Course & topics

Join Our 7452 Happy Students​ Today!

Test

Remote Worker’s Guide to Time Management

>.>Click here for PDF Guide<.<

Create a Workspace

Since the home is usually a place to rest and rejuvenate, you may associate your living space with spending hours playing video games, napping, or indulging in a hobby. When you bring work into the same space, you may find it difficult to focus on the task at hand. This is why we recommend having a separate workspace in your home.

If you have a room to spare, turn it into your office. Make sure the space is well-lit and properly ventilated. Consider the psychology of color: use hues that evoke calm energy, allowing you to maintain your cool while staying productive. Above all, make it comfortable and inviting.

If you can’t turn an entire room into your office, designate one section or corner as your work area. Think about the way your office was set up and try to recreate it or improve upon it. Set up your work equipment, then add some warmth and personal touches.

Do company-related tasks only within this workspace, and relax outside of it, even if you’re just having lunch. By having designated areas for work and leisure, you can train your mind to be productive while working, and take a breather while lounging in your living space.

Plan Your Day Ahead

Once you’ve gotten an idea of where you tend to waste the most time, you can begin planning. The key here is to start small. Understand that you’ve built habits. So, if you drastically change your schedule or change your timeline, it might be difficult to break patterns and start new routines.

Make a list of major and minor goals you want to achieve by the end of a day. For example, a major goal could be a presentation for work, and a minor goal could be reading a book. The major goals have important time constraints, while the minor goals are more flexible. Setting realistic goals is an important part of planning your day. The big things seem less overwhelming and are easier to budget time for, if you break them down into smaller tasks

Identifying what’s most important is the cornerstone to effective time management. Allowing yourself some flexibility on minor items should encourage you to stick to your schedule when it comes to the most critical items on your agenda.

Eliminate Distractions

Working from home is rife with distractions, be it from family or your phone. Studies show that people check their phones once in 6 minutes while at work. During work hours, turn off personal notifications—especially on your phone. You can also block distracting websites (like Facebook and Twitter) from your work PC so that you focus on your job.

On the flip-side, consider turning off work notifications during off-hours. Once you are employing effective time management techniques, you should be able to get the majority of your work done during your scheduled shifts. Unless you are on-call or work in a field where an emergency can mean life or death, try to separate work and home life as much as possible.

Prioritize Task and Stick to a Routine

Your brain loves patterns. We see this in things like exercise routines. People who don’t exercise will find themselves less motivated to start. However, people who force themselves to maintain a steady regiment will see the opposite effect, becoming discouraged or demotivated when they don’t exercise. 

Stable factors like a commute, needing to shower before work, and other obligations provide a structure to our lives. Our brain flourishes in these patterns, but they simply aren’t urgent when working on a remote team. To avoid our brains becoming distracted or failing to function correctly, we need to emulate these routines and stick to them. That way, we can provide our brains with the structure and stability they need to make our work successful. 

Some things you might want to regulate and keep at consistent times throughout your work week include: wake up and bedtime, lunch break, regular breaks, when to start and stop working, and when to interact with colleagues. 

Take establishing a sleep schedule as an example. Waking up and going to sleep at a regular time will give you more energy throughout the day. You might be a bit tired at first, but give your biological clock time to adapt (about two weeks). Eventually, these routines will become second nature. Once you establish a predictable sleep schedule, you can begin to base your work hours around it. If you realize you’re more productive in the mornings or want a few extra hours to yourself at night, structuring your work hours from 7 – 3 pm might be the right schedule for you. If you’re more of a late riser or a night owl, try working from 10 – 6 pm or the classic 9 – 5 pm.

For things like lunch breaks, regular breaks, and start and stop times, you’ll quickly realize the benefits of regularity. Your appetite will increase, you’ll have time to stretch your back and neck muscles to prevent cramping or injury, and you’ll avoid the risk of overworking yourself. Try to monitor the natural times you do these things throughout your workday. Once you pinpoint a time, try to stick with it. 

If you keep critical events at around the same time every day, your schedule will be less chaotic, your work hours will be more productive, and your breaks will be more rewarding. 

Identifying Your Personal Productivity

One of the most important strategies remote workers can use to maximize their time is to understand their own productivity curve. By learning when they tend to be most productive each day, they can orient their schedules to put their most critical tasks during those times. That will help them get their most important work done every day.

According to a study of accumulated project management software data, most people are at their productivity peak between 9 AM and 11 AM each day. But the best way to discover one’s personal productivity curve is to track their task completion times for two or more weeks. That should reveal a productivity pattern that points toward their daily productivity peak.

Your Mental Health

While proper time management is important, working from home can still blur the mental boundaries between your job and your personal space. Be very mindful of your mental health while you navigate these changes. Set aside some time to breathe, meditate, or write in your journal every day.

The reason this is listed as a strategy is that disconnecting from work requires different approaches depending on the individual. Some people need to physically remove themselves from their workspace. Others can simply throw a blanket over their desk and call it a day. What’s important for remote workers is to develop a disconnection strategy that works for them and to integrate it into their day. It’s the best way they can avoid burnout — which is a common problem for remote workers.

Scroll to Top