Category: How do I

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How I do: work remotely and thrive

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Since early 2020, there has been a significant growth in remote workers. Many were forced to do so, whether they were ready or not. Some adapted well while others are still adapting or resisting. Some workers are considering working in a hybrid (some time in the office and some time remote), which makes little sense since you do not accomplish anything more in an office away from home.

Have a dedicated workspace where you can focus on work.

If you really look at how you spend your time, measure your productivity, and have meaningful/impactful communication, you will have more online than in person. And I say that as an Extravert.

If you really become self-aware of your time in an office, you will be less productive, less communicative with valued impact, and more wasteful commuting, walking around to places that have decreasing value for every step you take in an office. The empty office is a waste of time and money. Stop defending the commercial real estate spend that is a sunk cost and dump it already.

I was called by several Fortune 50 companies that had the illusion that my time should suddenly be 20% to 50% cheaper now that everyone can work remotely based on their projected “cost of living”. Allow me to correct them publicly as I did over the phone before I declined their bid for me to work for them. This goes for every employer or contract, though.

My work does not change in scope or difficulty regardless of where I am physically located to do the work. Neither do the rates I charge.

Let us very publicly burst the bubble that employers pay anything close to “the cost of living” where they are located. Some day, Human Resources professionals will stop using ‘cost of living’ as an excuse when they have not researched this themselves in their locality today, nor updated regularly based on where their employees are located. Let us stop this fiction since we live in reality.

Each role has a budget set aside for it. What is the budget for this position? Know ahead of time what you should be paid for this role.

By the way, distributed companies (those that have little to no offices with thousands of workers), offer the same pay scale to everyone, based on their title and role, regardless of their location worldwide because it is the employees’ choice where they live and work. Not the employers. If it is not a choice, employers will have fewer applicants, fewer experienced professionals, and fewer employees in the near future, even when they really need them.

Why does it matter where the company is located? It is understood that many companies will have pay grades and pay scales that slide up and down. I am not advocating for the unionization of workers, especially if you have negotiation skills and work experience to back it up.

What can employers do better to adapt to remote workers?

Here are some ways to set expectations publicly.

How do I: Start a mastermind group

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After reading Eric Moeller‘s book Levelling Up: The Complete Guide to Starting a Mastermind Group, I started several virtual masterminds:

Writers’ Mastermind Group

A group of writers who all have the common goal of completing their own book project and self-publishing it before Thanksgiving.

I had the idea of having a group of writers who want to complete a book and then pushed them forward (including myself as a peer) with:

  • Creating a daily habit of writing – a manageable 30 minutes every day
  • Holding weekly accountability sessions online for peer accountability and peer support over the summer. This changed to meeting twice a month in the Fall due to other meetings for the same group.
  • Setting realistic goals for each of us (example: write 1 page per day) and declare them
  • Share online resources for design, editing, layout, self-publishing, and other helpful tips to accomplish the ultimate mastermind group goals

Started with an online survey in June to have writers opt-in with qualifying questions.

Two weeks later, I followed up with a scheduled Q&A session via group Zoom call for those already committed and anyone on the fence. Locked in the group that night and we got started. No more procrastination.

We wrote during July, August, and September. Then we had the books edited in October. Pushed for cover designs, formatting, layout, and marketing.

Pushed to finish their book projects and ready to publish in late November.

Podcasting Mastermind Group

During the summer, I also started a mastermind for podcasting with a few podcasters.

Want to join a Mastermind Group? 

Schedule a complimentary call to discuss if it is right for you and get your questions answered today

 

How do I: take notes

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Since I listen to podcasts on my smartphone, I often listen and pause the podcast episode that just mentioned something worth noting, since memory fades for everyone. How do I take notes?

I open up my “note-taking” app on my smartphone which is as simple as emailing myself and/or someone else who would benefit from this note along with the podcast episode link (or the source of this information) and when I heard it (timecode in the podcast). I would rewind the podcast 15 seconds or more as needed and play that part a few times to be sure I wrote down the memorable points for the note to reference in the future.

The same applies to note-taking conference calls. Note major points or action items with who is responsible. If it is due by the next scheduled meeting, I would include assignments per name in the schedule calendar invite as long as they are smart assignment.

Beyond podcasts and meetings, if any ideas are worth noting because they have value to you as needed/wanted experience, inspiration and/or knowledge, then capture them for future reference. Those ideas can spawn more ideas in the future. If the ideas and points shared have no perceived value to you, don’t note them. Note-taking is a value judgment and not an ego stroke. If you follow the ABC methodology (Always Be Capturing), then purge periodically. Not everything has value.

