The search for a better work/life balance is a continuous one, and many people have preferred to take on a remote working role in recent years. Aside from any savings from removing the daily commute from your routine, you might also want to be around to watch children or other family members.
As this is your first remote role, there will be some pretty major changes from what you are used to. So, to ensure that you hit the ground running in your new role and do not fall victim to the many pitfalls that claim many who opt for remote working, here is an overview of the areas you need to concentrate on.
Define your workspace
If you are going to work like you did at the office, you need to recreate the same sort of space at home. This will involve finding the desk and chair to accommodate you for all of your working days and locating a space in your home to put it. Unless it is absolutely unavoidable, this should be away from the most used areas of the house, like the lounge or kitchen. Ideally, you should have somewhere you can close the door on or, better still, be out in the garden in a purpose-built office.
Stay connected
Regardless of where you choose to work, your remote role will require you to be connected to the internet. For that reason, your internet service has been promoted from being useful to being vital. If the internet went down while you were watching Netflix, you wouldn’t have been happy, but now, if it goes down in the middle of a conference call with your new boss, it could affect your livelihood. To avoid this frustration, you should check out all the service providers for the internet near Dallas, TX, to find one with the right speed and reliability for your needs.
Scheduling and self-discipline
When you had a regular 9-5 office routine, your day had a very rigid structure that you wanted to escape. Now that you have achieved that, however, you need to replace this with an effective structure that suits you and allows you to finish your work. Working remotely can mean that you have to contend with a host of distractions, which means it can take you 6 hours to get 4 hours of work done.
Even allowing for this, you do need to make sure you close your laptop at a predefined time; after all, you took on this role for a better work/life balance. For that reason, you should limit working too late so you still have a defined evening time with your family, and this also decreases the chances of you suffering from burnout.
So, a few final thoughts
Taking on your first remote role is an incredible opportunity to redefine how you work. Alongside some undeniable benefits, there are some challenges that you will need to meet to make a success of it. You need to stay connected with your new employer while putting your own stamp on your clearly defined workspace at home. You also need to reinvent your working day so it meets both your needs and those of your employer so you can continue in the role for as long as you want.