Despite the fact that remote work has long been the norm for the vast majority of IT companies, in the last couple of years more and more employers have been trying to bring employees back to the office. This is due to various factors: falling productivity, demotivation of employees, blurring of the boundaries of work and personal time, difficulties with self-organization due to home distractions, which often leads to overwork and burnout. 

Although the topic of remote work seems to be exhausted, given the tendency for employees to return to the office, it is now more important than ever to recall useful recommendations for effective work from home. After all, you will be satisfied with them, and the employer will not insist on returning to the office. 🙂 

Below you will find a guide on remote work, in which we have collected the experience of our employees on how to stay effective working remotely (and we had this experience even before Covid, so we know what we are talking about). 

Also, before reading the guide, I want to remind you that we are all unique, and not every piece of advice will be universal. Look for, adapt, and apply the ones that are right for you. So, let's get started!

1. Fix your working hours

You can fix your work schedule yourself, but it will be more effective to announce it to your team and publish it in a publicly accessible place. This will help you not overwork, but your team understand at what time you can be contacted for work issues.  

2. Add out-of-hours activities to your schedule for the day.

Most people have rituals: going to the gym, to their favorite cafe, to the cinema, etc. Keep doing all this while working from home. 

Initially, we collected these recommendations for our employees during the period of self-isolation, when all public places were closed. But even this did not prevent me from continuing to do my favorite things. The Internet is now teeming with various online activities. Many of our employees continued to play sports, take master classes, watch new movies and TV series, order their favorite dishes from restaurants and do other things that we love. And all this without leaving home.

3. Follow the daily routine

This item is related to the previous two. Go to bed and wake up at the same time. Make sure that breakfast, lunch, and dinner are on schedule. 

This also applies to the work rhythm: it is also useful to hold meetings and out-of-hours rituals at the same time.

4. Exercise.

When working remotely, it's easy to turn into a person who spends all his time at the computer. Don't let work from home do this to you. 

Exercise, work out with a trainer, do exercises on YouTube, or find some other athletic activity that brings you pleasure. This will help you stay in good shape, switch from work, and give you a boost of energy.

To make sports more fun and easier, you can team up with friends or colleagues. For example, at Covid, we organized an online sports marathon for our employees. 

5. Use video in calls

In the office, many of us often held brainstorming sessions, where interesting ideas were born, and discussed some issues personally. Remote work is not a reason to sacrifice all this. 

Call your colleagues to discuss business issues. Videos on such calls will help you stay in touch with each other and feel like a team.

6. Organize your workspace

Set aside a comfortable workplace for yourself. Teach yourself that you only work at this place, and do your personal business in other parts of your apartment. 

If you have a private room or a balcony that you can equip as an office, great! If your space is limited and there is no separate room, then let it be a table, leaving which you will deal with personal matters. Do you have to work and eat at the same table? Then move to the other side of the table during work so that the picture changes, or change the chair. So your brain will get used to leaving the room /table./The chair's work is done, and it's time to rest. 

7. Set aside time to talk with colleagues about non-working topics, if you are used to doing it in the office.

For many, informal communication plays a big role in their work. In between, we share the news with each other, often without even noticing it. If this story is about you, keep doing it online. You can set aside just 5-10 minutes to "chat" before or after the rally, or call separately. This will help you not feel isolated and maintain communication at a high level.

8. Plan your evening

If you do not live alone, arrange with your family that you will watch a movie together in the evening. It is advisable to fix the time and choose a movie in advance. You can also play board games together or arrange any other activity that you like. Setting a certain time and agreeing with another person will help you finish work on time, as well as relax after a day at work. 

If you live alone, you can also schedule an evening of watching a movie, reading a book, exercising, cooking the next day, etc. Or you can call your friends and chat with them.

9. Use statuses

The main messenger for communication in our company is Slack. We recommended that employees use their statuses there if they went about their business, so that the team would not lose them and there would be more transparency.

Almost all messengers have the ability to set statuses, so if you use something else, I recommend doing it as well.

10. Use headphones

Some people say that working with headphones helps them to get away from the noise of the house and concentrate better on work tasks. You can make a "work playlist" that won't distract you from your work process. The music and volume can be adjusted at your discretion, finding a balance that does not distract / gives tone. 

11. Wear work clothes.

According to some studies, clothes have a symbolic meaning for us. For example, about one of them. 

Changing clothes for home clothes subconsciously tells us that the working day is over and we can relax. In turn, work clothes help to adjust to the working mood. You also won't have to look for clean clothes if you get a video call. 

