The main reason workers fail to adapt to working remotely is they fail to recognise the essential requirement of excellent organisation and rigid self discipline.

I have been working remotely for almost a decade since I first discovered Quickbooks online an ‘on demand’ small business accounting software online system and was struck by the fact that if you can perform accounting on the net then why shouldn’t it be viable to perform other key types of of work at a distance?

Whilst working remotely has its obvious perks there are numerous traps that people easily fall into which lead to problems that result in decreased work output and lower motivation. The top reason for decreases in work output from remote professionals is disruption and it is a proven and well known fact that it can take a person up to twenty minutes to establish their original productivity level after experiencing an interruption.

Research also shows that people who are regularly experience interruptions are more likely to be susceptible to decreased memory capacity and are prone to developing mental health problems in old age. We exist in an over communicated environment and it is essential that you know the problems this causes before you decide to work remotely. When working remotely you have to do everything possible to mitigate the threat of being interrupted.

Here are the essentials:

1, Get a consistent schedule, make sure that everybody knows it and obsessively maintain it!

Good examples are a fixed time of day when you read or send mail and make or will accept telephone conversatiions. Before I began working remotely I used to get in the region of two hundred electronic mails every 24 hours. Now I think I am unfortunate if I get over four. To ’reset’ my electronic mail experience I changed my e-mail address and obsessively took steps to defend the details being made available to anyone. I then made sure every party who I gave my e-mail address to, to use it wisely and sparingly. I also set up an automatic reply that swiftly informed anyone sending me mail my routine for processing mail and if an item required my immediate awareness to mark it as ‘Urgent’.

2. Get rid of alerts.

Disable every function that can send you a interruption. This includes portable and
ordinary handsets and forms of alerts from e-mail such as display events, audible warnings, screen changes to your inbox list and of course facing a window. Get a door on your work place and put up a ‘do not disturb’ sign on it.

In ‘Remote Working Part 3 – The ‘kit’ list’ I will reveal my favourite tools and software.