The top reason men and women fail to succeed at working remotely is they fail to see the essential requirement of superior organisation and rigid self management.

I have been toiling remotely for nearly 8 yrs since I first discovered Quickbooks online an ‘on demand’ small business accounting software online system and was energised by the fact that if you can perform accounting on the web then why shouldn’t you be able to do other important types of work away from the conventional office?

Whilst working remotely has a lot of positives there are numerous things that workers don’t realise which convert into problems that cause lower productivity and reduced morale. The most significant reason for low productivity in remote employees is interruption and it is a established and well known fact that it can take a employee up to 0.33 hours to return to their original efficiency level after experiencing a disturbance.

Studies also show that persons who are continuously affected by disruptions are more likely to suffer from reduced memory power and are prone to developing mental health problems in old age. We exist in an over communicated time and it is important that you are acquainted with the problems this causes before you begin working remotely. Whilst operating remotely you should do everything feasible to reduce the jeopardy of being distracted.

Here are things that really do work:

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

Good examples are a specific time of day when you review or write and send mail and make or be available for phone calls. Before I began working remotely I used to receive nearly hundreds of e-mails in 24 hours. Now I think I am unfortunate if I receive over four. To start over with my electronic mail experience I modified my e-mail address and vigorously took steps to guard the details being passed on to anyone. I then made sure every party who I gave my e-mail address to, to use it prudently. I also set up an auto-responder that swiftly informed anyone sending me mail at what time of day I would be reading mail and if something should have my urgent attention to mark it as ‘Urgent’.

2. Get rid of alerts.

Turn off absolutely everything that can send you a visual or audible alert. This includes mobile and
ordinary handsets and types of alerts from electronic mail such as on screen pop ups, beeps, display changes to your inbox folder and of course facing a window. Get a door on your work room and put up a ‘do not disturb’ sign on it.

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