Working from home is the new rave since the pandemic breakout because it comes loaded with several benefits like having flexible work hours and not getting up very early from your bed in order to beat the traffic in Lagos but even with these, it also has its pitfalls.
Today, we will discuss the challenges that come from working remotely and share some tips on how you can overcome them.
1. BEING PRODUCTIVE
As a remote worker, if you are not one who can work alone without having your colleagues around you or being supervised, it is going to be a problem for you. You will encounter productivity issues like not managing your work time, failing to plan your day effectively, and not having or finding a balance between work hours and personal life especially if you have kids, elderly ones, or pets, and you can also find it very difficult to stay motivated.
You can overcome these challenges by scheduling your starting work time when you are done with your chores, setting boundaries with your family by indicating when you are available or unavailable with a clear sign on your door and having a work partner who can check on you through texts or video calls to keep you accountable.
2. TIME ZONE DIFFERENCES
Time zones can affect remote workers especially when it comes to finding a suitable time for team members to meet to schedule meetings and collaborate. it can also cause a delay in communication, for example, if I send a message to my colleague in France, I will have to wait several hours for a response to my question and that can slow down work hours. Task deadlines can also be a challenge and can be confusing, especially in the case of the deadline for project submission being 1 pm, nobody will know if you are referring to 1 pm in Nigeria or 1 pm in France.
A very good solution is to allow team members to work asynchronously. You can also make use of project management tools like Trello to manage communication issues across different time zones, and lastly implement flexible working hours to let team members work at the time or hour that is best suited to them.
3. TECHNOLOGY AND TECHNICAL ISSUES
This is one problem working remotely faces especially if your location has phone and internet coverage issues and having challenges with your Wifi connectivity because your service provider might be weak or not available in your location. You can also encounter issues like video and audio problems in connecting to meetings, your mouse or keyboard malfunctioning, etc.
Firstly before agreeing to work remotely, ensure to check if your service provider is available in your location, you can restart your modem or Mifi or disable or reenable your wifi on your device if you are having internet connectivity issues, before your meetings, do check your audio and video settings to make sure all is in order and if you are having problems with your mouse and keyboards, you can try changing their batteries or disconnecting and reconnecting the USB receivers.
4. DISTRACTIONS FROM FAMILY AND FRIENDS
As one who works from home, you will be surrounded by distractions from all sides that can affect your productivity. From checking your phone for any text message or update from your news feed on social media platforms to replying to messages from colleagues or family and friends, or your kids calling out your name for a need or household chores beckoning on you or a friend of yours dropping by to check up on you. These disruptions can make you lose 60% of your work hours thereby resulting in less productivity and because of the loss of time, you end up rushing your projects to meet deadlines which then affects the quality of the project.
You can solve these by keeping your mobile phones from you during work hours, turning off unnecessary notifications, especially from your social media pages so it doesn’t attract you to check them, make sure to attend to your kids if you have any before your work hour, send messages to your friends or extended families about your work schedule so they do not drop in at the time, and you can always keep your door closed to avoid being disturbed.
5. NOT KNOWING WHEN TO STOP
Maintaining a healthy work and personal life relationship can be a challenge with working remotely because it is difficult to know when your day begins and when it ends because you can end up working into the dead of the night. You won’t even know when to take a break and switch off.
When I started working from home, I didn’t know how to create boundaries between my private life and work, sometimes I could get so absorbed into work that I would not be able to have breakfast or lunch. At some time, I got burnt out and became ill. I started taking breaks by setting reminders and also I set a work hour to follow when I begin my day and when I end.
Again, instead of working from home, you can work from coffee shops or some shared workplaces around your location.
6. BECOMING ISOLATED
One of the negative effects of working from home is isolation because, without regular social interactions with their workplace and colleagues, some remote workers might feel disconnected from their work environment and this disconnection can lead to them feeling depressed, having anxiety issues, and also feeling lonely because of lack of human connection especially for the extroverts and people that have built a strong connection with their team members and they do not have other friends apart from them.
You can prevent or solve these by going out to the cinema or on coffee dates, joining a community of remote workers or freelancers, skype or Zoom with your favorite team member or colleague, team members can also organize social events amongst themselves to catch up and talk over a glass of wine and small chops, and employers and team members can also arrange regular check-ins on their remote workers and with themselves to offer emotional support and to encourage feedbacks too.
7. TIME MANAGEMENT
Just because working remotely does not always have a fixed schedule especially with you being a freelancer, it can become a huge challenge for some. Even with the work flexibility remote work brings, not being able to manage your time effectively can make it very stressful for you because you might find yourself trying to balance the responsibilities your work brings and your family or personal life. So, it is very important you take charge of your time so you do not end up procrastinating or taking too many breaks or nap time.
You can solve these problems by planning your work in advance(like having a schedule or to-do lists), you can also track your time for better time management by making use of softwares like Clockify, create a workplace that is seperate from your living room or bedroom, avoid multi-tasking and make sure to eliminate any form of distractions.
CONCLUSION
It is popular knowledge that working remotely as a freelancer or a team could become difficult even with it’s benefits but if remote workers, employers, freelancers can use the above mentioned tips in this article, your productivity level will be increased and also with proper time management, you can be sure to erase burnouts, distractions and meeting deaddlines.
