If you’re a remote worker, you probably have that all-too-common pre-work urge to keep checking your work email, even though you probably haven’t worked in a week. In fact, it could even be days, or even weeks, since you’ve checked in. But, the truth is, these check-ins do a disservice to you.
When working from home, it’s easy to feel consumed by work, at least mentally. You may check in to see if you have anything to respond to, to keep the end of your workday quick, and you may respond to work emails even when you’re not in the office.
For example, let’s say you’re going through some new marketing material that you want to copy for your client, and you find several of them don’t use headings and tags. If you’re working from home and you check in a bit before the end of the workday to make sure you have everything pre-attached to your email so you can respond the next morning, you’re going to waste your time.
I understand this feeling. Sometimes, work can get so busy at the end of the day that I just want to make sure I have everything on my to-do list finished, so I can leave work early, right?
Sure, this is one of the benefits of working remotely, but it’s a short-lived advantage. After one week of working in the office, you’ll be so preoccupied that you may end up checking in at a later time and an even later hour. You won’t be working remotely as much, and it may end up being a good thing in the end. In fact, you may find it easier to actually stay focused, and actually accomplish the tasks you have set for yourself when you work remotely from home.
Before long, you’ll be making the necessary sacrifices, like working a bit longer hours to keep your workday quick and efficient. And then, you can feel like you’ve worked all day, and gone through the entire day at work and have accomplished what you’ve set out to do.
In the end, the way I see it, working remotely from home should be about more than just checking in from time to time. It should be working, working and more working. This isn’t to say you have to check in during work hours, but it does help to keep the end goal in mind: working hard for your employer.
Before you go completely into hyper-focus mode, make sure that you are making the necessary sacrifices, both at home and at the office. Before long, you’ll probably find that working remotely from home is more rewarding than working in an office, even if you’re not working remotely as much as you might be working in an office.
How do you feel about working remotely? Do you think it’s more rewarding than working from the office?
A great way to make sure you stay focussed and disciplined is by making sure you can look forward to rewards such as casino rewards for once you’ve finished with the day’s work.
