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You get ready, as you normally do, to start your work day. You read the newspaper (or several newspapers) or perhaps scan your RSS reader. You have a team meeting where you’ll go through the status of active and upcoming projects, and you have two client calls—one that you’re looking forward to and one that you’re…not so much. So off you go, armed with as much data and fortitude as you need to face the day, to your office.
Sounds like your average work day, right?
Right. Except that your commute is nonexistent, because you work remotely; you’ll connect with your team and clients virtually, and your office moves, depending on the weather, from your study to your patio.
Once just wishful thinking, remote workforces are now a reality in practically every corner of the globe. According to WorldatWork’s 2009 Telework Trends survey brief, in the U.S. alone, “employee telecommuters,” or people who worked from home or another remote location for their employers at least one day per month, increased from approximately 12.4 million to 17.2 million between 2006 and 2008. That represents an increase of 39 percent in two years, and a 74 percent increase since 2005.
This is in no small part due to the leaps technology has made over the past few decades. And while teleworking can be—and is—a boon for workers juggling the increasing demands of their personal and professional lives, it’s important to remember that the technology that enables it is just that—technology. The building blocks of productivity—efficiency, time management and personal relationships—haven’t changed. Nor will they, unless the DNA of the human race is radically transformed.
Here are a few ways that you, as a remote worker, can ensure that technology works for, and not against, you as you walk the path of optimal productivity in the 21st century.
1. Set aside a chunk of time to check, send and respond to e-mail. Not every single e-mail you receive has to be answered immediately. If you’re in crisis mode, obviously that’s a different scenario, but for the most part, responding to e-mails within one business day is acceptable. Decide when you’ll check e-mail, and stick to that schedule.
But, you ask, what if you’re the kind of person who has bursts of productivity outside of regular business hours? Certainly, working remotely lends itself to doing just that. Consider drafting your responses when productive energy strikes, but only hitting “send” during business hours, so that your team doesn’t feel overwhelmed by the need to respond at 2 a.m. themselves. Chip Griffin, chief digital officer of DCI Group in Washington, D.C., explains on his blog how he handles the tyranny of weekend and holiday e-mails. His strategies include reminding his employees that they don’t have to respond to his holiday and weekend e-mails immediately, stressing when a reply is not urgent and acknowledging the sacrifices made by his team.
2. Make your e-mail work for you, not against you. If you’re like many remote workers, chances are you use a web-based e-mail system, such as Gmail or Yahoo! Mail. If you’re a Gmail user, like 150 million-plus other people around the world, try Gmail’s nifty multiple inbox feature, which allows you to organize your e-mail so that you can sort through it much more efficiently. Or set up filters that will automatically sort your e-mails for you, delivering them not to your inbox but to designated folders (called labels in Gmail).
3. Stop using “reply all” e-mails as your personal scheduler. Remote workers can be scattered all over the globe. And you know what that can mean when you’re trying to schedule a team call over several time zones: Availability changes by the moment, and by the time two team members have responded to your meeting request, someone else is no longer available and you have to start all over again. Consider using an online meeting scheduler, such as Tungle or MeetingWizard, both of which are free and will significantly reduce the time you spend scheduling meetings.
4. Turn IM into “I’m Not.” IM, or instant messaging, has become so commonplace that almost everyone has a service they subscribe to, if not several. When e-mail servers crash, they can be a great way to communicate with your co-workers, especially for issues that need to be resolved quickly, or for a quick question. IM and text messaging services like Twitter can also serve as a way for you to connect with your Gen Y team members through modes that are extremely familiar to them. However, make sure you have some time for you. Set your IM status to “offline,” or log off Twitter, when you need uninterrupted time to focus on the task at hand. Make sure you don’t respond during that time (crises excepted, of course), so that you can boost your productivity.
5. Track your time and projects. Have you ever felt you’re spending too much time doing one particular kind of task and not enough time on another? Chances are, you’re right; but unless you’re tracking your time, you won’t know if this is true. Try using online time-tracking and project management software such as Toggl, which provides basic services for free, to categorize and track the time you spend on different tasks. If you have the budget, you can sign up for Basecamp or other similar services to do this, as well as to manage projects across your team. Once you know where your time’s going, you’ll be able to manage it much better, not to mention maximize your team’s productivity.
You’ll also be able to identify where your team members need to improve their skills, or who might be better suited to a particular kind of task in the future, based on how efficient they are.
6. Remote is as remote does. One of the biggest concerns about working remotely is that teleworkers are at a disadvantage when it comes to building the connections and relationships that contribute to teamwork and productivity. This isn’t necessarily true, though if you are part of a remote team, your in-person meetings are inevitably few and far between.
A great way to circumvent this is by incorporating video chats into your meetings. Skype is free, and if your computer has a webcam, reinventing your one-on-one calls as video chats is practically effortless. TokBox allows you to chat via video with up to 20 people free; why not do a monthly video meeting with your team?
7. Put the “social” back in media. Social media and networks have received a great deal of criticism for being “relationship killers,” and some reports stating that a lack of face-to-face time may even take a toll on one’s physical health. However, the tremendous growth in social networks and platforms has made it inevitable that your organization, if it hasn’t already figured out a way to use social media for its business goals, is trying to do so. As a remote worker, you too can use social media to communicate more effectively with your team. Plaxo’s e-card service is a terrific way to remember not just birthdays and anniversaries, but to send a variety of other greetings that get delivered straight to your co-worker’s inbox. Or use GroupCard, which lets your team members insert their own words into a card you set up for the recipient. Again, both are free—and you can’t beat free.
If you put your mind to it, you can effectively harness the wide range of services available online today and make technology work for you. And then, being a remote worker won’t seem so remote after all—you’ll all just be a click away.
Shonali Burke, ABC, is principal of Shonali Burke Consulting “an agency of one” based in the Washington, D.C., area, and 2009–2010 president of IABC/DC Metro. She is also adjunct faculty at Johns Hopkins University’s master’s in communications program, where she teaches a course on nonprofit communication in the digital age. She blogs at Waxing UnLyrical and tweets as @shonali. Contact her at
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