Do you belong to the new generation of employees who work on the go? Or, are you a freelancer, working from the comfort of your home or garden?

If you work remotely, there are high chances that you mix up work and personal matters and sometimes lag behind your deadlines.

We are not talking about those who work round the clock, because for them, the place of work does not make any difference and it is as good as they are working from the office, keeping the time and deadlines!

Many of the freelancers or remotely working employees find it difficult to keep up with their office team due to various reasons. Here are some of the reasons that may be keeping you behind the schedule and some possible solutions too. 

Steps to be efficient at work by working remotely.

Be a Team Player and Communicate

Communication is one of the major issues found among the freelancers. If you are a freelancer, it is important to communicate often with your team to make sure things are well on track. This applies to both sides of the employment.

From the freelancer’s part, make sure that you keep your employer updated on your work pending on completion. If you are planning to travel or won’t be available for even a couple of days, let your employer know in advance so that they can also plan for your absence.

Use Technology

If you are working remotely, you are definitely using the internet or phone to connect to your employer to with a remote team. But there are many more things you can do over the internet for better productivity.

If you are a manager managing a team remotely, you can get yourself a project management software which will be accessible over the internet and can be used for job allocation and supervision. You can also arrange for weekly or monthly video conferencing to make sure all your remotely connected team members get to know each other better which will definitely improve the team rapport.

Set Up a Timetable

Ok, you are not in school anymore, but being disciplined when working will definitely buy you more time and a great reputation among your employers.

For freelancers and those working remotely, they know that they are out of the office schedules and times and hence, may wander off to other distractions easily.

Just to make sure you do not, and don’t fall behind on your schedules, you can set up a working time and stick to it voluntarily. You can inform your employers that you are available for work in these timings so that they can also contact you when required within those timings.

Set Up Your Goals 

This is a key lesson for freelancers as they work independently. For remote employees, their targets are set by their company or the managers and hence, they will stick to meeting them.

For the freelancers, they need to set a monthly target financially or volume of work to take up. This will make sure they know their bounds and will not take up more than what they can.

Setting goals also make you more productive.

Take Backups 

Remember, you are on your own! You don’t have a system administrator who’s taking regular backups of your work.

Be prepared for contingencies such as power outage or a corrupt hard drive and have a plan B in such a case so that your work is not affected.

You can take a backup of your work every week so that you have that much of data with you in case your hard disk gets corrupt or damaged.

Have Some Personal Time

Make sure you have some personal and family time at least once every week to keep you sane. If you are going to work every day and all the time, you may as well work in an office which is more secure and pays you better too!

Remote working, if by choice, is taken up so that you can spend some quality time with yourself and with your family or friends. This personal time helps you refresh and become more productive.

Evaluate Your Work Periodically

This is important, especially for the freelancers.

You need to take a look at your work over a period of time and learn to correct the mistakes you have done earlier.

This also helps you keep a list of your personal favorites which you can, if possible, showcase to your prospective employers over a period of time.