Productivity

The pandemic has greatly modified the way people work. Meet 7 tips remote engineers can follow to adapt to the novel realities of remote work.

There doesn’t exist a universal formula for remote engineering work and it makes no difference whether you are a composite engineer or a mechanical one. Every specialist applies various approaches when it comes to work. Various time zones in which they perform the job. Various job locations. The list is endless!

Even though the increase in remote activity is not a brand new tendency in the engineering industry, many engineering professionals are still discovering ways to work from home through trial and error, making titanic efforts to stay productive and satisfied. The challenges occur both for remote work battle-seasoned engineers and those who are getting started.

Also read: How to work from home while maintaining productivity

It’s not simply staff but businesses and startups trying to organize efficient remote work. Also they are working in providing strong data security. One should always implement VPN for your remote work and utilize firewalls when you deal with confidential data. There are many free downloadable vpn available in the market.

With great effort, you can cope with the troubles of remote work and generate a happy, healthy, and productive environment for you.

7 Tips on how to work effectively as a remote engineer

Wondering where to find a great career opportunity with a remote work option? Check Engre.co.

1. How about a Setup?

It is vital for engineers to organize a decent workstation setup for fruitful remote work. It is impossible to be productive remotely with outdated software and hardware. Additionally, you should make sure that:

•   you possess a comfortable workplace;
•   all distractions (sorry, cat!) are far away;
•   you have a top-performance camera and microphones to conduct calls with your colleagues/customers.

Also read: Best Home Office Set Up For Remote Work | Shoot Up Your Productivity

Reveal Aspects to Make You Most Productive

Many engineers think that they should have the opportunity to switch on their computers in the morning and work until nightfall without problems. However, without discipline and regular breaks, the whole process can fall apart.

Your task is to decide the most optimal way to work remotely.

When engineers work in the office, they frequently take walks to have snacks, communicate with colleagues, enjoy tea/ coffee breaks, and have lunch at the office kitchen/cafe. The point is that at home, such practices begin to feel as if they cut corners.

It is a direct path to burnout and even depression. Practice various break times and work from various locations to figure out what is perfect for you.

Also read: 8 Simple ways to organize your life

1. Organize Efficient Remote Communication

Being an efficient communicator is the clue to performing successfully at a remote job. Engineers require introducing additional efforts to interact with their managers:

•   get regular calls with your PM (it is perfect to have them weekly);
•   ensure you and your manager/colleagues are permanently on the same page.

2. Be Self-Driven

Engineers require being self-driven. The point is that the more you depend upon another specialist within the engineering team, the more complicated it will be to stay productive remotely. Well, it can be great in case you are a full-stack engineer, but if it is not your story, you should make efforts to separate your responsibilities. Note that we don’t mean isolation!

The more you interact with your colleagues, the more agile you can be when it gets to separating your work activities.

3. Be Visible at Remote Work

When engineers perform the job in the office environment, they are permanently visible to other staff.

Your PM regularly meets you and asks what you are currently working on. Your team members invite you to meetings and organize a time to communicate. A remote mode doesn’t have such delights.

Being responsive asap is a nice alternative to visibility. When someone writes a query to you via Microsoft Teams or other tools, the quicker you respond, the more visible you are. It doesn’t mean that your task is to be available 24/7, but fast responses demonstrate that you work hard.

Also read: Synchronous & Asynchronous Communication | Definition, Benefits, Tools

4. Mind Your Budget

Even in case of engineers are lucky to work remotely 5 days a week, it is a must to keep track of their work-based expenses. Remote work experts say that such a practice is even more necessary for a remote mode. To succeed, popular smartphone apps can support engineers with this. Check reputable account management, mobile banking, and so on. They can utilize several budgeting apps on their smartphones to assist them to keep track of their daily/weekly/monthly spending. It will come in handy when it gets to preparing reports and delivering receipts for the company.

Also read: Cybersecurity During Work from home | A Security Checklist

5. Arrange Strong Data Security

Working remotely means engineers can apply Wi-Fi networks in restaurants, co-working areas, and other locations that may be insecure as you suppose them to be. That is why you should make sure that such connections will be secure for you so that the info that you use does not leak anywhere. Implement VPN for your remote work and utilize firewalls when you deal with confidential data.

admin

If coffee cups pile up on your desktop, but it’s still difficult to tick the task ‘done,’ you might be struggling with efficiency. Here are 6 tips to help you become more efficient at work.

What is efficiency, and why is it so difficult to welcome it to one’s headspace? Efficiency is a synonym to the good old ‘productivity.’ Yeap, you surely saw this word in self-help books. In short, productivity is when quantity meets quality when it comes to your tasks. 

Productivity saves time and increases the quality of your work. Whether you’re a freelancer or a 9-to-5 employee, productivity will enhance your organization skills.

Also read: 8 Remote Work Habits Of Every Productive Employee

Why is Efficiency Important? 

If you’re not a top manager, you might not understand why efficiency is of such great value. An efficient employee causes fewer troubles at the workplace. Also, a productive employee knows how to allocate resources and not let them go to waste.

