Remote work is an incredible shift for many employees. It can be hard to adjust to not having a boss looking over your shoulder every day, or having to schedule every little thing yourself. It's a different work paradigm, and it requires a lot of discipline.
But it also enables you to do things like go kayaking on your lunch break and make it back in time for the afternoon meeting. Or take a nap during the quietest part of the day, and knock out twice as much work during your peak concentration hours.
Flexibility is one of the greatest advantages of remote work; however, you need to be able to balance that flexibility with productivity. With so many distractions around us all the time, it can be hard to stay focused on what really matters. And if there's no one around us telling us what needs to be done by when, it becomes even harder to plan our time wisely. This should be your go-to guide to knowing how to manage your time most efficiently.
Before getting into the “how” of time management, let’s first take a look at the “why”.
Why Budgeting Time is Important
It's always important to keep track of your time. But for remote teams, it's even more critical.
First of all, a lot of remote companies make money by the hour—not just billable hours from clients, but also from hourly-paid employees. To keep an eye on how much you're spending per project or over a set period of time, you need to be tracking your hours and comparing them against what you've billed for or budgeted for.
Secondly, if your team is working remotely, scheduling and time management become even more complex. You need to make sure that everyone understands what they need to do in a day and has enough time to complete the tasks they're assigned within their eight-hour daily shifts (or whenever they’ve agreed to work). Having clear blocks of time set aside in your calendar for projects and meetings will help you stay on track with your goals and accomplish them more efficiently.
Finally, remote team members are often juggling several different priorities at once: work/life balance can be difficult when you're constantly connected via technology! By managing your time effectively as a whole team, you'll be able to communicate schedules better across departments—which means that deadlines get met faster and happier employees are more productive overall.
To summarize, the benefits of time management are numerous. Here are just a few simplified reasons that explain why budgeting your time is so helpful for you personally:
1. You'll be more productive and engaged in your work—which means you'll get more done.
2. You'll feel more in control of your workload, which will give you peace of mind when the stress mounts up.
3. You'll be able to focus on the most important tasks first, so you don't waste time working on things that aren't essential to achieving your goals.
4. It will help you set priorities and maximize efficiency by making sure every minute counts toward reaching an objective instead of wasting precious minutes away from it!
How to Budget Your Time
You may have wondered, “How do I budget my time in a remote team?” This is a very common question that we’re here to answer.
So, you've made the switch to a remote team. You're probably thinking it's going to be pretty easy, since you don't have to deal with things like commuting or getting to meetings on time.
But the truth is, time management can actually be more difficult for a remote team than an in-person one. It requires a whole new set of skills that can take time to develop.
Here are our top tips for effectively budgeting your time on a remote team:
1) Plan ahead
Without an in-person schedule, you'll need to think about what needs to get done each week and plan accordingly. That means working backward from deadlines and creating plans that help you get there on time while still leaving room for unexpected issues that may arise (and they will).
2) Have clear expectations
When people know what's expected of them, they're more likely to meet those expectations. Make sure you and your team understands exactly what needs to be delivered by which date/time, so there isn't any confusion when it comes time for projects to be completed.
3) Set office hours
Just because everyone is working from home doesn't mean there aren't office hours! Make sure your team knows the hours you will for sure be available. If you work more privately and prefer to do your work at night, that’s totally fine. However, make sure there are a couple of hours every day where team members and your manager know they can get ahold of you to discuss whatever it may be.
Rize
Like most remote workers, you've probably tried a lot of different tools to help you get more done in less time. Maybe you've tried taking breaks every hour, or setting strict limits on how much time you spend on each task. Maybe you even tried using meditation or yoga to get your mind in the right place for productivity.
But what if all it took was just one tool to help you keep track of all your tasks, and help you become more productive without any extra effort?
That's what Rize can do. Rize makes it easy for you to keep track of all your tasks, set the amount of time for each task, and view your progress. You can make sure that when a task is finished, it will appear completed in the system so that no time gets wasted trying to figure out what's going on. It also helps with time-mapping (if you’re into that) by giving you a visual representation of where all your time is going—and when—so that you know exactly how much time each project has taken and how much work still needs to be done.
Rize will help you increase productivity by helping you make sure you’re spending your time wisely. That way, you can focus on the important things
