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Productivity 101 for Remote Teams: 3 Essential Workflow Hacks

Essential Workflow Hacks

There are many good reasons why organizations and businesses adopt remote work and switch from local to distributed teams. 

According to a FlexJobs survey, 66% of professionals believe remote work benefits productivity and 76% find it less distracting than working in a regular office environment. 

Quite impressive, isn’t it?

But that doesn’t mean you and your remote team can’t improve those stats even further. Here’s a list of three essential productivity hacks that will boost your productivity big time. 

Practice ‘Inbox Zero’ Policy

How many times have you woken up to an inbox clogged with e-mails? If you’re like other remote workers, chances are it happens quite often. 

Many remote teams treat e-mail much like a swiss-army-knife. It’s used for team communication, giving project feedback, newsletter subscriptions, app signups and to-do lists. 

To get the most out of your inbox without drowning in thousands of junk emails, you should try an ‘inbox zero’ policy instead. 

Here’s how it works:

  • Reply to every email that requires less than 2 minutes of your time ASAP
  • Put longer and less important emails into folders and reply in batches
  • Block and hour each day to delete or archive everything else

But…if your inbox still feels like a lost cause, consider offloading team communication to a project-management app like Taskade

 Or check out some other free online project management software to make things easier.

taskade

Taskade takes the strain off your email client and lets you and your remote team communicate in asynchronous (conference calls, video) or asynchronous (chat) way. With Taskade, important conversations are always where you want them to be. 

Spring-Clean Your Home Office

Team productivity needs the right kind of environment to thrive. Cluttered, poorly lit, and generally messy spaces are a no-go when you want to perform at your best. 

No, it doesn’t mean you have to do housekeeping for everybody at your company. Just make sure your own home office is in reasonable shape. 

  1. Start with a decluttering party. Whether it’s crumpled post-it notes, withered plants or last week’s banana peel, it all has to go. Maybe your home office was the old spare room and therefore full of junk and unused items you haven’t got around to throwing out yet, it might be time to get a rubbish removal service to clear all this out. A clean and organized workspace will help you focus, be comfortable, become more productive and save time with regular maintenance. A clean and organized workspace will help you focus, become more productive, and save time with regular maintenance. 
  1. Remove all distractions. Trying to work with the TV blasting at full volume? Maybe you constantly break away from work to read a chapter of that book you just bought?  Focus is fragile so make sure there’s nothing in your environment that kills it. Additionally, replace distractions with items that aid focus like an office whiteboard to take your home office to the next level.
  1. Brush up on ergonomics. Working remotely gives you a certain degree of flexibility. But that doesn’t mean you should work from your bed. Invest in a real workspace, with a comfy a chair that will keep your posture in shape
Spring-Clean Your Home Office

Act Like Your Own Boss (And Apply Yourself)

When you work remotely, there’s no direct supervision. Nobody’s looking over your shoulder to see if you’re really working or… browsing cat memes.

Sounds like fun, right?

But without supervision, you risk losing motivation and momentum. It’s true that remote work does have the potential to increase productivity, but only when it’s paired with due diligence. 

  • Use time-tracking software. Even when you’re putting in crazy hours and staying up late to wrap projects, you don’t really know how much of your time really goes to work. With a time-tracking solution in place, you’ll be able to hold yourself accountable and know when it’s time to work and when it’s time to play

  • Set daily and weekly goals. Accountability is not only measuring progress but also setting attainable goals to benchmark against. Overwhelmed with work? Send an hour each Sunday to set down your goals and prioritize for the week ahead

  • Ask your teammates for support. One of the main problems of remote work is solitude. When regular employees have their water cooler meetings and coffee breaks, you’re pretty much on your own. Why not to schedule regular video calls and have virtual water-cooler moments with the rest of your team?

Tools like Taskade make remote work fun. Thanks to chat, conference and video-call functionality, you can collaborate with your teammates in real-time. And you won’t miss an important conversation ever again. 

There are many good reasons why organizations and businesses adopt remote work and switch from local to distributed teams.

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