Imagine what would have happened to all those math homework helpers if they weren’t efficient in solving problems timely. The same goes for essay writers whose number one responsibility is following college deadlines.

Why master the art of efficiency?

• So, you’ve started freelancing. Cultivating efficiency will increase your income and improve your time management; 
• As a 9-to-5 employee, efficiency will let you jump a few steps higher on the career ladder;
• As a student with a part-time job, efficiency will teach you the value of time and proper schedules. In the end, you’ll follow deadlines and keep both your boss and professor happy.

1. The Notorious Multitasking Myth

Multitasking is like the gold rush in the business world. Everyone chases it, but once found, not everyone will find it effective. The truth is multitasking doesn’t work. Imagine a robot who is assigned one task. An AI assistant will perform the task perfectly. Once the robot is assigned too many tasks, it will break because the program is designed for less work. 

The same goes for the human brain. To do your job well, you must focus instead of diffusing efforts on tons of unrelated to each other activities. 

If multitasking doesn’t work, what options do we have to keep up with the colleagues and follow the deadlines? Keep reading.

Also read: Best Pomodoro App 2022 | All About Pomodoro technique & how to use it

2. The New Era of Monotasking

If endless calls and unfinished paper piles monopolize your mornings, think of monotasking. 

Obviously, writing a message to your boss and calling the customer simultaneously is impossible. Make a rule: if the first task can be performed by a machine, do the second one. What does it mean? For instance, you’re a freelancer who needs to write a text and do their laundry. Start your washing machine. While the entire washing doesn’t require your constant attention, write your article. This is still monotasking because you’re focused on writing and may forget about the washing machine.

3. Distraction and Timely Breaks

• Avoid distraction from social media and ads. Use ad-blocking and message-blocking software like Freedom or Forest;
• It is recommended to use one monitor. Once you put that phone aside, the temptation to reach for it skyrockets; 
• Don’t forget about breaks! The most popular time management technique is called Pomodoro. Work for 25 or 50 minutes and take a five or 10-minute break, respectively. Once you finish all 4 Pomodoro sessions, take a 30-minute break to renew your mental energy.

Also read: 8 Simple ways to organize your life

4. Organize Your To-Do Lists

This tip is as old as the hills. Visualizing your plans puts your anxiety and excessive worrying away. Once you write everything on paper, you no longer have to keep things in mind. However, documenting everything on paper is not enough. You should also organize it.

• Use tools like Todoist, Habitica, and TickTick if you prefer a tech approach to pen and paper. Most of them are free and have an intuitive design;
• Divide your paper into ‘Work’ tasks and ‘Personal’ tasks. Write your tasks into these two columns. Later, choose 2-3 most important tasks and circle them with a color pen. By doing so, you’ll prioritize your tasks and focus on them the next day. Additionally, if you fail to accomplish other non-important tasks, you won’t be that unhappy;
• Keep your tasks realistic and easy to measure. Don’t write ‘Plan the Whole Wedding.’ Better keep it realistic: ‘Choose the Wedding Flowers.’ If you have a big project, break it into smaller milestones. 

5. Avoid Procrastination in All Its Forms

Did you know that to-do lists cause procrastination? Yeap, a to-do list won’t cure your procrastination if it’s too long. But, at the same time, the lack of to-do lists will surely throw you into the Procrastination Kingdom too. So, how to solve the problem?

• Avoid structured procrastination. This happens when you focus on less important tasks rather than starting to work on the essential ones. Therefore, keep your to-do list as short as possible. Make sure your tasks are simple and realistic when it comes to time and resources;
• Make accountability your new habit. Ask your boss or a colleague (or a friend) to create a reward system. For instance, your boss might allow you to leave the workplace 15 minutes earlier. In case you fail, you’ll be asked to leave 15 minutes later;
• Set a timer. For instance, you don’t feel like doing the task. Set 20 minutes on a timer and start working. There is a high probability you’ll dive into working and won’t leave the task once the timer beeps.

Also read: 10 Best Timeline Makers 2022 | Compare Features & Prices

6. Get Productive By … Sleeping 

Naturally, a human body requires a short sleep after being awake for 7-8 hours. Unfortunately, not everyone knows about it. Remember that 4 pm sleepiness? Yeap, this is your body signalling you should take a rest.

• Try to sleep for 20 minutes once your start feeling sluggish;
• If you had a 12-hour shit, make sure the gap between your next shifts is at least 10 hours;
• Get a 7-hour sleep. Yeap, so obvious and so impossible to achieve sometimes.

Final Thoughts

When it comes to quality, being efficient at work is the key. Monotasking doesn’t mean you’re lazy. What it means is your responsibility when it comes to quality. As well as taking breaks and napping in your office chair. In other words, keep that work-and-play balance to stay productive.

We hope the article was helpful to you. Good luck!

admin

If you are unsure about the advantages of tool integration and you want to know how they can apply to your organization, here is a look at the important role this fulfils, especially when it comes to streamlining workflows across multiple departments.

