productivity

Will remote jobs eventually require you to be on camera all day?

This post is a response to two questions posed on Quora. Question 1 can be viewed at: “https://www.quora.com/How-can-remote-workers-maintain-focus-and-productivity-while-working-from-home-with-distractions/answer/Antonio-Amaral-1” and Question 2 can be veiwed at: “https://www.quora.com/Will-remote-jobs-eventually-require-you-to-be-on-camera-all-day/answer/Antonio-Amaral-1“ — For answers to additional questions, my profile can be accessed via “https://www.quora.com/profile/Antonio-Amaral-1/“

Question 1: How can remote workers maintain focus and productivity while working from home with distractions?

Depending upon one’s home environment and mindset, it’s much easier to maintain focus while working from home than in a work environment where random interruptions must be regarded as necessary enough to set aside what one is working on.

At home, especially if one is single and lives alone, there is no better environment for focusing on one’s work.

Being motivated enough to finish a task means being free from the metronomic effect of paying attention to a clock. There is no “gearing down” before the end of one’s workday. One can continue working on something until it’s finished.

The consequence of that kind of focus can result in working the equivalent of a double shift to finish a task. That then earns a time bonus of taking the next day off, which is a straightforward means of contributing towards one’s psychological well-being due to having the time to deal with personal issues that would otherwise become a stress-inducing time-management problem.

Remote work is the only work arrangement I will accept now, primarily because I don’t want to endure toxic people jockeying for position through politicking nonsense. If I’m hired to do a job, I want to be focused on the work and not be distracted by egotistical nonsense to make life unbearable.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy collaboration and work well with others, but there is always a difficult person in a crowd. Unless the relationship is one in which I am their superior (because I can mitigate their toxicity), I want to minimize my interactions with such types and “grey rock them” if the work requires interacting with them. I’m not interested in becoming embroiled in the social politics of a work environment, particularly not if it’s an environment rife with cliques and silos. In such environments, I prefer the role of mysterious social outcast. AFAIAC, I already share enough of my personhood and life online here on Quora as I care to share within any public context.

Question 2: Will remote jobs eventually require you to be on camera all day?

There isn’t any point in doing that if you understand the tasks being performed and the time expectations that can be estimated for them. Establishing a mutually respectful communication style with staff means one develops a trusting relationship with them. They will then provide updates and progress reports that you can verify based on the deliverables.

Your role as a leader is to ensure you are available to facilitate production, and if your employees trust you and your judgment, they will be open about their activities. They will often approach you with questions about direction, confirm decisions you can ratify or offer helpful insights into improving their work process. A good leader is a coach whom people want to learn from.

The only kind of leader who feels a need to micro-monitor their staff is an incompetent leader. That characteristic alone should be enough justification to replace that leader.

Whether onsite or remote, performance should be easy to assess. If not, the problem isn’t the employee but the management.

What is an example of the barrier of distraction?

This post is a response to a question posed in its full format as follows: “Distraction is a barrier to critical thinking. What is an example of a situation where you have or might in the future encounter the barrier of distractions?”

Referring to distraction as a “barrier” is a misnomer because critical thinking relies on focused effort, while distraction is a dilution in focus.

It would be like describing apathy toward physical exercise as a barrier to physical fitness. The lack of motivation to exercise isn’t a barrier per se, but the reasons for or causes of that apathy are.

It can inhibit effectiveness or prevent resolution not because it prohibits effort but because it drains effort at the moment that would otherwise be required to achieve it.

Distractions occur all the time and every day. This question is an example of a distraction because I’m trying to fall back asleep after waking up at four in the morning and find myself thinking about something I’ve been working on, which has preoccupied my attention to such a degree that I’ve become fully awake.

That’s a problem because it will mean a dramatic loss of energy at about three in the afternoon when I should be working on my project in earnest in front of my computer to record my thoughts and flesh out my ideas more concretely and productively.

To distract myself, I turned to Quora to earmark a few questions I might answer and found this question I am currently answering.

In this case, the distraction has been beneficial because answering this question has drained my focus on strategizing and made it easier to relax enough to feel the stupor return. Hopefully, I’ll be able to fall back asleep soon and get a few more hours to have a productive day when I wake up.

In this case, distraction is a means of helping me reserve energy for tackling a critical thinking activity ahead of me at a time when I will need to focus my thoughts.

In this case, distraction isn’t a barrier but an assistant. (Except for all the typos I’m prone to making with “fumble thumbs” on my phone.)

Distraction can be helpful in many ways, such as when one encounters a mental block and fails to make progress on something. Walking away from the problem can relax the mind and allow solutions to emerge spontaneously.

The word “Eureka” was made famous by the value of distraction in the story of Archimedes when he distracted himself from a problem he was stuck on and decided on a bath to relax.

https://www.livescience.com/58839-archimedes-principle.html

(Dang! One thought leads to another, and a simple answer becomes a long story that wakes me up. Suddenly, distraction has become a problem.)

Suddenly, this question became the example you asked for, which has become a clue for me to end this here.

Hopefully, I’ve given you some food for critical thinking about distractions.

Cheerz

Oh… ya… to summarize, distractions can be helpful, but they can quickly get out of hand if it doesn’t restrain them enough to lose their focus on a problem for so long that it remains unresolved. Short distractions can otherwise clear mental clutter and allow one to refocus their thoughts to make progress on their critical thinking activities.

Damn! Dunno if I’m gonna be able to fall asleep now… Maybe I should have left this question half-answered.

zzzzzzz