How to Transition to Remote Work

Remote Work | Discover tips that will help you transition from a traditional office to remote working

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What to do when work becomes remote.

Remote work has now become the preferred work style for companies and professionals. This is because switching to remote work not only allows for greater freedom and synergy with private life, but also makes you more productive at lower costs.

Although this is not new, losing contact with colleagues and the work routine can feel completely alienating. These tips will help you transition from the traditional office routine to remote work.

Prepare yourself for work

Maintain the routine you have always had. If you used to get up at 7 am, head to the gym and then enter the office at 8:30 am with a coffee, keep doing so. Maintaining your routine will help you stay focused, especially if you work remotely from a place usually associated with relaxation.

Set up your home office or coworking space

This means choosing a place where you can work comfortably, ideally including an ergonomic desk, low noise pollution (if possible), and natural light. Working from your kitchen table, or worse, from your bed, will likely make you associate work with daily habits, truly blurring the line between private life and work.

Get ready for video calls

With no response delay, video helps develop interactions between you and colleagues beyond phone calls. Make sure your background is somewhat clear, your microphone works, and that you won’t be interrupted. However, be mindful to limit calls to 30 minutes to avoid getting sucked into unproductive conversations.

Learn how to self-manage

No one will remind you of deadlines, and it’s all too easy to get sucked into smaller tasks that seem productive. Just as you’ve segmented your home office, segment different types of work throughout the week. Monday and Tuesday might be particularly heavy days, so follow them with lighter, more interactive tasks requiring team feedback. You can use free hours to do deep, undisturbed work and start “normal” work when everyone is online.

Set up your remote work communications

When you don’t spend time with colleagues, you miss subtle body language cues, and communication through email or messaging can be detailed but less effective. Therefore, you should feel encouraged to have more exchanges without fear of being intrusive.

Optimize your movement

Without commuting, it’s easier to get up, shower, and switch directly into work mode.  The advice for maintaining mental and physical fitness is to exercise during the day instead of commuting. No equipment? Walking, running, and yoga are all free.

Change your work environment

There’s a reason you see so many people hunched over laptops in cafes.  Changing your work environment helps break up your workday, and if you can keep visiting that café or a coworking space, start to make it a habit and choose the space where you are most productive.

Set boundaries

There’s no way to see who leaves the office first, and it’s easy to keep working late into the night. If you can set limits during your workday, you’ll likely be more productive during your work hours, knowing you have a “deadline” to finish by.

Switching to remote work is a possible and necessary evolution that allows you to express yourself and perform at your best but requires modifying your habits and starting to use new tools to organize work and time in new workspaces.