Obviously not everybody can work remotely as some vocations require people to consistently attend their office or travel to undertake their work face to face. But for those of us who are allowed to work remotely then I thought it would be useful to share what I have learned and offer some practical advice by putting it online in the hope that I could give others valuable advice for adapting to remote working or managing remote workers.
I would caution you that there are groups of people on the net who will try and get you to buy courses for big sums of money, take my word for it you don’t have to do this.
I am privileged to be able to work in whatever location I choose and just about everybody who asks me what job I do wants to get an idea of how I am able to work remotely. Don’t misinterpret me I am still developing the science of remote working as everyday I find tribes on the web who tell me about new knowledge and I am continually discovering new systems and processes that make my life simpler and improve my productivity.
Throughout the past seven years I have slowly but surely adapted my working practices to allow me to do just about all of my work remotely with a mixture of online tools and robust self discipline. One late night whilst browsing the net I unearthed Quickbooks online and this brought to my attention what just might be possible. My encounter with online 'on demand' small business accounting software was a life changing event for me and the beginning of my ‘remote working life.
I should mention up front that successfully working remotely is as much about the systems as it is about self discipline. Working remotely also means stating to your colleagues, supervisors and customers as to what they can expect and how they will interact with you.
In 'Remote Working Part 2 – Best practises' I write about how to focus.
