This Device Claims To Solve Everyones Biggest Remote Work Problem – By now, we all know the benefits of remote work: No soul-crushing commute. No managers or employees hanging over your shoulder. No one steals your lunch from the office fridge.
But now that it’s been a few years since the COVID-19 pandemic forced us to work from home, we’re all a little more familiar with its challenges as well. It’s not all rainbows and unicorns. A report by Flexjobs, a remote work career board, found that while just over 50% of workers surveyed want to work completely remotely, they are also more vulnerable to working longer hours, poorer collaboration, and occasional distraction.
This Device Claims To Solve Everyones Biggest Remote Work Problem
The great news is that these challenges all have solutions. Whether you’re considering working remotely or are currently a remote worker, you’ll be happier and more productive if you meet these challenges. I spoke to a few remote workers to get their advice on everything from maintaining work-life balance to avoiding loneliness while working from home.
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Before the pandemic, one of the reasons many managers were skeptical about remote work was that they feared employees would disengage without the physical, in-person supervision. But now we know that the opposite is rather the reality: Remote workers are more likely to overwork. When your personal life and work are both under the same roof, it’s harder to switch off.
“When does the workday begin? End? Creating a hard line between work/home is difficult,” says author and trainer Jeff Gothelf. And if you work for yourself, he adds, you might be in a never-ending sales mode, which can be exhausting.
Has been a 100% remote company since its inception in 2011. Even so, some members of the team admit that they have a hard time remembering to take breaks, stop work at a reasonable time, and even know when to reasonable time is to stop.
And I agree: I still often feel drawn to go back to my laptop after the day is over to check just one Slack message or complete a task—which eventually spirals into an unwanted all-night session.
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“When you work from home, work can feel endless. There’s always something to do,” says Hannah Herman, the copy lead at Webflow (and a former employee). “It can feel inevitable because your office is where you live. Sometimes I find myself falling down a rabbit hole of slack threads when I should really be spending time with my husband.”
You may have to trick yourself into taking breaks and setting clear start and end times. Otherwise you risk burnout. Some things that can help:
Remote workers need to be self-motivated experts in time management because we don’t have others constantly overseeing our work or managing our time for us. While all workers find it difficult to stick to a schedule and manage their to-dos, it’s especially challenging for remote workers who have more flexible, free-form days, as well as managers in another part of the world.
Managing your own work is hard enough. Then there’s the constant temptation to watch an episode of your favorite show during your work break, to open the kitchen when you’re knocking off a project, or to take your dog for a walk because of her pleading looks. Suddenly it’s evening, and you have nothing to show for the day.
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The good news is, when you work from home, you avoid co-workers dropping by your desk and other office interruptions (It’s someone’s birthday! Let’s have mediocre cake in the break room!). The bad news is that you’ll probably have to deal with other kinds of interruptions and distractions, whether it’s the UPS delivery person who needs your signature or the in-laws who show up unannounced.
It is especially difficult when you have very young children who do not understand that they can see you, but you are not available to play. Repeatedly saying, “no, I don’t have time right now” is painful. Brian Cooksey, an engineering manager at , adds that “finding a good place to take conferences so that the family is not interrupted” can also be an issue – as in our favorite viral video from a few years ago.
There is no way to avoid all interruptions from your family, pets, delivery people, and neighbors. And sometimes they should interrupt you – like if your dog really needs to be let out or your child just got hurt. However, it is important to be clear about the types of interruptions that are okay and which can wait. In addition:
Finding the courage to go out into an unfamiliar world and talk to potentially scary people [can become a new challenge].
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If you don’t have family members at home when you work, you may have the opposite problem: isolation. Even with internet access and tools like Slack, you can still develop “cabin fever” from being alone in the same place for too long. “It’s too easy to get into the habit of working from home all day,” says CEO of ad tech company MonetizeMore, Kean Graham, “and then staying in your home for the rest of that day and sometimes the next days.”
Maybe remote jobs should come with a warning: You can be labeled a hermit. “Finding the courage to go out into an unforgiving world and talk to potentially scary people” can become a new challenge, says editor Michael Crider.
People who work in shared offices experience impromptu “water cooler” moments of interaction and may even share meals together or after-work drinks. Remote worker? We often work asynchronously with our teammates and may only have our houseplants to talk to.
This will take effort, especially if one of the reasons you enjoy working remotely is to get away from too many people. It’s about striking a balance.
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In their book, REMOTE: Office Not Required, Basecamp founders Jason Fried and David Heinemeier explain why communication is important for a remote team—and why it’s such a challenge:
If most of your communication happens via email and the like, it doesn’t take much for bad blood to develop unless everyone is doing their best to do the opposite. Small misunderstandings that would have been nipped in the bud with an eye roll or a certain tone of voice can quickly snowball into drama.
The communication problem is compounded when some of your team work in an office but you don’t. You’ll miss all the overheard discussions in cubicle meetings, says Peter Smith. You feel paranoid that others are having meetings and making decisions without you – and you’d probably be right. Unless the company has built a culture of inclusion for remote workers, you may be out of sight and out of mind.
The only real solution is to communicate as much as possible – to clarify anything that could be a misunderstanding – and to speak proactively.
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Related to being or feeling out of the loop: the dreaded time zones. You can wake up just when your teammate goes to bed. That means you can’t always rely on your fellow team member to be available to answer an urgent question or solve any other immediate need.
Working remotely, if successful, usually requires some overlap with the hours your co-workers put in… we’ve found we need a good four hours of overlap to avoid collaboration delays and feel like a team. That’s not a problem if you’re working in Los Angeles with someone in New York, but it’s more of a challenge if, say, you’re in Chicago, working with someone in Copenhagen. There was no easy way around it; we just had to compromise. We did it with Copenhagen working from 11:00 to 19:00 (local time) and Chicago working from 8:00 to 17:00 – just enough for the key four-hour crossing.
Remote workers need to be flexible when working with others in different time zones. As my teammate Matthew said: “You need to think a little more about when you send messages to others – and learn not to look at your phone for notifications when you’re not planning to work. But that’s also a good part; you can work around your move when needed, and you can hand the work off to others who can complete it during their day and get it back to you.
Nothing scares a remote worker as much as an internet outage. Or, maybe, if your computer breaks. Both are your problems to solve.
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Many public Wi-Fi hotspots can also be spotty. And even with a decent internet connection, video conferencing apps aren’t always reliable, so virtual meetings can be an exercise in frustration.
For peace of mind—and to avoid delays in your work—have a backup plan. A mobile hotspot device like a MiFi or a cell phone plan that allows tethering can save you if your internet goes out. A backup computer—or maybe even a tablet with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse—can get you through the day until you get your computer fixed.
Knowledge work tends to be sedentary work, no matter where your office is. However, when you are at home, it is easier to slip into bad
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