Twan Kruiswijk - Remote 101

How to focus when working remotely

Working from the comfort of your own home comes with a different set of challenges when it comes to focusing on your work. Loud neighbors, easy access to your favorite distractions, your spouse, your kids, everything, and everyone wants your attention.

My experiences

Five things I learned while working remotely

Many things have changed in the past few years. In the summer of 2019, I got the keys to my very own apartment. That introduced another set of challenges with working from home that I didn't expect. After all, I've gotten my own place! My productivity heaven!

shorts

Focus on output, not on input

For many people working remotely, it's difficult to detach from the traditional 8 hours of input. But think about how you'd spend your 8 hours at the office, certainly not crunching away behind your desk for the total amount of time.

Getting Started

How to start working remotely as a team?

Many teams were forced to start working remotely due to the pandemic. You might have liked aspects of working remotely and are interested in giving it a more planned try. But how? Do you send everybody home for the week?

shorts

Batch it! A quick tip that will free up time in your day.

Since I have introduced batching into my days, it has increased my productivity significantly. For one, it gave me back a lot of time during the day since I no longer get lost in youtube or my social feeds. Second, I can now more easily focus during my deep work time.

Getting Started

4 tips to be more productive while working from home

Here are four tips for people who want to up their productivity game while working from home.

Common issues

How to manage all those notifications

This post is about how you can turn the tide in your battle against the attention-stealing notification.

My experiences

Living alone and working remotely

I did not expect that the difference between living alone and with people makes such a difference when working remotely. What changed? What tips do I have to share?

future

Virtual reality for remote teams 👓

With virtual reality, you are not trying to bring back the office into working remotely. You are trying to enhance the social interactions that you have as a team.

Common issues

Stop talking about working remotely in this way. ❌

The conversations I have about working remotely mostly turn into the other person defending why they are not working from home themselves.

Common issues

The ever-expanding toolbox 🛠

Finding the right tools for your toolbox can be of great value for your business and remote team. But the line is very thin between adding value or clutter.

Common issues

Watch your health when working remotely ♥

Having the complete freedom of working from anywhere you'd like is great, but being the best version of yourself while enjoying this freedom makes it so much more fun. How can you achieve that?

home office

The home office - building your space

When you start your first remote day, that messy old desk isn't going to cut it. You need to create your productivity shrine. Let's go over some steps to see how we can achieve just that.

Common issues

Communicating in an asynchronous office 📫

If you are building a feature, how productive are you going to be when you are always getting pulled out of the flow by notification sounds and pop-up windows? You guessed it, NOT!

Common issues

How to stop working?

A lot of remote working people I talk to find it difficult to stop working at the end of each workday. You don't see people leaving the office when you work from home.

home office

The home office - Finding the right place

The home office, the remote worker's holy place. The place where you experience career victories and grind through complex problems. Having a solid place to work from is vital for getting work done.

My experiences

Feeling guilty while taking a break

In my experience, even though I was encouraged to take breaks and plan in my time, the first few weeks I had this feeling of guilt whenever I took a 20-minute break to walk the dog in the middle of the day.

Productivity

Are website blockers useful for productivity?

The first couple of days were an eye-opener. I know I wasted time, but I was hitting the blockade screen so much that I wonder exactly how much time I wasted before I started using the blockade.

My experiences

Check-ins

Especially when working remotely, notify everyone about the daily check-in when it's a reasonable time to leave their chair. If you see that someone is consistently answering late in the evening, it could be a sign that the person is carrying to much work and is burning out.

My experiences

Keeping a human schedule (and how to make one)

After saying "Sorry guys, another time" for the millionth time, I decided to take action before this could have any adverse effects on my relationships. I decided on creating a schedule.

My experiences

Working remotely | the importance of daily routines

If you don't wake up at 5 AM, exercise and build a rocket ship in the morning you suck right? Instead of forcing these kind of habits I build some routines around taking better care of myself...

My experiences

Working remotely | Switching from office to bedroom

the company I work for decided to go remote, meaning that within weeks I would need to move from my desk at the office to the desk in my bedroom.