 Basically, I manage operation sites of the services team. Recently, we shifted remotely and we are a complete remote company now. When I started initially working remotely, I had this type of feeling. It's like I'm not able to work, I'm working at a stretch and not taking a much break. It is like not taking proper enthusiasm and not taking advantage of remote working. Together, we discovered a few pointers. I discussed these points with my colleagues and they were also facing similar problems. Together, we discussed a few points and I termed it as techniques. It is basically techniques to manage time, communication, task list and help. These are my learnings and I'm here to share these learnings with you. This definitely worked out for me. I hope that will also work out for you. Before we actually deep dive into the techniques part, how many of you are currently working remotely? Can you please raise your hand? How many of you are managers? Very few. No worries. Let's start with the techniques part. This one is a Pomodoro technique. This is a screenshot of Pomofocus.io. It has their own website, it has their own app as well. Basically, it tells you that you work for 25 minutes, you take 5 minutes of free. You again work for 25 minutes and again take 5 minutes of free. After 4 such sessions, you take 15 minutes of free. You may find it contradictory that you might have listened to that. You may think that taking a short break will spoil it, but it is not the case. Taking a short break will actually help you to be more productive. While taking a break, you may just get up on a chair, take a sip of water, do some stretching exercises, anything that will actually refresh you from whatever you are doing. It is basically taking a regain your focus back. This app allows you to change the focus time as well as the break time. You can change from 5 minutes to 3 minutes and focus time from 30 minutes to 60 minutes as per your requirement. Next one is a focus time. My focus time will be different. Everyone's focus time and everyone's situation is different. Let's say I have less distractions during my morning time and less meetings from my colleagues. I mean, quite a non-noisy timing in the morning time. For someone else, it could be in the afternoon, it could be in the evening. So, trying to find out the best focus time that will help you and that will help you to work in a consecutive manner. In the more complicated tasks, you can't schedule in that particular focus time. So, do any of you know your focus time, which could be a less distracting time for you, where there are less pings? Any of you know? Superb. So, try to find out your focus time. See, it could be in the remote working or it could be if you are working from office also. There will be certain time that will help you that there will be less meetings, less distractions. So, try to find out that focus time and make best utilization of it. Next point is, set social media time and social time. So, we talked about working remotely. We talked about working in a focus manner, taking a short break. But it is also important that we have some social time as well. See, social time could be your family, friends, colleagues or just attending the work camps or workplace meet-ups. In a way, that will help you to gain some knowledge from somebody and to share your knowledge. It is also important that we have some social media time aside. So, some people are including me. We try to look at the phone and even if the phone is not buzzing, we look at the phone and see if there are any notifications or we scroll down to the news, Scrucial Media's website and we lose a track of time. If you are also facing similar kind of problem, you can use tools like freedom, momentum. That will help you to remain focused. You can install these tools on your phone or on your laptop, on a desktop basically. That will help you to keep in a focus manner and it will basically show you some notification that it is time to focus back. Suppose you schedule the social media time. Scheduling the social media time could be a different concept. But try to give it a shot. Let's say you schedule the social media time after your lunch break. Similar kind of problem you might face at the same time. The hack is you schedule some meeting after that. Ultimately, you need to go to the meeting just to prepare the meeting or just to attend the meeting. So you will stop the social media and you will attend the meeting. So this covers the time part. Now we will move on to the communication part. In remote working, it is important that we have clear and concise communication. See many job positions, if you see, you will see an option that one should have a proactive communication. On top of it, I will say you over communicate in the remote working. Let's say if I give in some task to my Kali, if I share some information and I assume that my Kali will take the task ahead. Instead of this assumption, if I say it to my Kali, that I have given you all the information, you take this task ahead in case you face any difficulty, you let me know. That way you are making it very clear to your Kali as well as it is making you clear that a person will take this task ahead. In the remote working, it is also important that we choose the right medium of communication. Suppose you want to give some critical feedback to someone else, or you may want to receive the feedback at then and there. Let's say you want to give the demo and take the initial feedback so that you can work progressively. In this case, tools like a video conferencing tool, like a call over Zoom, Google Meet, or Skype, whichever communication you are using, that will be helpful. In case you want a response in an hour or two, then you choose the Slack or the Google chat, basically the