Remote Working Part 2 – Self discipline essentials

Thursday, August 13th, 2009 at 9:15 pm

The key reason individuals fail to succeed at operating remotely is they fail to recognise the criticality of having excellent organisation and enduring self discipline.

I have been toiling remotely for nearly 8 yrs since I first discovered Quickbooks online an ‘on demand’ small business accounting software online system and was inspired by the fact that if you can perform accounting on the web then why shouldn’t it be possible to perform other important types of work at a distance?

Whilst working remotely has significant advantages there are numerous traps that people easily fall into which lead to issues that result in reduced work output and reduced morale. The key reason for decreases in work output from remote professionals is disturbance and it is a proven and well publicised fact that it can take a employee up to 0.33 hours to return to their original efficiency level after experiencing a disruption.

Studies also show that men and women who are regularly experience disturbances are more likely to suffer from decreased memory power and are prone to developing mental health issues in later life. We live in an over communicated era and it is important that you know the issues this causes before you start working remotely. Whilst working remotely you must do everything possible to minimise the threat of being interrupted.

Here are things that really do work:

1, Get a routine, make sure that everybody knows it and rigidly adhere to it!

Good examples are a fixed time of day when you read or write and send mail and make or receive telephone calls. Before I began working remotely I used to receive in the region of 200 e-mails a day. Now I think I am unfortunate if I get in excess of 4. To start over with my e-mail experience I altered my e-mail address and obsessively took steps to look after the details being made known to anyone. I then made sure every individual who I gave my e-mail address to, to use it prudently. I also created an auto-responder that swiftly informed anyone sending me mail my schedule for attending to mail and if something required my urgent attention to mark it as ‘Urgent’.

2. Get rid of alerts.

Turn off every possible mechanism that can send you a perceptible alert. This includes mobile and
conventional handsets and types of alerts from e-mail such as visual alerts, warning sounds, display changes to your inbox folder and of course facing a window. Get a door on your study and put up a ‘do not disturb’ sign on it.

In ‘Remote Working Part 3 – ‘Tools of the trade’’ I will reveal my favourite tools and software.