Remote Worker Routines for a Better Work Life

Having a healthy routine in your day as a remote worker is vital to enjoying your work.

The word "routine" gets a bad rap. We often associate it with boring, vanilla feelings of sameness and mundanity, but the reality is that good routines and processes allow for a lot of freedom.

Healthy remote worker routines ensure that workers have the appropriate amount of time in their day for the tasks required, and remove some of the decisions around what to do and when.

Your mileage may vary, but here is my daily remote worker routine broken down.

My day starts the night before. I wake up a few hours earlier than my wife in order to write and start my day, so prepping for the morning is critical.

Most evenings I perform some kind of physical activity as a wind down between work and spending time with my partner. This usually means a run, some bouldering, strength training, or something else. Not only does this give me much needed physical activity, it also provides a clear stop work barrier before relaxing.

Before heading to bed I review notes from the day and write down action for the next morning. I place clothing where I need them for an easy start in the morning, and I head to bed at a reasonable time for some phone free reading time.

According to the sleep foundation there are four chronotypes; Lion, Bear, Wolf, Dolphin. Irrespective of how your body prefers to work, I'd make an argument that starting early has it's benefits, especially when it comes to getting some work checked off prior to the rest of your team or family waking up.

My morning routine starts by putting on the coffee machine, showering, and then getting about 1–1.5 hours of focused writing and creative time. I spend this time working on personal development, writing articles like the one you're reading right now, and also working on my own projects.

After this I take some family time, then I begin work at 8am, which is an hour before the rest of my team. This allows me to ensure my checklist for the day is actioned well ahead of any items becoming a blocker for the team.

One of the most critical elements to remote worker success is checking in on projects and communications, but not allowing this to dictate your work day. I recommend short slots scheduled throughout your day for meetings, checking email, Slack, documentation and project boards.

For me I try and focus most of this work early in the day when I am fresh, then I transition to deeper work later in the day when I have collected everything I need to action this work in the afternoon.

Always have at least some focus time scheduled in your day for deep work. Ideally as much as you can reasonably get away with. Most remote jobs are knowledge based and therefor require vast amounts of deep work, so if you're not protecting this valuable time in your schedule you will find that your work quality (and, even worse, your weekends) may suffer.

I try and schedule in 3–4 hours every day of focus time. This isn't always achievable, but it is the goal I try and achieve.

If you've gotten this far I am just going to offload some last minute items to add to your daily remote worker checklist.