If you value the opportunity to wear home clothes when working from home, try highlighting "home work pants" and change after work. Girls can put on makeup, as if they were wearing makeup to work in the office.

Does pyjamas prevent you from getting in the mood for work? So work in your pajamas (or whatever you want). As I wrote at the beginning of the article, everything is individual. 

12. More teamwork/teamwork on tasks

If you assign large tasks to several people at the same time, then there will be more interaction in the team. It will also help you keep fit and be more productive at work. 

13. Proper communication

This is important not only for remote work. However, since there is less personal communication when working from home, and more written communication, I recommend paying special attention to communications.

• Discuss with the team in advance what communication channels you are available through. 
• Use different messengers to solve different tasks. It is useful to use Slack / Telegram for a quick discussion of a task, Zoom / Hangouts for meetings and brainstorming sessions, mail for fixing agreements. If it is important for you that the history of correspondence is preserved, use Telegram, mail or the paid version of Slack.
• If you don't understand something, ask clarifying questions to the other person instead of guessing and speculating.
• If you can't answer the question right away, let us know that you see the message and that you will respond as soon as the information appears. 
• After the call, write down what you discussed and assign those responsible to the tasks. Send it by email or to the channel with the date and topic of the discussion. Record important meetings. In order to assess progress, you can use Meeting Minutes.
• Before the meetings, it will be useful to send a letter with the topic of the meeting, as well as additional materials that need to be reviewed, and a list of open questions. It can be more effective to start a dialogue and not waste time on an introductory one.
• Make sure that your messages contain complete thoughts, not fragmentary phrases.
• Write such letters, rereading which after a few months it will be clear what was discussed.  
• Don't let the rallies grow. Try not to exceed 40 minutes to discuss the issue. It is better not to delay the meeting and postpone the open questions to another day, fixing them in the Meeting Minutes.
• If there is no discussion with a colleague, involve another person. An outsider who is not detailed in the topic of the question helps a lot not to get stuck on minor issues during the discussion process.

14. Warn your family about planned rallies.

If you do not live alone, warn your household about what time you have meetings scheduled, and ask them not to distract you at this time. Then your spouse will be able to keep the children busy at this time, will not distract you with household matters and will provide you with a more working atmosphere.

15. Discuss the rules with your household.

Have a conversation with your family about working from home, discuss the rules of interaction. It is necessary to convey to them that you really work, without mixing work with everyday life and family. 

If it is possible to come to an agreement with wives / husbands, it can be difficult to explain to children that "dad / mom works" and cannot spend time with their beloved child. Especially if the child is very small. 

Here are some life hacks that have already worked for some of our employees, and perhaps they will work for you.:

• If you have the opportunity, invite your mother-in-law, mother-in-law, or nanny to take care of the children during the day.
• Explain that the sooner you start working, the less distracted you will be by non-work issues during the day, the sooner you will be free and able to fully spend time with your family.
• Promise a gift to the children if they behave themselves. A gift can be the simplest, the kind that a child will be happy with. For example, you can promise to play your favorite game in the evening, eat ice cream, watch a cartoon.
• There are many online services for children of different ages now. You can play sports, play music, draw, or take some other training.
• Before the rally, approach the children and ask them to be quieter. 
• Set an alarm and explain that when the alarm goes off, your work day will be over and you will be able to spend time with your family again.
• Use the signal system for the household: "the door is closed — you can not distract", "slippers at the entrance — I'm on the phone", etc.
• Let the children know that if a situation arises that requires the involvement of parents, you will be ready to help. 

16. If something is not clear, there are questions, inconveniences, suggestions - be sure to talk about it.

Inform your employer of any inconveniences or suggestions as soon as possible.

And also:

• Ventilate your home office. 
• Leave a glass of water or a thermos on the table. 
• Let's rest our eyes from the monitor for at least 6 minutes an hour.
• Keep moving. They recommend 2 minutes of movement for 30 minutes of sitting.
• Relax on weekends. 
• Spend the time you spent on the road usefully. 
• Use a noise-canceling app for calls. For example, the Krispy application.
• Do not take your laptop immediately after you wake up.
• Don't try to do a lot of things at lunchtime. Most people will be confused by this, and it will be difficult to tune in to work.
• Turn on the mute mode at night.

Working from home has its own peculiarities, but if you learn how to work with them, it is very likely that you will not want to return to the office, and your employer will not care where you work from.

What kind of life hacks do you use when working from home? Share it in the comments:)