Before I share with you my arsenal of the top Internet tools that almost certainly assist you to operate remotely, I must bring to your attention one more item aboutself management and specifically to do with maintaining your focus and levels of concentration
I’ve observed and confirmed a common trait in men and women who work on the web and I’ve known for a substantial period and I call this trait the 50 minute rule. I spotted these contacts who concentrate and work for fifty mins. and then kick back for a complete ten mins. break and are a significant order of magnitude more efficient and produce a much higher quality of work than people who don’t have such distinct working methods.
OK as promised here is my list of preferred remote working online services:
Electronic Mail
Google Mail won’t cost you a penny. But in my opinion the search and label (a bit like folders) mechanisms are most definitely the best I have so far discovered. The downside is it can be a bit slow on older machines
Phone calls Skype occasionally drove me to despair as the connection performance was unacceptable, but three cheers for the coders at Skype now as they have considerably refined the quality of the service. For just a few bucks a quarter Skype lets me call and conference in any telephone and Skype subscriber on Earth. The latest edition of Skype has a wealth of really good functions and there are now plenty of of practical add ons.
Organising Content Evernote has reached over a million users in no time at all – it enables you to store, organise and annotate any species of digital content up on the Internet. Just go check it out…it’s free.
Invoicing, Time and Expenses capture, Accounting and CRM
You almost certainly know that my burning desire to work remotely was originally encouraged by Quickbooks Online, a small business accounting software web application. But it is shadowed by the free edition of salesorder.com – a lead to cash system that’s as easy to use as a kettle I looked at NetSuite whose pricing (and people) scared me off. My choice here is salesorder.com – Go check it out.
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.
Obviously not everyone is able to work remotely as many types of employment require employees to be at their office or travel to perform their tasks in person. But for those of us given the opportunity to work remotely then I thought it would be useful to share my experiences and give some practical advice by writing and publishing it on the web in the hope that I could give others helpful advice for adapting to remote working or managing remote workers.
I should warn you that there are a substantial number of self proclaimed ‘gurus’ on the Internet who will try and make you purchase e-books for vast sums of cash, believe me you don’t need to do this.
I am fortunate to be able to work wherever I choose and just about everyone who asks me what work I do wants to understand how I am able to work remotely. Don’t be fooled here I am still improving the science of remote working as each day I come across folks on the Internet who tell me about new ways and I am continually discovering new systems and ways that make my life simpler and make me more effective.
Over the past 7 years I have slowly but surely adapted my working methods to let me to do the majority of my work remotely with a portfolio of online tools and rigid self discipline. One afternoon whilst exploring the Internet I discovered Quickbooks online and this inspired me as to what just might be possible. The encounter with ’cloud’ based ‘on demand’small business accounting software was a pivotal moment for me and the start of my ‘remote working experience.
I must state up front that productively working remotely is as much about the systems as it is about self management. Working remotely also means getting across to your team members, supervisors and clients as to what they can expect and how they will communicate with you.
In ‘Remote Working Part 2 – Things you should know about managing yourself’ I show you how to focus.