What makes working from home hard--and how you can overcome those challenges. For more detailed information on each of these issues, visit https://zapier.com/blog/remote-work-challenges/

1. The 7 Biggest Challenges
Remote Workers Face

2. Advantages of Remote Work.
No soul-crushing commute. No managers or co-workers hanging over your shoulder.
No one stealing your lunch from the office fridge. Remote work is wonderful.

3. Remote Work: Not All Rainbows
and Unicorns.
A recent report from the United Nations
International Labour Organization found
that while employees are more productive
when they work outside of the conventional
office, they're also more vulnerable to:

4. working longer hours a more intense work pace
work-home interference greater stress

5. Working Too Much
Remote workers are more likely to overwork. If you work for
yourself, you might be in never-ending sales mode, which can be exhausting,
says author and coach Jeff Gothelf.
says Conrado Lamas, CMO at Carts Guru.
There is always something to be solved–and when you have an
office routine, it’s easier to leave what you do at the workplace.
When you work from home, your office is where you live.
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6. How to Avoid Overworking
Set appointments on your calendar for the end of the day.
Set up reminders to take breaks.
Create physical boundaries between you and your workspace.
Turn off notifications on your phone and computer.
Be clear with your team on when you’re leaving.

7. Prioritizing Work
Remote workers need to be
self-motivated experts at
time management, because we
don’t have others constantly
overlooking our work or
managing our time for us.
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8. How to Make Sure You Get the
Most Important Work Done
Limit the number of
tasks you plan to do
each day.
Eat the frog. Your “frog” is
your biggest, most important
task, the one you are most
likely to procrastinate on.
Manage your energy,
not your time.
Install distraction-limiting
tools.
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9. Interruptions: You Have a Family,
Pets, and/or a Doorbell
The good news is, when you work from home, you avoid
co-workers dropping by your desk and other office interruptions.
The bad news is you’ll likely have to deal with other kinds of
interruptions and distractions, whether it’s the UPS delivery
person needing your signature or in-laws dropping by
unannounced. This is doubly true when kids are involved.
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10. How to deal with interruptions at home
Set up a kind of signal
that lets others know
when you’re in focus
mode.
Explain why it’s
important for you to
avoid interruptions.
For young kids, getting
childcare is a must.

11. Train your kids and
significant other to be
self-sufficient and occupy
themselves.
Keep consistent
work hours.
Escape. If all else fails,
try working out of a
co-working space, the
library, or a coffee shop.

12. If you don’t have family members home with
you when you’re working, you might have the
opposite problem: Isolation. Even with
internet access and tools like Slack, you might
still develop “cabin fever” from being in the
same place for too long all by yourself.
Loneliness and Lack
of Human Interaction
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13. How to Not Feel Isolated When
Working From Home
Include social breaks in
your schedule.
Try working at
co-working spaces or
coffee shops.
Be more intentional
about joining local groups
or organizations.

14. Communication Issues and
Being Out of the Loop
When the bulk of your communication happens
via email and the like, it doesn't take much for
bad blood to develop unless everyone is making
their best effort to the contrary, say Basecamp
founders Jason Fried and David Heinemeier.
The only real solution is to communicate as
much as possible–clarifying anything that could
be a misunderstanding–and to be proactive in
speaking up.
?
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15. Time Zone Differences
Related to being or feeling out of the loop: Those terrible time zones. You might
be waking up just when your teammate is going to bed. That means you can’t
always rely on your fellow team member to be available to answer a pressing
question or solve any other immediate need. The solution? Fried and Heinemeier
recommend teams have a 4-hour overlap. Remote workers need to be flexible
when working with others in different time zones.

16. Technology Hiccups
Nothing makes a remote worker shake in fear
as much as an internet outage. Or, perhaps,
when your computer breaks. For peace of
mind–and to avoid delays in your work–have
a backup plan. A mobile hotspot device like
a MiFi or a cell phone plan that allows tethering
can save you when your internet goes out.
A backup computer–or maybe even a tablet–can
get you through the day until you can get your
computer fixed.
ERROR!
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17. Bad Health Habits
There's no magic pill for this one either. You just have to be more
mindful when working from home about your health habits. You
can set reminders for yourself in your calendar or to-do app to eat
a salad or do some yoga. One app that can really help is Fitbolt,
a Chrome extension that regularly reminds you to take a break,
stretch, drink water, and so on.
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18. To learn more about remote
work and productivity, visit
www.zapier.com/bloghttp://cntll.io/3c68_1406