messaging communication tool. In case the task is where the person can take his or her time and respond to your back, then the project management tool or the email communication will be more beneficial. As you said the context also, like you are expecting a response by tomorrow also and so date. That way you are making it very clear for the other person, you are not disturbing the person as well. You are giving the person time that, okay, the person can take a time and respond to your back, think on the topic and respond to your back. Now there are some tools, so this is a screenshot of Grammarly. It will help you to understand if your message is clear enough. So as you type some message, you decide, I mean you can set what is the intended audience of the message, what is the intention of the message, if you are trying to convince something or if you are trying to just provide information for work. As you type the message, you will see some score is getting calculated on the right-hand side corner. And you will see there are some parameters that also gets calculated. So this will help you to understand if the message is clear enough, if the message is intended enough, if the delivery is proper or it is slightly off or do you need to make any changes to it, okay. Now there are some AI tools like a Chargivity and other which will help you to create your message or which will help you to take your minutes of the meeting, okay. So the intent of the message that you want to convey and the message that gets auto-generated, you try to understand whether they are aligned and before you actually send it to someone, okay. Just make sure that both the messages are aligned with each other and then you can send it, okay. Next one is a clockwise tool, okay. So in the remote working, you may find a problem that, okay, you have four meetings, let's say in the day and you may think that, okay, I have attended so many meetings, but I have actually not done any of my tasks, okay. I have not covered my any of the tasks, okay. So to avoid such kind of situation, clockwise tool will help you into a picture, okay. What you need to do is you and your colleagues need to enable the clockwise tool, okay. That will tell you the alternative time slot of the meeting if and only if any of the attendees in the meeting will have more focus time, okay. So this is one of the tool that you can use to gain more focus time and basically try to arrange the meetings in the consecutive manner. See, it is not always in our hand, but try to arrange in the consecutive manner and have a five to ten minute short breeze in between, okay. So this covers the communication part. So move on to the most important, the task management part, okay. So one should have a task list and you should prioritize your task list, okay. So the Isenwood matrix will come into the picture and will help you to prioritize your task list, okay. So if the task is urgent and important, we tend to do it immediately, okay. But if the task is not urgent, not urgent to be done immediately and if the task is important, you try to schedule it, okay. Now the problem I was facing is if the task is boring, let's say you want to create some reports, okay. I will schedule it for tomorrow. Tomorrow some more tasks will come in and ultimately I will delay the task because it is ultimately boring task, okay. So now what I'm trying is, I'm trying to complete the task first thing in the morning. So that will help you. It's like eating the frog. The major boring chunk of the task is finished and now I'm left with other tasks which is manageable for me, okay. Similarly if the task will take just two minutes, you try to do it immediately instead of delaying the task further, okay. This will ultimately delay the task, ultimately increase your task list. It is not a win-win situation. Two minutes task could be you're just providing some information to somewhere else or a very small feedback form you want to fill in, okay. Let's say the task is not urgent, not important. Please delete that task, okay. Do not even maintain your own to-do list, okay. If you maintain in your to-do list, then your to-do list will become overwhelming and you may think that, see, I don't want to work on anything, okay. To avoid this kind of situation, please delete the task. Do not even maintain in your to-do list, okay. Now if the task is urgent but not important, not important in the sense it is not important that only you need to do it, okay. Let's say if as a task is urgent, if you keep it with yourself, there is a high chance that the task will get deleted, okay. And it will have unnecessary validity. So to avoid this kind of situation or let's say you want to empower your colleagues so that they will also learn and they should be able to handle this kind of task, then you delegate the task, okay. Now, see, sometimes if you delegate the task, you pass on the responsibility to somebody else but the accountability still lies with you, okay. In this kind of situation, our next text will come into the picture. This is called as a Gmail multiple inboxes technique, okay. So this technique was introduced to us by our CTO, Mr. Arunesh Pahra. So basically in our organization, we have an advantage that whatever tool we are using, we get the notification over as Gmail, okay. In case this is not the case with you, okay. You try to understand the concept behind it and try to apply it in your organization in whichever tools you are using, okay. Coming back to the techniques, in the Gmail settings, you basically go to an inbox and enable the multiple inboxes, okay. And you can set some labels. Labels are basically filters. For filtering, you can use it, okay. I have set three labels. Three are enough for me. Masterminds can set five labels, okay. I have set needs a