Change for Good > Staying Productive
Staying Productive
As your work shares space with your regular life, establishing new rhythms is critical.
When we think of our homes we think of safe havens of rest where we can go after work. We think of comforting meals, Netflix, or perhaps the delightful chaos of children and pets. Finding yourself suddenly working remotely armed with a laptop and an expectation to work as you normally do in the office is not realistic. Thrown on top of that is probably a homeschooling regimen for your children. Ideally, your managers have already established work goals adapted to the current climate. As your work shares space with your regular life, establishing new rhythms to make both work is critical.
You’ve already created a going-to-work routine and developed a schedule each day. Videoconferencing calls are a regular part of your routine. We’re learning that the many hours of video conferencing is more exhausting than a regular face to face conversation. Your schedule probably doesn’t look like anyone else’s but you’ve decided as a company when your common work hours will be. Being home can be distracting and challenging to your focus so clear boundary setting has become necessary.
Pursuing team sync is still possible and necessary to nurture relationships while you are working from home. Fostering team cohesion with informal conversations, ice breakers or an old fashioned giphy war can bring levity to uncertain times. Schedule one on one coffees with each other. Not being in the office together, these checkpoints are more important than ever. More meetings don’t necessarily mean better connection so be intentional about meetings and obvious about its purpose. Use the many ways at your disposal to connect with your teammates and get to know them.
People often think that constant communication is most effective, but actually, we find that bursts of rapid communication, followed by longer periods of silence, are telltale signs of successful teams...One reason is that burstiness is a signal that team members attend to and align their activities with one another. During a rapid-fire burst of communication, team members can get input necessary for their work and develop ideas. Conversely, during longer periods of silence everyone is presumably hard at work acting upon the ideas that were exchanged in the communication burst.
-“Bursty” Communication Can Help Remote Teams Thrive. Behavioral Scientist
Tips
Use Consistent Tools
Pick some consistent tools for instant messaging, video conferencing, sharing documents, file transfers, etc. But, don’t stop searching for the next best thing. The tools available to distributed teams aren’t perfect. No one technology does it all.
-Suddenly Working From Home, Steelcase
Free Set of Meeting Cards
Video Conferencing Meetings rely on visual cues to sense agreement or a need for a break. Link2Lift’s Meeting Enhancement Cards to keep your team's momentum flowing without interruption. Get a free set by using promo code: 100%FUN
Messy Desk Activity
Type: asynchronous, just for fun, on the regular
Time: 5 minutes
Tools required: Slack, Teams, or other group chat app
When you work in an office, you feel compelled to keep your desk at least minimally clean: no used tissues, 3-day old cereal bowls, or constellations of coffee rings. But when you work from home, there’s no such social contract to uphold. So one of our rituals in the #social-remote Slack channel is “messy desk Thursdays” in which we out ourselves for the abysmal state of our workstations. It’s also a chance for your preternaturally tidy teammates to do some humble bragging about their austere, magazine-worthy office spaces.
-Adapted from The Best Virtual Team Building Activities, According to Real Remote Workers. Atlassian WorkLife Blog
Resources
We have bookmarked, tagged and saved hundreds of resources from our favorite sources. Here are a few that are resonating and inspiring us right now:
Articles:
Suddenly Working From Home? Steelcase
Think About What You (and Your Teammates) Need: Establish and stick to boundaries, be transparent, build belonging.
Agree How You’ll Work Together: Create consistent connections, provide a variety of tools, make work visible, virtually, look beyond your laptop, turn your camera on, prevent data disruptions, hear and be heard. Read the Article
17 Tech Tips for Remote Workers During COVID-19 The Muse
The Muse provides a comprehensive list of technology tools beyond the obvious list. Here’s an example: 9. Block Your Biggest Distractors: “One of my favorite tech apps is called ‘SelfControl,’” says Muse career coach Joyel Crawford. “I can put all of my websites that I frequently visit that rob me of my productivity time and set a schedule for the app to block those sites. It’s terrific when you have a tight deadline to make.” So if you know your biggest time wasters—you can temporarily block these sites when you need deep focus. Read the Article
Effective Strategies and Tools for Remote Work During Coronavirus ZDNet
Strategy 1: Create a safe and effective foundation for remote digital access. Strategy 2: Provide access to productivity, line of business applications, and communications/collaboration tools. Strategy 3: Develop remote working skills. Strategy 4: Cultivate a remote working culture and mindset. Read the Article
15 Questions About Remote Work Answered Harvard Business Review
Develop rituals and have a disciplined way of managing the day. Schedule a start and an end time. Have a rhythm. Read the Article
A New Study Reveals Why Working From Home Makes Employees More Productive Inc.
Remote workers have proven to be more productive, but what's their secret? Research shows that remote employees enforce some of the same disciplines as in-office employees: Taking breaks is the #1 most effective way to stay productive. Nearly one-third say that having set office hours helps them stay focused. 30 percent also stay productive by keeping to-do lists. Read the Article
How to Stay Focused and Productive When Working From Home Thrive Global
1. Establish clear working hours 2. Close non-work-related tabs 3. Write things down 4. Tidy up first 5. Change out of your pajamas 6. Establish a designated work area 7. Eat your meals in a different room 8. Step outside to reset 9. Take a real lunch break 10. Start your day with mindfulness 11. Incorporate bursts of movement 12. Open the window 13. Take little micro-breaks 14. Assign time slots to your tasks 15. Set an alarm for 25-minute work intervals 16. Schedule at least one call or meeting 17. Notify your team about your priorities 18. Switch up your working space 19. Stay connected to teammates Read the Article
Distributed Teams Best Practices: 9 Best Practices Pagely
1.Communication skills are vital 2. Building a distributed team requires trust 3. It’s easier to find talent as a distributed team 4. Your clients will benefit from a remote team 5. The right tools are important 6. A high degree of patience is required 7. Hire good remote workers 8. Find new ways to measure productivity 9. Maintaining a company culture requires extra work Read the Article
What does team culture mean? Toggl
This is something that’s quite hard to define unequivocally, as “culture” means slightly different things for every team. Regardless, the general consensus seems to be that culture in a team isn’t about individual performances, personalities or attitudes—it’s about how the team works together as a cohesive unit. In full article, GREAT further tips on: building a strong team culture, communication, employee engagement, team retreats. Read the Article
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