How I have a productive remote work week as a female CEO
You can’t separate your productivity from whatever you’re dealing with in life. Be it personal challenges, health issues, a newborn, or even a noisy neighbor.
But you can set up systems that allow you to return to peak productivity again and again.
As a woman in tech, I love approaching productivity from every possible angle. Tools. Team collaboration. Human biology. Passion. Psychological rewards.
From 10 years of experience managing two remote companies (+70 people), here’s what I’ve learned about being productive.
1. Proactively avoid context switching and multitasking
It takes the human brain around 23 minutes to regain focus after switching from one task to another.
The number of projects or tasks a human is working on simultaneously, the worse. When a person is split between two tasks, they spend 40% of their time and effort working on each one, and 20% switching between the two. But when assigned to five projects, the team member contributes only 20% of their time to those projects, with the other 80% of their time spent on switching tasks.
Of course, in any given day, you have different tasks and projects that need to be accomplished. Here are some ways to make sure that constant switching doesn’t destroy your productivity:
- Only check email and notifications at designated times, such as at the start of your day and after lunch
- Turn off mobile phone notifications and desktop notifications
- Talk with your team about setting expectations around response times (a 4–12 hour response time should be sufficient in most cases, anything higher and your entire team will be forced to context switch constantly)
- Use a social media blocker and place your phone in another room
2. Separate deep work from shallow work
Deep work is work that engages your entire being: your experience, your talent, your emotions, your commitment to the project. This work is important and it moves you towards your goals.
Shallow work, on the other hand, is all of the “stuff” that can clutter up your day. Depending on what role you’re in, shallow work might be making revisions, running automated tests, generating reports, responding to emails, booking appointments, etc.
It’s best to separate your deep work from your shallow work. Organize your day to allow for true focus on deep work.
There will still be distractions during your deep work time.
“If you want to win the war for attention, don’t try to say ‘no’ to the trivial distractions you find on the information smorgasbord; try to say ‘yes’ to the subject that arouses a terrifying longing, and let the terrifying longing crowd out everything else.” — Cal Newport in Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World
So when you’re in deep work mode, focus on the purpose of that project, and let your passion come through. This commitment to the project at hand will make it easier for you to deny distractions (like text messages) and temptations (like scrolling social media) as they arise.
3. Batch tasks on daily, weekly, and monthly basis
98% of workers focus best when facing a single type of task. So by batching your work, you give yourself the gift of singularity.
But we’ve all heard this advice before. Sure, you might batch your email responses, but are you really batching projects the way that you should? If you’re only looking at task-batching on a daily basis, you’re really missing out on some productivity wins.
Instead, map out tasks with a much broader view. Batch tasks weekly, or even monthly if you can. Of course, things might change as you go along, but by batching regular work (not just communications), you’ll save a lot of time.
4. Define your daily MIT (most important task)
If you’re successfully planning and batching your tasks, it should be a lot easier to identify your most important task of the day.
This is the task that you should tackle during your deep work, and the one that you should prioritize above all else. Before you start on it, remind yourself why it is important and how it contributes to your overall goals and success. This will energize you as you dive in.
5. Understand your peak performance factors
Top-notch productivity relies in part on knowing when to do certain tasks, and when not to. And much of that knowledge emerges from the human body. An ultradian rhythm is any biological rhythm that falls within a span of 24 hours, everything from our heart rate to our ability to experience REM sleep cycles 3 to 5 times per night.
As a remote knowledge worker, your body and brain have moments of peak performance — times in your daily rhythm where your focus and attention are at their height. The best thing you can do is pay attention to these moments of peak performance, and organize your day around them, so that you’re only ever doing deep work during these times. Shallow work, communications, and meetings (only when necessary) should fall at other times.
All in all, you’ll want to pay attention to the following:
- Time of day: What times of the day are you most alert and focused? At what times does your energy dip?
- Food: What types of foods make you feel sluggish, and what energizes you?
- Environment: Do you do best in totally quiet environments, or do you prefer some background noise? Or do you work best when you switch things up throughout the week?
6. Try the Pomodoro technique with your own perfect timing
The Pomodoro technique is a well-known time management system that suggests that you set a timer for 25 minutes, and when that timer goes off, you take a 5-minute break before beginning the next Pomodoro (25 minutes of work then another 5-minute break).
This system works great for me, but it’s not for everyone. You can get similar results with your own system. Maybe you work for 35 minutes and take an 8-minute break instead. Experiment and find what works for you. Building in breaks allows your brain to rest and work better when it’s time to begin again.
7. Choose asynchronous communication regardless of your team’s time zones
Slack’s statistics show that users spend 90 minutes in the app throughout 9 hours of their day. That’s a lot of interruptions.
I manage two remote companies, and I know firsthand that real-time messaging can absolutely destroy team productivity. That’s why we use truly asynchronous communication. It isn’t live like a video, nor do we expect each other to respond immediately like many companies using chat apps do.
To save time for everyone, communicate via video and audio messages with an app like Weet and comment on project management task cards. Avoid real-time chatting and conference calls whenever possible.
8. Track and measure your tasks each day
How long do you actually spend on various tasks? Figuring that out can give you the data you need to make decisions that will impact your performance. There are lots of different remote work tracking tools available. Some of them can track what web-apps you’re using (such as how much time you spend in Jira versus LinkedIn), while others require that you log the task you’re working on, and then set a timer to track it.
When you first start using a task tracking tool, you’ll probably find that some tasks are taking you longer than you thought. Depending on the importance of these tasks, you might try to complete them faster or on the flip side, give them the time they deserve and stop overstuffing your calendar.
9. Reward yourself for your increased productivity
If you’re truly passionate about the work you do, then you might reward yourself for your increased productivity with the opportunity to get more work done.
But you should also reward yourself with more living. Take work off early. Read a book. Jog around the block. Meet a friend for coffee. Spend an extra hour with your kids.
When you use your time gains to get more out of life, you’ll positively reinforce your new productivity habits and ensure that they stick.
Productivity is a personal journey. It has its ups and downs. But like anything good in this life, it’s worth working towards.
If you are interesting to know more about productivity tips, I share weekly youtube #shorts videos on my channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnkPtzjs-hLIPAMUIqV8I_Q
