Struggling to strike that balance between professional productivity and personal peace while working remotely? Join me, as I throw open the doors to a more structured and satisfying work life. I get candid about my own initial fumbles with remote work, the conundrums of routine, and the importance of strategic work hours. But more importantly, I share the aha moment and actionable techniques that took my productivity from haphazard to harmonious. .
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0:00
Hello, it's Alex once again from the remote work life podcast. I hope this finds you well, wherever you may be in the world. Today I'm going to share with you another tip and I want to just really explore the idea of staying on schedule, being strategic about your work. If you're working from home, especially, or wherever you may be working on a remote basis, it's really important to be strategic about your work At least I think it is anyway and, of course, to stay on schedule to be to adhere to your schedule, stick to your schedules where you possibly can. And what I want to do is first of all, share with you a personal situation, personal anecdote, and provide again, as I usually do, some things that you can take action on that I've learned that hopefully, will help you.
Speaker 1:
0:52
As you all know, I'm a big advocate for remote work, and remote work has changed my life, especially since I've had my family. It's changed the way I work. It's helped me to work more effectively. I have to say, and I know for certain, that I work at my best when I'm able to not just work remotely but able to have be empowered to control how I work. So, again, when I first transitioned into remote work, I struggled to maintain balance. In fact, I struggled with lots of things. Balance was just one of those things. Another one of those things I struggled with was routine. Another thing that I struggled with was with incorporating strategic work hours into my day, and that's probably what I want to focus on today. And again, what I used to do was I would just take work as it came. So, for example, if there was an email that I needed to answer, I'd answer it there, and then I didn't necessarily think about whether it was something that I needed to answer there and then or not. I would just answer it. If there was something that I needed to write, I would write it. If there's a phone call that I needed to make, I would make it. I wouldn't necessarily allocate certain portions of the day for certain tasks. But then I realized I don't know how I I think this is probably from speaking to other people, and I tend to do that a lot. I speak to lots of other, not just remote workers, but people who are productive, for example, not just on a remote basis Spoke to them, wanted to understand how they did it.
Speaker 1:
2:39
There was times when my work life was bleeding into my personal life. So I knew that at that point I just had to make a change. And, like I said, that's how I understood I needed to make a change, and that's why I began to find different ways of working. One of those things was having new routines, which I've spoken about in previous episodes, but one key thing that turned things around for me was being strategic about my work hours and identifying my most productive times of the day and scheduling my most challenging tasks during those periods, so the things that I didn't necessarily enjoy that much. So writing detailed documents was something that I would normally do in the morning, for example. That was when I was at my most creative. My brain was at its best when things were flowing. So I tend to write detailed things during the morning.
Speaker 1:
3:46
And then I realized as well that if I mixed things up a bit and then took a break once I'd had my focus time, writing whatever it was I was writing, I'd then move on, something like making the phone calls that I needed to make in the afternoon, because that helped me to sort of be a bit more physical and a bit more animated and it kind of woke me up after a heavy lunch, for example, but phone calls for the afternoon. Again, it depends what type of phone call as well. If I was making a sales call, it may be a different time than if I was making a follow-up call, for example. So again, I was strategic about when I made my sales calls, I was strategic about when I made my follow-up calls. That would be for a certain portion of the day, and the things that I perhaps enjoyed the most of all I would leave towards the tail end of the day, when perhaps I was at my least active, at my least sort of functional, I suppose, and those sorts of things would inspire me to carry on and finish the things that I needed to do.
Speaker 1:
4:51
But that's how I found my method of getting more things done is by being strategic about my work hours and what I was doing at those particular hours. And, of course, incorporating breaks was key for me as well, something that I didn't do first and foremost at the beginning. That was really important and of course, as always, that physical activity that I speak about often on different episodes as well, and the boundaries. So all those different things, tidying with the strategic work hours was something that really turned things around for me and enabled me to supercharge my productivity essentially. But this was all because I was able to learn from others as well.
Speaker 1:
5:37
So I'm grateful to all of those conversations I've had with my fellow remote workers and those who don't work remotely, those who understand productivity. I'm really grateful to have had those conversations to help me to build a better balance and to boost my own productivity as well. So what I'd say, by staying on schedule and being strategic about your work hours, you can experience, I think, increased productivity, you can experience a better balance. You can experience better wellbeing as well, I think, from being strategic with what you're doing, when you're working from home or working wherever you were working from on a remote basis. And it's essential to treat, as I always say, treat remote work as profession, as the same level of professionalism as you would a traditional office role, if not more. But I wanna say thanks for joining me today and I look forward to sharing more with you on the next episode.
