Remote Work and Productivity

How To Work From Home

Source: How To Work From Home: The Productivity System To Get More Done In 2025 | Cal Newport - YouTube

Goal is to make virtual work better, increase productivity, and make job enjoyable.

Better Remote Work

1. Successful Remote / Virtual Work with Workload System and Structured Communication

   1. Clear workload system

      • Know what you/your team are working on
      • Know when it’s done
      • Load is manageable

   2. Structured communication

      • Information flow is known
      • Unscheduled communications are minimal
      • Communications are asynchronous and predictable

   3. Examples

      • Software development. People are assigned specific tasks in a shared board meeting workload system and communications can be done in board. Daily meetings at same time each day help with status reports and working on problems.
      • Claims processing. Queues of claims and their process are known and assigned.
      • Example of unsuccessful workplace. Work is assigned as needed and not tracked and done in ad hoc messages.

2. Small Scale Seasonality

   Smaller scale means like in a day, week, there are variations in intensity in work.

   Looks for accountability rather than accessibility. People are accountable but you may not be available for all meetings, ad hoc communications. It allows scheduled times for work.

   1. Examples

      • No meeting Mondays/Fridays
      • Balance light and hard days or breaks
      • Hybrid virtual and office schedule where you load meetings and more communications on office days
        • Helps reduce ad hoc messages

3. Spaces Matter

   Having a physical work space reduces work distractions and improves focus. Commute is a time and space separation of work and life.

   1. Examples

      • Work from near home, you are not working in your home and it is close by
      • Make a space at home for work, it is like equipment you need for work
      • Have a space for deep work and a space for administrative and communications work
      • Consider adventure work, where you go somewhere interesting to work
      • Simulated commute, like a walk

Focus, Energy, and Attention Management

Manage your time, energy and focus with a goal and plan, then practice to learn and persist knowledge.

• Energy - proper sleep, food, rest, exercise
• Attention - cut distractions
• Focus - practice time for deep work, time management, test for knowledge and recall

Slow Productivity applied to Learning

Study like a job: Schedule regular time to work on problem sets, homework and do recall of what you learned. Check large deliverables and work backwards from their deadlines to finish them.

Make strategies to work on tests, homework, study and evaluate strategies. Do example problems.

Focus on studies and avoid time consuming extra curricular activities.

See book “How to become a straight-A student” by Cal Newport

Sabbatical Writing Project Approach

• Habit: 5 days a week writing
• Join community related to your writing
• Put scheduled things in middle of week to leave focus time on other days
• Adventure focus time - go to a new place to work that is fun and interesting

Cal’s approach on writing books: For non-fiction book, write annotated outline and sell to others to get advance. Then write each chapter sequentially, go back to write introduction and make edits. For fiction books, write first and market manuscript.

Social Media more Restrictions for Children more like cigarettes or junk food

Current social and legal trends is towards restricting children by laws (like cigarettes) instead of parent oversight (like junk food)

The Unspoken Reason Why COVID Drove Women From The Workplace

Source: The Unspoken Reason Why COVID Drove Women From The Workplace | Cal Newport - YouTube

Issue - People prefer predictability in their work and communications.

The reach of technology like phones and laptops and communications means work can follow people and can extend work hours as other try to reach them for work purposes. Extending work hours can lead to burnout and constant stress. Workload is a problem if it cannot be measured and there are high expectations or perceptions of keeping busy.

Solutions to Workload

Have transparent task management that can be seen by other team members. For example, a task board or project management software. Workload needs to be balanced.

Solutions to Inefficient Communication

Solutions avoid unnecessary communication since there is an understanding.

Have regular meetings with your team and transfer pending items to the agenda of the next meeting. The regular meeting replaces multiple conversations and improves communication efficiency. For example, professors conduct office hours for students. Set time for help.

For complex collaboration, use an agreed upon process.

Have a channel like a phone or ticketing system for work emergencies where you can be reached. The channel cannot be abused, otherwise it will not work.

Solution Concepts

See ideas discussed at “How to Work From Home” talk

See Also

• Learning How to Learn - Learning How to Learn - course that also talks about focus, energy and attention management
• Remote Work - Remote Work