Quickbooks online
The number one reason members of both sexes fail to adapt to operating remotely is they don’t see the criticality of having excellent organisation and enduring self management.
I have been working remotely for over seven years since I first uncovered Quickbooks online an ‘on demand’ small business accounting software service and was blown away by the fact that if you can do accounting on the Internet then why shouldn’t it be practical to perform other important types of work away from the conventional office?
Whilst working remotely has many benefits there are numerous traps that people easily fall into which lead to problems that result in cuts in work output and lower motivation. The most cited reason for low effectiveness in remote professionals is disturbance and it is a proven and well known fact that it can take a person up to 0.33 hours to return to their original productivity level after experiencing an interruption.
Research also shows that men and women who are continuously affected by disturbances are more likely to be susceptible to decreased memory capacity and are prone to developing mental health trouble in old age. We live in an over communicated time and it is essential that you are acquainted with the issues this causes before you decide to work remotely. When working remotely you must do everything possible to mitigate the jeopardy of being disrupted.
Here are the essentials:
1, Get a habit, make sure that everybody knows it and rigidly adhere to it!
Good examples are a specific time of day when you read or send e-mail and make or take phone conversatiions. Before I began working remotely I used to get as many as a couple of hundred electronic mails in 24 hours. Now I think I am unfortunate if I get in excess of five. To ’reset’ my e-mail experience I changed my e-mail address and tenaciously took precautions to shield the details being passed on to anyone. I then ‘trained’ every party who I gave my e-mail address to, to use it prudently. I also set up an automatic reply that swiftly informed anyone sending me mail at what time of day I would be processing mail and if an item must have my urgent consideration to mark it as ‘Urgent’.
2. Get rid of alerts.
Disable every feature that can send you a perceptible alert. This includes portable and
conventional telephones and forms of alerts from e-mail such as visual alerts, warning sounds, screen changes to your inbox folder and of course facing a window. Get a door on your office and put up a ‘do not disturb’ sign on it.
In ‘Remote Working Part 3 – What should be in your tool box’ I will reveal my favourite tools and software.