Taking a slap-dash approach to using business tools is a bad idea for lots of reasons, and is particularly pertinent for companies that rely on interdepartmental cooperation to push projects forward.

Fragmentation is inefficient

First and foremost, if your tools are either poorly interlinked or entirely disjointed from one another, it will be impossible to use them in an optimally efficient way.

In turn, this means that productivity levels will drop, and even if you have a solid collection of resources at your disposal, your employees will inevitably encounter a number of stumbling blocks as they go about their daily duties.

Conversely, with proper management of the APIs involved it is fairly straightforward to combine separate strands of data from different app ecosystems and make them work in unison.

Confusion is avoided

Another of the hurdles which are usually involved with projects that encompass more than one department is that of comprehension. While some team members may be very familiar with how one specific tool operates, it could be baffling to those with a different background and skill set.

Ideally, tool integration is a process that blurs the lines between different platforms and data sources, so that colleagues can collaborate in a context where everyone is on a level pegging.

For example, if technically-minded employees can take data from one tool and import it to another that allows for insights to be expressed visually in a legible and clear way, it will be easier to make decisions and explain viewpoints to others.

Also read: How to build a fail-proof performance rating system in 2021?

Automation is achievable

A further workflow-catalyzing aspect of tool integration is that, when implemented correctly, it can automate the time-consuming manual tasks that used to be the bane of many projects.

Enabling interoperability between otherwise separate systems and apps through APIs and other integration techniques can accelerate and automate so much of what a business does on a daily basis.

That is not to say that this is always straightforward, but rather that the time you invest in tool integration will pay dividends in the long term through the automation of facets of interdepartmental workflows.

Balancing workloads is easier

When responsibility for a project is spread across different departments, a blame game can flare up whenever delays occur, issues arise or conflicts come about. From a managerial perspective, this is obviously undesirable but somewhat inevitable in this context.

Often the culprit in these instances is not necessarily an individual employee, but rather an improper balancing of the workloads which team members are faced with.

At a very basic level, if one person has a pile of tasks to plow through in a day, while another has just a couple of things to tick off, this is obviously not making the best use of your human resources.

Added to this is the aspect of understanding that different tasks require different amounts of time to complete, so it is not just a case of giving everyone the exact same number of discrete goals to achieve within a set time span.

Again, tool integration can come into play when helping you to balance and prioritize workflows and workloads within a department and across a whole business.

This in turn feeds into ensuring that you have tangible evidence of productivity levels to call upon when making decisions, reviewing performance and implementing feedback. Modern solutions let you pinpoint your star players, highlight any weak links and use this data to inform your next steps as a manager.

Also read: How to measure productivity at work in 2021? | Awesome tips to boost work outputs

Savings are available

A side-effect of many of the benefits of tool integration mentioned so far is that your business will save money when managing large projects and also facilitate communication and collaboration between departments.

Automation is perhaps the biggest game-changer in this regard, although there are all sorts of small yet noteworthy perks that come with embracing modern approaches to wrangling software solutions and data.

By ensuring a degree of synchronicity and interoperability, everything from HR and customer support to IT and accounts can cost less without requiring any compromises.

Of course, these are not just one-time savings, but those which will continue to make an impact over time. Whenever a manual process is handled automatically, that means less waste and more profit-making productivity for your business.

Problem-solving is emphasized

If employees can work together with the selection of tools you supply, then this gives them a higher likelihood of tackling all sorts of obstacles together.

Problem-solving is only possible when people with different perspectives bring their skills to bear on the issue in question, and when workflows and processes are integrated and assessable across departments, spotting sticking points and finding fixes occurs quicker.

This also goes back to the idea that unless tools are well integrated, employees from different departments will not be able to make equal contributions, leaving some feeling sidelined while others are overburdened with responsibility.

Also read: Top 50 problem solving activities, games & puzzles for remote teams

Clarity comes with the territory

Tool integration is part of a wider process by which workflows are made up of individual employees who know exactly what their role is within an organization, and how this fits in with the broader set of operational processes and the culture of the business as a whole.

Without a cohesive approach, ambiguity can seep in and cause chaos. Instead, with tools and data freely accessible and interoperable, and managers able to delegate duties efficiently, transparency reigns supreme.

That is not to say that security is also compromised. In fact, tool integration can also prevent sensitive information from being available to individuals or departments that have no need of it. This in turn means that regulatory compliance is less at risk in this context.

Wrapping up

No business operates in a vacuum, and the same is true of departments within an organization. They have to function well internally and also engage externally to stay productive.

The business workflow between departments can be enhanced by all sorts of tools, and by using integration services the tools themselves can work better together.

Aside from all of the advantages covered earlier, this means that the more frustrating and un-fun aspects of collaboration can be offloaded to automated solutions.

Job satisfaction will grow, more interdepartmental harmony will emerge and managers will be able to track performance and support team members more successfully. In short, everyone’s a winner when integration is used to do away with fragmentation.

admin