Working from home sounds like a dream to every person who hates cubicles.
You can imagine yourself working in the peace and comfort of your house, saying something like: “This is the best place to do my job correctly”. For some people, that might be the reality … But working from home can become a double-edged sword for others.
There are benefits to working from home, but that doesn’t mean working at an office is wrong either. In fact, in some cases, working at an office can be more motivating than working from home. But that’s a topic we’ll get further into in the future.
In this article, we are going to show you how to turn your house into a place in which you can focus on work and not a place to avoid your work, which surely you don’t want to let happen if you don’t want to face the consequences of not being accountable… So before starting to work from home, make sure you prepare first.
How?
Although we said “turn your house,” the reality doesn’t start with moving things around your house; it begins with changing yourself and your costumes at home and even learning new skills to keep doing your job as efficiently as possible.
Let’s ensure you have these skills covered and turn your home environment into a working advantage!
Communication
Emails, chats, video meetings, and even phone texts. It doesn’t matter which media you use to communicate; keeping in touch with your coworkers and supervisors is crucial when working remotely.
Not maintaining fluent communication with your team will bring problems to the workflow and could result in you being personally warned or reprimanded if you’re not doing your job efficiently.
So we recommend you become familiar with the most common CRM tools, like Bitrix24 or simple Hangouts Chat. The key is always being available and showing that you’re willing to work and can use any tool to maintain fluent communication.
Here’s an article to help you further develop this skill: Communication Skills and How to Train Them.
You’ll surely face situations like handling many tools at once, keeping in contact with your coworkers, contacting clients, and prioritizing your regular work, so check this next skill thoroughly.
Organization
Working remotely also means that you’re going to keep yourself accountable. Your boss won’t be looking over your shoulder anymore to see if you’re staying on top of your tasks, so the quality and efficiency of your work will depend on you.
To prove that you can work from home, you must emphasize your organizational skills and have a clear mindset on what needs to come first and what will come after that. In other words, make sure you keep everything coordinated.
Think about your priorities from a big-picture perspective and start breaking them down little by little before starting to work so you can work your shift as efficiently as possible. Remember to leave a space to rest and surprise priorities.
Every work has a few things that may surprise you during your shift, and it’s part of your organizational skill to learn how to handle them effectively. Nevertheless, if you feel like you need more advice on how to become a problem solver, we recommend you to check out:
> How to Improve Critical Thinking at Work
Also, remember to familiarize yourself with tools like Dropbox or Google Drive, and don’t forget to keep your folders organized!
Motivation
This is the time to show your passion, motivation, and willingness to be proactive while working.
Some people might find face-to-face contact essential in a working environment, and working remotely might discourage them from keeping focused. So, to work from home, you have to keep yourself motivated and show your motivation to others.
The easiest way to achieve this is to care and feel excited about your job position and the company. Tell your supervisor how much you like your job and the parts you think interest you the most (only if it’s true) so you can focus mainly on that when you work from home.
Suppose you are midway to being considered for a remote position. In that case, we also recommend you show your interest in the industry by bringing up the unique ways you’ve been involved, like participating in professional organizations, attending conferences, keeping up with blogs or podcasts, or following the latest industry news.
Let them know that even if you’re alone, you’ll be happy with your work!
Time Management
Time, whether at home or the office, is highly essential. And the truth is that it is harder to keep track of time at a remote job than at an office. Why? 2 reasons:
Time Zones
Working remotely opens the possibility of not only being able to work in a different region but also in a different country. If it’s the latter, you’ll have to be extra aware of time zones and your coworkers’ current work.
So when coordinating tasks or meetings, avoid confusion and set the schedules and deadlines more than once. E.g., “Tomorrow we’ll have a meeting at 6:00 AM UTC−04:00 (Venezuela’s Time Zone) / midnight UTC+01:00 (Switzerland’s Time Zone).”
Respect Time Limits
Since you’re working in different time zones, your shifts may begin and end in different schedules, so making every second count when meeting is essential to avoid delaying your coworkers’ other tasks.
Try to set a specific deadline for each meeting, and if by some chance a meeting doesn’t have a specified deadline, you can always start the conversation with something like “It’s great to get to talk to you.
I want to ensure we can cover everything we need—can you let me know how much time you have now?” And then be sure to wrap up the talk before then.
Also, here’s an article that can help you further develop these skills!
>5 Ways to Improve Time Management Skills at Work
Tech Savvy
When you start working remotely, your company must know you’re well-versed in IT. Let them know that you can manage without the help of an IT department right by your side.
We recommend you inform your supervisor about what you’re good at. Let them know that you’re careful to keep your computer and software up to date and that you have a fast internet connection (plus a backup). And if you have some experience dealing with hardware and software, that would make it way better!
As you might have noticed by now, the importance of this skill is to show that you can be an independent worker who’s a problem solver and can manage his tasks and responsibilities efficiently.
That’s the essence of a great remote worker and a great Freelancer. That’s why we nurture these skills in the Freelancers: even though we have an office at our disposal, as you can see in all of our pictures, we want to ensure that they’ll be ready when they must work remotely.
So make sure you apply them, and your remote job will begin to thrive!
Finally, if you want to keep improving your work skills, we recommend you check out the next section, Skills that Make Us Want to Work with You, and learn which skills we mainly consider when looking for new freelancers!
