January 2019 Challenge 30 Days - Best Practices For Working Remote (Day Four)
Welcome to the fourth day of the 30 days writing challenge of this year. You can find a list of all the articles I wrote at the end of each article. Please have a look at the end of it to understand how can you participate in this one.
What Remote Working Means?
I've been a digital nomad for more than 10 years now (since before it was cool, so to speak). That means that I am used to work in coffee shops and moving from one place to another quite easily. But all the work I was doing was either for myself, as an entrepreneur, or for some freelancing clients. It's only for the last 2 years that I've been working remote as a full time employee of another company. I have to say that it's quite a big difference between being a digital nomad and just working remote for somebody else.
What follows is a short list of best practices for working remote (especially if you work in the digital field, as a programmer, designer, online marketer, etc).
Prioritize Meetings
Keep a tight schedule of when they are going to happen and make sure you're available at that time, and you also have a good internet connection. I'm not a big fan of meetings, and if something can be done without them, I'm fine. But when you work remote, meetings become quite relevant, not only for the work but also for social interaction. Since you're - obviously - away from the core team, you have very few ways to understand the dynamics of the company you're working for, what's the current mood of the team, what are the bigger plans and so on and so forth.
So, for me, as a remote digital worker, this was the first thing that I learned during the last 2 years.
Get All Your Tasks In Some Written, Verifiable Form
That means you should use some form of collaboration online software. The core features that this software should have are:
- storing projects and tasks
- storing notes (there will be a lot of back and forth with every task, believe me)
- have a way to mark a task or project as "done"
- have a way to identify each task in time (start, end and current status)
If you don't do this, you'll end up in very bad nightmare of "I told you so", where you realize you have to do things you were never told about, or you did things but no one really realized you did them, because, well, none of these tasks were written in a verifiable form.
Backups (And Versioning Systems)
Do have backups of everything you make. If you're a programmer, don't even think to work without a versioning system (no reliable company will let you do this, anyway. If they do, double check them, there might be something wrong with them). I cannot stress enough the importance of having backups in such a fragile work environment like coffee shops or coworking spaces. Please pay some cloud storage or buy a reliable portable HDD and keep backups of everything relevant.
It's way better than crying over lost stuff. Really.
Mobile Connectivity
If you work remote, you need to be available all time. Most likely, there will be some time difference between your location and your company location, which means your office hours will not completely overlap and emergencies have this nasty habit of popping out when you're expecting them the least. So, keeping a minimal mobile connectivity available will work wonders. Just a prepaid internet card and a cheap Android phone, but with battery lasting a few days, will suffice. It's not as fancy as an iPhone, but you can't afford to be tethered to a wall (for power) when you move from place to place.
So, this is my (very short) list of best practices for working remote.
How Do I Participate In This Challenge?
The criteria for @challenge30days account to vote your post are:
- post must be at least 300 words long
- post must be original
- post must be on best practices
- post must use the #challenge30days tag
Previous Posts In The Challenge
- January 2019 Challenge 30 Days - Best Practices For Keeping A Successful 30 Days Challenge
- January 2019 Challenge 30 Days - Best Practices For Selecting Relevant Crypto Projects (Day Two)
- January 2019 Challenge 30 Days - Best Practices For Surviving In The STEEM Universe (Day Three)
Steem on!
I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.
Wanna know when you're getting paid?
|
I know the feeling. That's why I created steem.supply, an easy to use and accurate tool for calculating your Steemit rewards |
I would also add to remember to "unhook" and enjoy real family and social life every day, as it is very easy to just spend all day long in the computer forgetting to spend some time away from it.
Meetings and social interaction is key. No matter how big your contributions, its important that people know you and you are a part of the team. Old school advice in a new world ha ha but still relevant
Yes I need to find a similar deal as the one you have. Having a reliable source of income but the possibility to live in a nice sunny environment 😎 Well congrats and many more remote years
Posted using Partiko Android
Thanks and wishing you a lot of luck in finding this. If you search enough, I reckon it's not that hard. It only took me 100+ CV submissions and 4-5 interviews.
Is it too late to join the challenge? Seems like Jan has got done with 4 days already.
Nope, it's not too late, you can still join it.
🏆 Hi @dragosroua! You have received 0.1 STEEM reward for this post from the following subscribers: @cardboard
Subscribe and increase the reward for @dragosroua :) | For investors.
Biggest thing for me is to spend my time the same way as I would in the office. Don't pick up every phone call or do chores on the side. Respect the working hours to stay productive.