How I Achieved 10x Productivity at Remote Work

Remote work is an established term these days, but back in the days i.e. prior to COVID or a few more years back, this term was quite alien in the developer community. Even though there were organizations like Basecamp which were working remotely for more than 20 years, the developer ecosystem was not built around the concept of working remotely or to put it in simple words, separately from your colleagues. Just like other industries, it was sort of mandatory to share the physical space with your peers in-order to achieve some work. So if you‘ve asked HR in 2014 about remote work, they would definitely have raised an eyebrow.

Remote Work is Here To Stay

As per Stackoverflow’s yearly survey, remote work is getting popular each year. Quoting them:

Return to office initiatives aside, coding easily lends itself to fully remote work and one third or more of all organization sizes are still fully remote.

First Encounter with Remote Work

I first started working remotely in early 2014 when I was working as a Senior Full-Stack Developer at Jumpshare. I found it different yet intuitive from the very beginning. While working in the same physical space as your peers has its advantages, in remote work however you’ve full control of your environment and surroundings and the best part (for me) is the silence which helps in staying focused. Even though remote work was something new to me at that time, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it so far.

Actions to Improve Remote Work Productivity

Avoid Procrastination

One of the biggest challenges which revolve around remote work is procrastination i.e. the act of delaying or postponing things. And that makes perfect sense because with no managers around and no colleagues looking at your screen, you can easily fall into the trap of delaying things by assuming you’ve plenty of time, only to find out later that you’ve wasted all of your time doing nothing. While there are countless articles and apps on the internet on how to avoid procrastination, the activity which kept me focused towards work is the daily stand-ups we do every morning before starting work. Everyone is supposed to send them, even the CTO and company’s founder are no exception. Having a daily stand-up means, people will be looking at what you did yesterday, what you are going to work on today and this makes one accountable (in a good way) of their time in-hand. What if I didn’t post a daily stand-up? Or what if I have nothing to write about? are the questions which keep popping up into one’s mind and they feel focused towards their work.

Choose the Correct Work Hours

When working on-site, one is bound to work and stay in the office during particular hours. With remote work, you sometimes have the flexibility to choose the working hours which suit you. Choose the time when you feel most productive. For some it’s the day time, but for some they are more leaned towards late-night hours. Either is fine, as long as you’re choosing the suitable time based on your situation.

Communicate Asynchronously

This is definitely the area where people going remote feel more concerned about. While you are present in the office asking for feedback, pushing for a meeting, exchanging thoughts on an urgent bug etc. is quite easy, instant and efficient. But doing the same in a remote work environment is a bit of a hassle to do. Which app to use to call someone? What if another person’s internet connection is broken? What if I am unable to clear my intent over the call? are some valid concerns. Honestly there is no universally applicable solution to this. Every team has to tackle such issues as per their own work culture. The way I’ve approached this at work is I don’t normally call (both audio and video) the other person unless really necessary. I tend to rely on text chat on Slack as it’s a perfect medium and doesn’t require massive internet bandwidth. Plus, the other person doesn’t have to answer immediately and can answer at their own pace. And best of all, everything they are writing down is automatically getting documented so they can come back and reference it later at any time in future.

Final Thoughts

Remote work is a two-edged sword. Imran Latif

It’s both fascinating and challenging to keep up with. Fascinating due to the flexibility and power it gives you. Challenging due to the dynamics that revolve around it. If you do it right, it would be the most delightful work experience you have ever had, but if you took it lightly or didn’t do it right then it would quickly turn out to be the most frustrating work experience ever.

Remote work is a great way to manage work-life balance. While it works for others, it might not work well for you, so make sure to consider all the pros & cons thoroughly before you opt to do it. But let me make you sure of one thing, once you do remote work the right way, you will always wonder why you didn’t choose it earlier.

I shared tips I’ve been using personally for almost a decade in enhancing my remote work experience. I hope you’ve enjoyed them. Please let me know in the comments your tips around remote work.