower memory capability and are prone to developing mental health problems in later life. We live in an over communicated society and it is imperative that you are acquainted with the problems this causes before you commence working remotely. When operating remotely you should do everything feasible to mitigate the threat of being interrupted.
Here are the essentials:
1, Get a habit, communicate it to absolutely everyone and obsessively maintain it!
Good examples are a specific time of day when you review or send e-mail and make or take phone calls. Before I began working remotely I used to get well over hundreds of e-mails over a period of twenty four hours. Now I think I am unfortunate if I get over 5. To start over with my electronic mail experience I modified my e-mail address and vigorously took precautions to shield the details being made known to anyone. I then ‘trained’ everyone who I gave my e-mail address to, to use it wisely and sparingly. I also created an auto-responder that swiftly told anyone sending me mail at what time of day I would be reading mail and if an item should have my immediate attention to mark it as ‘Urgent’.
2. Get rid of alerts.
Disable every function that can send you a interruption. This includes cell and
ordinary phones and forms of alerts from e-mail such as on screen pop ups, warning sounds, screen 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.



















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