We are living strange times. Amidst the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, organizations of all sizes are forced to send employees home and to review their management strategies and tools to ensure business continuity. Remote working became not only the safest way, it became almost mandatory in order to limit the propagation of the virus. In this context, you may wonder how you will be able to stay productive. Let me share a bit of my 5 years experience as a remote worker for a software company which itself specializes in Remote Desktop solutions.
Keep Your Daily Routine
Wake up, dress-up, put on make-up if you like it. The idea is that you should feel that you are ready to start the day. You need to set an imaginary line between free and working times. On a weekday, just act like you will actually “Go” to work.
My advice is to try to keep a moment for yourself before really starting your remote working day, in order to get mentally ready to focus on your tasks, as you would have if you were commuting to the office. This could be working-out, playing with your pet, reading a book, listening to music. I dedicate a decent time to my breakfast, during which time I read the news. This helps me slowly prepare myself for the work to come. My morning routine also includes 15 minutes of Yoga, taking care of my cat and watering the plants.
Likewise, be strict about the ending time of your job duties. Plan a transitional activity: it could be playing a game, calling a friend, learning something new…Or having a little glass of wine. Anything that helps you relax and leave the work behind for the evening. As you’ll be sitting all day long with easy access to the kitchen, I highly advise to get involved in some physical activities: if you don’t have a treadmill at home, it’s easy to find online classes for dance, zumba, yoga, tai-chi… No excuse! This will keep you healthy and productive.
Have A Dedicated Office Space
This point is probably the most important one. Find a spot in your place where you will be certain to be able to focus, as isolated as possible from the people who might come disturbing you (kids and partner…). My recommendation is to avoid picking your bedroom at all costs. The living room or even the kitchen if it’s large enough are better options. The idea is to put a physical distance between your “office” and your “home”.
Set your office environment: choose the right orientation to benefit from a good light, make it comfy with a good office chair which will not give you back pain at the end of the day. Make it nice: add a green plant, a photo… And get yourself equipped with quality material: a powerful laptop, a printer if needed, and especially a large monitor to make it easy for your eyes…
Use Professional Remote Working Tools Like TSplus
This is the obvious part – but it comes with a condition: to be able to work efficiently from home, connect to your office apps and collaborate online with your team, you need a strong and reliable Internet connection. Once this is checked, you have the choice within a panel of tools to have access to your usual working material. I will not list all of the VPN and cloud-based solutions. For me the best option is the one I use everyday: Remote desktop, and more specifically TSplus Remote Access.
Three criteria are very important for businesses who need to find quick responses to the current crisis: Budget conscious, high security and easy training and implementation. I can tell you that TSplus covers all of that and much more. Although it is still a small player on the market, TSplus has been delivering worldwide and developing their Remote Desktop and Application publishing software for 10 years. Installed on a corporate server, TSplus makes it possible to accept secure connections from multiple clients on different types of devices, regardless of the version or OS installed.
It’s easy for an employer to build a nice corporate web portal and publish the applications needed for each user. Then all you need is a web browser and your favorite device to work from home like at the office. All connections are secured with HTTPS, in addition to individual web credentials. No need for complex VPN installation, everything is quick and intuitive. The real plus is that it won’t blow the cap off your company’s IT budget: TSplus can be purchased for half the price of its bigger contemporaries such as Citrix XenApp.
When it comes to collaborative and project-management apps; I recommend Slack and Infolio for a quick and free start.
Enjoy a Special “Coronavirus” offer
At TSplus, remote working is the rule, not the exception. We are the first users of our Remote Desktop solution and that is why we are able to testify of its benefits. Now you have enough information to take the step to remote working. To support businesses in this crisis and make the transition a bit less painful, TSplus offers a free license of its full-featured Enterprise edition for the whole period of the epidemic.
Floriane, happy remote employee at TSplus
