Unless your vocation requires a hands-on approach, chances are that you’ve made the change from an office-based to a remote work paradigm. While many of us have spent a significant amount of time at the office daydreaming about working from home, we’re now eating our words.
Remote work presents its own series of frustrations and challenges to which we must adapt.
In this guide, we’ll outline a few easy tips you can implement wherever you are to bring some much-needed convenience and ease to your remote work environment.
Upgrade your internet speed
Most companies will ensure that their employees have sufficiently fast internet to facilitate any uploads, downloads, or web-surfing that’s required. It’s an essential part of most work environments in the 21st century.
If you have housemates or family that use the internet throughout the day for studies, streaming series and movies, downloading, online gaming, or just general faffing about online, you’re likely to run into some frustration. You don’t want to be in the middle of an important Zoom call or trying to download a sizable file only to have your line speed plummet.
If you haven’t already, speak to your employer about subsidizing a speed upgrade so that all members of the household can work, study, stream, download, and upload to their heart’s content with no loss in functionality.
Use different browsers for work and personal online activity
One of the biggest issues with working from home is becoming easily distracted. There are no colleagues or supervisors to help keep you focused in your remote workspace. Unfortunately, one of the greatest sources of distraction is also one of the most vital tools for remote work—the internet.
By using one browser for work and one for social media, online shopping, and entertainment, you can avoid the temptation of bookmarks, search history suggestions, and all other potential diversions you would usually encounter during your personal hours.
Alternatively, if you are particularly attached to using your favorite browser (Chrome or Firefox, for example), you can usually create two or more separate user profiles for the same browser.
Disable unnecessary programs that run on start-up
Many programs, once installed, will automatically run when you start your computer. This is usually an attempt by the software engineers to get you to use the program more often. However, if you have too many programs competing for processing power while your overworked PC is trying to boot successfully, your computer’s start-up time will increase drastically. Having an OS that’s slow to start can be incredibly frustrating and will shave valuable time off your busy work schedule.
This, fortunately, is an issue that’s easily remedied.
Access your task manager by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Esc, then navigate to the Startup tab. Here, you’ll see a list of programs that are set to run upon start up. Select any unnecessary ones and click on the Disable button.
Use Slack to stay in touch with colleagues
A key challenge within remote work is keeping your work life and personal life separate. This can become even more difficult if your WhatsApp is perpetually blowing up with work-related inquiries and messages from colleagues. We all know the struggle of having a plethora of company WhatsApp groups that divert our attention from the work we’re actually supposed to be doing.
By using a platform like Slack, you can easily keep your work and personal communication separate. Slack also has some unique functions that make online collaboration much easier. You can create devoted channels for specific workgroups, manage documents from the cloud, sync your status with your Google calendar to let your colleagues know when you’re in a meeting or out for lunch, and much more.
Install a blue-light filter
As you may have heard, research into the impact of prolonged exposure to blue light from screens has yielded some pretty scary results. There’s evidence that indicates blue light exposure disrupts our circadian rhythms—more commonly known as ‘body-clocks.’ This can lead to severe sleep disruption, which can cause a myriad of other mental and physical issues.
In remote work situations, events that are usually held face-to-face have gone online. If you’re working from home, it’s likely that the only breaks you get from your screen are when you’re in the bathroom and during lunch (if you’re lucky).
Installing a blue-light filter can reduce the harmful effects of prolonged screen time, such as insomnia and eye strain.
Read up on conducting webinars
There’s little that’s more frustrating than attending an online meeting run by someone who’s clearly unfamiliar with the platform. Poorly conducted webinars or online meetings are a waste of time and can slash your productivity.
By familiarizing yourself with the features and various inner workings of platforms like Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and Zoom, you’ll undoubtedly impress your colleagues, clients, and superiors. Plus, you’ll save valuable time that would otherwise go to waste fiddling with the settings.
You can also make the sessions more accessible to those with disabilities by activating features like live closed captioning.
Use SelfRestraint
No, that’s not a typo. SelfRestraint is an exceedingly useful app for those who struggle to avoid online distractions while working. Once installed and set up according to your preferences, it blocks access to certain sites for a set period of time.
For instance, if you have a major deadline coming up and need to focus hard for the next few hours, SelfRestraint will keep you from accessing sites you know are notoriously distracting, such as Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit. Of course, if you don’t want to use the app, good old-fashioned self restraint will work too—you just need to practice self discipline!
Invest in a second monitor
If your work entails using multiple apps or sites at once, having a second monitor makes an invaluable difference. By doubling up your laptop or desktop screen space, you can keep your work chat window or Google calendar open on your right-hand side, while you can keep working on a document on your left.
Having to switch between windows endlessly just to keep track of emails or tasks can rapidly become tiresome and confusing. An additional monitor alleviates this stress, and will help you stay on top of all the tasks you need to complete.
These tricks make remote working so much easier, and reduce the stress, tension, and angst that comes from turning your home into your office.
Author bio: Robin Underwood is a freelance editor at multiple online outlets where she delights her audience with fresh ink angles on topics like E-learning, IT and gaming.
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