Because of COVID-19, many design firms have increased the time to resume work, some companies allow workers to be working remotely.
Remote work sounds fantastic, with no social pressure, it is full of flexibility and independence. By stopping the daily commute it also saves you a lot of time. But many designers in reality find that WFH makes them inefficient and unproductive.
To support, below are 10 tips for designers to keep the job remotely successful and imaginative.
1. Stay Professional
Tomorrow is not a holiday, it’s a regular working day.
Comfortable pyjamas that can make you more comfortable. Which makes it even worse is that you’ve been staring for a day at the wall of your apartment, but with no knowledge of your latest design project. Besides, you can hardly earn your client’s confidence while sitting on a sofa or crouching in bed with your PJs during a videoconference. Such seemingly trivial items would make the work more effective, and motivated most of all.
2. Keep your daily hours of work
This one is for all the telecommuters, not just models. Set the same routine as working hours: when to work, what time is a lunch break, a coffee break and a day call. On the other time zone, it is easier to maintain your normal working hours when you have a design job with a client. Otherwise, it’ll be difficult to adapt until the job is formally resumed.
3. Create a To-Do regular list
List the things to be done today, and strictly follow them. This trick helps you stay organized and focused on the goals. You can also post your progress with your team so that other designers/co-workers can review your progress. At the end of the day, according to the Daily To-Do List, you will share your work, including prototyping and photos, with your team.
4. Choose the best location of office
For remaining successful, designers used to use cafes near their homes or co-working sites as WFH offices. Since certain places are not accessible at this time, it becomes a key to find the right place to work. Remember not to use your bedroom as a place of work, particularly if you are holding a video conference. Then it’s a decent option for a study or living room.
5. Contact your family in advance
If you work as a full-time artist, which means you never work from home, people around you can not realize you’re working, even though it sounds like hanging out. Therefore communicating with them in advance is important. In that scenario, your family, roommate, or pets (yes, cats love laptops) should value the time and space you work. Especially working remotely is a good way to balance work and life. It doesn’t mean you’re not going to share the domestic work, just not for now.
6. Inspiration Seeking
It can be hard for designers to get inspired while they work remotely. Especially without the work-chatting or a joint meeting of the work of other colleagues. If you’re working from home, you’d better schedule a special time to browse some fun websites, applications, or photos that you’ve saved as a source of inspiration in your screen.
7. Have a break and do some exercise
Same as working in the workplace, when a certain job is completed or whenever you think it is necessary, WFH may always take breaks. Grab a coffee or just do some workout that will make you more successful. I always recommend that you spend some time doing pencil exercise.
8. Maintain daily meetings, as usual
Under these special circumstances the daily meeting framework will become very important, particularly for a design team, to improve work progress and collaboration. Everyone can have a screen-share in daily meetings to go over the work done yesterday and others can provide input in real-time. Remote work makes design work simpler during the development for input and change, rather than when the work is finished.
9. Communicate
Creation is more of a partnership. It’s not the same as in-office with your “water-cooler moments,” you can speak to or run into your colleagues. And contact is the secret to keeping it running efficiently. Using phone calls and video conferencing instead of a written message to discuss something with your team if you have any questions. It’s a better way to avoid misconceptions. It’s the same for a company presentation, set a video call to discuss the progress along with the company.
10. Brainstorming
When you’re working remotely you’ll skip the brainstorm meeting. Things seem a lot simpler with all the designers, staff and customers in the same room together. There is another option for this brainstorming meeting except for constant video conferencing: Miro. Bringing the teams together is essentially a whiteboard forum.