5 tips on how to work remotely and ... productively

This year has been a success for me. I managed to live and work in Paris, Malaga, Copenhagen, Casablanca, London, Amsterdam, San Francisco and Barcelona ...

However, no matter how happy I was, I was constantly worried about the same question:

Will I be able to remain as productive as possible when working remotely?

For about a year, I tried many different ways to maintain and increase productivity. Some of them, despite their simplicity, were useful to me, so I decided to share them with you.

Get rid of the “noise”

Reduce cognitive load with AdBlock. Just block annoying ads and banners and you'll be less distracted. Less distractions - more work.
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In a world in which there is so much information, one must have at least some opportunity to reduce the amount of “noise”. For example, my AdBlock has blocked more than 62,000 ads since April last year, for which I am very grateful to him.

Save, not read

Here's an example: at 11 o'clock in the morning, I am working on a project - and then Twitter sends an alert about another interesting article ... The hand stretches to distract itself and read the article.



What to do in this situation? Save the article for later (I use Pocket for this) - read it in your free time. This article is the same "noise" as advertising, and you need to focus on the task.

In general, learn to save the necessary material and to treat carefully with your attention. The more you get distracted, the more difficult it is to keep the focus on work, and productivity will inevitably decrease.

Learn to work with information.

Now I try to move away from reading the news and focus more on the information that I am really interested in.

To organize the information, I use Feedly . The application has all the blogs I follow. They are sorted by category, so I can read without any problems, what is interesting for me, my colleagues and friends, and also keep track of professional topics and much more.



Once a week I open Pocket or Feedly and sort out all the saved articles: I read part, share it, save part, and read later.

For better organization of information, I use the Buffer application. With it, you can not only save the content, but also share it many times, switching between different accounts.

On average, I publish content 23 times a day, using all available accounts in all projects.

Keep studying

If Warren Buffett has enough time to read , it seems I should do it, too, considering how much time I spend on the road.

My colleagues love to read and always advise me something interesting.

When I come across something amusing, I go for the evidence on YouTube. I just need to find out if I am ready to spend 5-10 hours on a book.

On YouTube, I find a video on the topic and watch it at maximum speed to reduce the time spent. If everything is in order, then you can read.



For reading, I love using Kindle. I especially like the opportunity to highlight the text you like to return to them later.



Besides, lately I have literally become addicted to the Audible.com site. Here you will find many audiobooks lasting 6-9 hours. I am glad that you can listen to them at different speeds. Roughly speaking, you can turn on the 3rd speed and cope with the book while you are flying in an airplane and even (if the book is short) for lunch.



I note that you need to listen to books at 3rd speed with maximum concentration.

Take time to concentrate and relax.

I love to work, setting myself a certain framework for the task. For example, 20 minutes to send e-mail messages or any other task. This approach allows you to spend on the project exactly as much time as you need.



I alternate periods of work and rest and, thus, achieve maximum concentration of attention, and, consequently, productivity. All projects are divided into small periods of time, taking into account the time to rest.

In addition, during work I like to listen to calm music. Often I sing along to myself, or I just sing out loud. It is not strange, but it allows me to concentrate better. For background music, I use the service focustatwill.com .

How has my life changed?

Although I didn’t accomplish any revolution by starting to use the above tips, I began to work and rest more effectively. I am much less idle and now I spend every day “won back” time to learn something new.



Translation prepared by: greebn9k (Sergey Gribnyak), silmarilion (Andrey Khakharev)