Do I use paper? Nope. Paper will get lost, ignored, and is not transferable to others without writing/copying it again electronically. Twice the effort is not worth it. Instead, formulate an email that can have your notes in that email shared with all in the meeting by the end of the meeting. No doodling needed. That email may include images of any whiteboard (virtual or physical) annotated as seen or links to slide decks/images/videos shared.

If all your notes are not accessible to you at all times, portable at all times, and transferable from anywhere to anywhere, they have little value. Those recorded ideas can be as distant from you as your smartphone.

The idea behind note-taking is to make those ideas are available for future reference, not perfection. That future reference might be hours, days, weeks, months, or years later. Without such notes, all these fleeting ideas become forgotten details disappearing as fast as time today.

How do I: deal with low attention spans

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When there are a lot of distractions going on, it is hard to retain anyone’s attention. So how do I deal with periods of time like this?

People are busy. So am I. If you want someone’s attention, ping them on a scheduled basis to see when you can schedule a short amount of time with them. Now is not likely the best time and you will quickly realize that when asking for their time.

Scheduling short meetings will help retain more focus and attention than an hour (or longer) droning meetings. Imagine if you cut the chatter out completely and limited meetings to 15 total minutes or 30 total minutes. The people who need to make a point will get to it much faster than during a 1-hour to 2-hour meeting.

Need a 5-minute buffer between calls for a breather, a bathroom break or to get a beverage? Add the 5 minutes to your schedule and cut the meeting to 25 minutes instead. Emphasize that hard stop time in the beginning of the meeting. Give a reminder when all of you have 5 minutes left and hold to the scheduled end time as if it was your religion. Need more time? Schedule another block of time in the future. Make sure to get to points you need to cover and add those to a meeting agenda beforehand as a prequel for everyone to prepare as needed.

Now imagine if only the people who need to be there are invited and everyone starts on time regardless of stragglers or late people (no matter how important they might be). Record the decisions made and email this to people who need to know. If decision-makers are not there, no sense in being in the meeting at all. Just reschedule. If decisions don’t need to be made, email the update, and don’t waste time with a meeting. If you need to verbally tell lots of people something, video record it and send it to them. Fewer distractions. More focus. This is easier when everyone is remote and you don’t have to waste time walking to any meeting room or waiting for it to clear out from the last meeting. I don’t miss the useless office.

This goes for home life too. Schedule time with your loved ones as well as friends and be clear when they get your scheduled attention from [start time] to [end time]. They will hold you to it since it that should work for all parties or need to be rescheduled before the scheduled time.

If you notice your metrics (social media traffic, website traffic, emails directed personally to you) drop significantly, it will be noticeable and it often happens seasonally. For example, the last week of the year or just before a major holiday, or during the last weeks of an election, don’t expect anyone’s attention nor true focus. Their mind is elsewhere. Schedule a time afterward.

If you do find the time, focus, and ideas to work on, take that less disrupted time to work on self-assigned projects that mean something to you.

Shiny objects will keep appearing. Everyone is out to steal your attention away from you. Guard your time by ruthlessly filtering out distractions that you have no control over. Realize what you do and don’t control among the many things that take your attention and time away from you. What do you want to do with your own time and attention?

How do I: deal with writer’s block

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Someone asked me recently how do I deal with writer’s block and what is the opposite of it.

Hypergraphia is the opposite of writer’s block.

As a writer, you probably don’t want writer’s block nor hypergraphia. Something in between works well. 

Some writers claim there is no such thing as writer’s block, just as much as no one suffers from speaker’s block (let us assume this is not public speaking which many people are afraid of).

There is a lot of reasons why writers find it hard to write sometimes. Author Steven Pressfield wrote about these challenges, excuses, remedies, and struggles in The War of Art. Note this is not by Sun Tzu who wrote The Art of War, but that is a good read as well.

Besides focus, the structure is often one of those missing elements that may be a common blocker in the writing process. The structure can be used as building blocks for your project and help guide you to what still needs work. Without a structure, it is like creating a building with no plans and no timeline which would not work out well for any existing budget nor sanity. That structure may include an outline that becomes a table of contents. That structure can be fluid (like water) as contents expand and flexible (like bamboo) as it grows more mature and hopefully clear to what it’s for and who’s it for. You can use a mindmap to link ideas together. You can use timelines with multiple swimlanes to figure out time frames for events with each character. These tools will help you fill gaps in your book project.

Don’t waste your time. Schedule your writing time daily. Make your book project a daily habit for as little as 30 minutes a day when you have available time, energy, and ideas flowing.

Take that massive book project which is likely a big hairy audacious goal (BHAG) and break that structure down into finite timely achievable goals (FTAGs). Each goal is a series of doable steps.

Perfect is not an achievable goal, so move on from the myth of perfect and just ship it.

How do you deal with writer’s block?

For help with your own book project, schedule consulting time online with Henrik de Gyor today