At Mosaic, we’re used to working from home. Here are some of our tried-and-true methods for reaching the ultimate productivity levels.
As much of the world leans into working remotely from their kitchen tables and home office desks, there have been lots of questions raised about how to reach peak productivity from a new space. At Mosaic Events, we’re used to collaborating with each other remotely. In this unique new normal that we’re all finding ourselves in, we decided to dig into what works for the Mosaic team for collaboration, teamwork and productivity that keeps us doing our jobs at a top-notch level.
Here are Mosaic Events' favorite, tried-and-true tips for remote work that allows for great collaboration, excellent communication and wonderful work.
1. Collaborating via the Internet
No true teamwork can happen without consistent collaboration, which is a challenge many people consider when it’s time to build out a remote team. Luckily, there is lots of software out today that allows for communication and collaboration at a higher level than many offices. With just an internet connection, it’s easy to stay in contact with your team members via individual messages or team channels without sending long and daunting emails back and forth.
Mosaic’s pick: At Mosaic, we’re huge fans of the Slack platform. Slack is a great way to chat and collaborate with your team via your computer (or phone) keyboards, and the website allows you to set up different channels of communication based on client, topic or team. By using Slack, your internal communication is easy peasy.
Collaboration doesn’t always revolve around conversation, which is why it’s also incredibly important to be able to use cloud-based software that allows your team to divvy up tasks, work together on specific projects or stay up-to-date on a project’s progress. Cloud-based software allows your team to keep up with each other in real-time, whether that means checking off dynamic to-do lists or working together on client deliverables.
Mosaic’s pick: At Mosaic, our team uses Kanban to digitize sticky notes and Asana to manage our workloads with one another. The thing is, there are lots of options for cloud-based software that helps with teamwork, and it takes some testing to figure out which one works best for you. Other favorites that we’ve heard great things about include Monday, Notion, ProWorkflow and Teamwork.
So many memes and jokes have been made lately about the world’s current obsession with Zoom, and we totally get it! However, Zoom is not the only way to collaborate during the day on certain tasks. If you or a teammate is confused on a task, take a few extra minutes to send a screen share video via Quicktime of you doing the task then send it over. This allows your team to review any details that could normally be missed with a video chat.
2. Using technology for team-wide self-care
When working in an office environment, breaks can be easier to come by. While most offices obviously prioritize productivity, they’re also quite a bit more open for conversation and walking around than home offices are. When working from home, it can be easy to become glued to your computer without taking more than 10 steps the entire day. While working from home is pretty great, it really can lead to burnout if not treated right. Our favorite tip? Use technology to encourage breaks during the day! We spend so much time tapping away on our keyboards that it can be easy to ignore our own needs. However, there are so many ways to use our keyboards to stoke our creativity fire through unique ways. We love using break apps to remind ourselves to take a minute. Some apps will suggest that you take a break for a couple of pushups, while some apps will push you to get outside for a walk.
Mosaic’s pick: At Mosaic, we love apps like Workrave, Big Stretch Reminder, PC Work Break and EVO to encourage each other to take mini breaks during the day. With these, we’re able to utilize taking a minute for our ultimate productivity!
3. Keep connectivity at the forefront
Here’s the thing: when working from home or with a team remotely, nothing happens without connectivity. At Mosaic, we all work together to optimize our home offices to make sure that a lack of connectivity isn’t something that we struggle with. To optimize our connectivity, we’re sure to keep wireless modems dust-free and nearby, and we do small things like disconnect other devices from wifi and close pointless internet tabs to ensure that we’re not disrupting our connectivity levels!
Working remotely is a great way to engage your team in periods where face-to-face isn’t possible, and it’s also a great method for teams in this technological time. With productivity hacks and time-management software at your side, you’ll be well on your way to killing the remote work game!