reply, awaiting reply and ops reply, okay. So when you enable this setting, your inbox will look like this, okay. Now, let's say you are using some inbox, which let's say you are in Gmail, inbox currently look like a few tabs in it, like a primary forum, social, and you enable this end of setting. You will feel disaster, okay. But take a deep breath and you need to do it. Because this is a one-time action that you need to complete it so that your further part will be easy, okay. Let's say you are doing some focus work and some notification pops in, okay. And you understand that you need to take some action on it, okay. You mark it as a needs a reply, okay. And let's say you understand that you can delegate the task to someone else, okay. You mark it as ops reply, okay. Let's say if you mark the task as needs a reply, that means the task is not very urgent, okay. So you don't need to interrupt in between in the current task and you can continue with the current task. So once the current task is finished, okay, or after the end of the day, you come back to your inbox, see if there are any items in the needs a reply section, okay. If you take the intended action, let's say you send some notification to some glance or to the recipient, anybody, and you are expecting certain response from them, okay. In that case, you add a label as awaiting reply, okay. On the next day when you log in, if there are any items in the awaiting reply section and if the intended response has not been come yet, okay, you may decide to follow with them or you may decide to wait, okay. Similarly, if there are items in the ops reply section and the intended action has not been taken, please, you can decide to follow with your colleagues or the third party services whom you are delegated the work, okay. So this is not alternative for task prioritization or task management. It will just help you to keep the track of the thing to make your life easier, okay. So this covers the task management part and I will move on to the last section. This is called as a health, okay. Sit some office space, okay. So this may sound like, this is like what? But this will help you to, see this will help for people around you to understand, okay. Now the person is working. I may not distract him or her more, okay. And see working remotely, public work in a, what do you can see in the, don't take any more breaks. They don't take a short breaks, okay. And end up having a neck problem or muscle stiffness problem or such kind of problem. Therefore it is important. You keep office space and you keep the chair and the desk position and appropriate manner so that your posture is correct, okay. Work for a home gives you the flexibility to work in pajamas also, okay. But you work, I mean dress appropriately so that you will feel enthusiastic to work, okay. Next one is keep some small habit, okay. So if you take care of your physical health, basically if you take care of your body, you will be more focused. And if you take care of your mind, you will be less anxious and more focused, okay. So you at least have one small habit that will support your physical health or the mental health and the mental health for the matter. So it could be walking, it could be running, meditation, swimming, singing, anything, anything. That will help you to maintain your physical health as well as the mental health, okay. So how many of you have one small habit in your daily routine or in your weekly routine that will support your physical health or the mental health? Anybody has? Very few people, okay. So, see the general excuse we get is we are very short of time, okay. Therefore we are not even to focus on our health. But as we all know and we all agree to it, that health is very important. If you take care of health, ultimately it will take care of everything else, okay. So do take the time out. At least you start with the 10 minutes if not longer duration. But in the 24 hours, take the 10 minutes for you and have some small habit at least, okay. Now the last point is the two-day routine, okay. Let's say from tomorrow you decide you will go on a walk for 30 minutes, okay. You go on a walk for a few days and one fine day you think that I want to skip the walk, okay. You skip that. That is fine. On the next day also you have a similar kind of feeling, okay. I will request you on the next day you don't skip the walk. Not for 30 minutes, at least go on 5 minutes, 10 minutes, okay. See whenever you are trying to build a new activity in your daily schedule, to keep the momentum going on, follow the two-day routine. One day you skip, it is okay. One consecutive day you do not skip, okay. So that is called as a two-day routine, okay. So just to summarize, we will discuss home order technique, okay. You take a short break in between, take, have a focus time, find out your focus time, have some social breaks, okay. Over-communicating the remote working, prioritize your to-do list, maintain your to-do, maintain your to-do list basically. You can use a multi-valued gmail inboxes technique or any, or the similar kind of thing that will help you to track the things that you are delegated to someone or that you want to follow with someone, okay. Set some of office fees. Keep at least one small habit that will help you in your physical health and in the mental health. And follow the two-day rule, okay. Just to keep the momentum going on. I hope you have some takeaways. At least you find out your focus time, okay. Build some small habit and follow the two-day rule so that you will keep the momentum going on, okay. I will be happy to listen to your stories after a few weeks, after a few months, whenever possible, okay. So, sorry. I do want to take. So, thank you, for giving me this opportunity and thank you all for listening to me.