Jonny Evans has been working remotely for more than 15 years. With so many people working remotely in response to the COVID-19 coronavirus, Evans shares some of the things he’s learned to make working remotely effective and productive.
Jonny Evans for Computerworld:
It is way too easy to end up working too hard when you work from home. In part this is because it is also too easy to let your thoughts drift during the day, only to find you need to work all night to reach that morning deadline.
You need to be hard on yourself and make sure to define your time, creating clear and consistent boundaries between working and domestic time…
It makes sense to schedule specific parts of the day for your different tasks. Set times for writing, researching, communications, meetings and so on. An additional benefit to this approach is that it helps you identify if you are becoming over-committed before it becomes a problem. Recommended app: Things, by Cultured Code — it’s clear, integrates with Calendar and is available across Apple’s platforms.
MacDailyNews Take: We’ve been working remotely for nearly 18 years now. Evans’ full article is a must-read for those who are newly thrust into remote work due to the coronavirus.
Breaks are critical and we highly recommend daily exercise. We’re currently challenging ourselves to run at least a 5K per day for 2020, but you don’t have to be that crazy, just do something in the exercise department every day. Take a walk, do some light weight training, do 10-minute core training, yoga… whatever, just don’t sit all day. Get up and move!
Use Apple’s Reminders app on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch and/or on your Mac and/or on iCloud (it just works). It will break up the day, change your focus and make you more productive (and healthier; it boosts the immune system!) when you’re working remotely.
Is this to say that the palatial MDN headquarters are a myth?? Shooketh
The palatial MDN headquarters are remote, but with strong broadband. And high-quality keg storage.