The most cited reason individuals fail to succeed at operating remotely is they don’t realise the criticality of having good quality organisation and sustainable self management.

I have been operating remotely for almost a decade since I first discovered Quickbooks online an ‘on demand’ small business accounting software service and was spellbound by the fact that if you can do accounting online then why shouldn’t it be viable to do other key types of of work at a distance?

Whilst working remotely has its obvious perks there are numerous mistakes that people make which turn into problems that cause decreased work output and lower motivation. The number one reason for decreases in work output from remote professionals is interruption and it is a confirmed and well known fact that it can take a professional up to 0.33 hours to return to their original productivity level after experiencing a distraction.

Deeper insights reveal that men and women who are regularly experience distractions are more likely to suffer from lower memory capability and are prone to developing mental health problems in old age. We exist in an over communicated world and it is critical that you are aware of the problems this causes before you begin working remotely. When working remotely you have to do everything possible to minimise the probability of being distracted.

Here’s how I do it:

1, Get a routine, tell everyone about it and obsessively maintain it!

Good examples are a fixed time of day when you look at or write and send e-mail and make or take phone calls. Before I began working remotely I used to get as many as 200 electronic mails over a period of twenty four hours. Now I think I am unfortunate if I get more than 5. To start over with my e-mail experience I changed my e-mail address and tenaciously took steps to guard the details being made available to anyone. I then made sure every party who I gave my e-mail address to, to use it prudently. I also created an auto-responder that swiftly told anyone sending me mail my routine for attending to mail and if an item should have my urgent awareness to mark it as ‘Urgent’.

2. Get rid of alerts.

Disable every function that can send you a visual or audible alert. This includes mobile and
ordinary phones and types of alerts from electronic mail such as display events, warning sounds, display changes to your inbox list and of course facing a window. Get a door on your work place and put up a ‘do not disturb’ sign on it.

In ‘Remote Working Part 3 – Top tools and tricks’ I will reveal my favourite tools and software.

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