Tools available for remote workers

Remote work is hard. Office workers have certain benefits: regular interaction with coworkers, a stable location with good wifi and amenities, the ability to improve their cubicles, and above all, routine. Remote workers often don't have these things, and the grind of finding them is real. During times of frustration, it is good to remember that jQuery, or Sketch, or my writer newsletters aren't the only things that are in your toolbox.

This list is for tools, methods, or habits that can be used to refocus, to become present, to fight loneliness, depression, and choke points for productivity.

These are all also useful for office workers - however, I feel that remote workers, digital nomads, and specifically tech workers often need to be reminded they exist, and to make an effort to integrate them into their lifestyles.

Please contribute if you have tools you use that are not on this list.

In the moment

• Go for a walk.
• Ask for help. Ask anyone working near you, or on social media.
• Write your problem down. Often, the simple act of writing helps clarify complex problems.
• Wash your face with cold water. (This triggers your mammalian diving reflex, lowering your heart rate, constricting your peripheral vasculature, and driving blood to your core)
• Take a shower.
• Go for a run.
• Eat something sweet, like chocolate. There are immediate benefits for energy levels (cite).
• Meditate.
• Write about something other than your problem. Specifically, what else is on your plate that is getting in the way.

Daily

• Exercise.
• Diet. Some diets may be particularly helpful, such as the keto diet.
• Avoid your phone when waking up for as long as possible. A common amount of time is one hour. This will help you avoid the downward spiral of reacting to everything.
• Write down your daily tasks the night before. This can also be done at the end of your workday.
• Select 1 thing to do each day. No more - get one thing done.
• Party moderately. It is very easy to party too hard on the road. Remember this is your life.
• Journal.
• Sleep in the dark.
• Schedule. Block out time for tasks, and in particular for work. Don't always be on - make sure you schedule time to be off. The easiest way to fail to do this is not to schedule time at all.
• Make your bed. Starting the day with making your bed is a quick way to get a win early on in the day, and to feel like you're in control when you come back to your bedroom at night. You can't organize everything or fix everything, but you can make your bed.

Periodically

• Cook for yourself. A lot of the time, we forget that pretending like we are at home can be a therapeutic experience. Cooking for yourself is one of the easiest ways to do this, and allows you to plan out your diet with greater control.
• Streaks. Streaks, or doing the same thing routinely (most usually once a day for however many days) are incredibly useful tools for establishing routines and for motivation. Breaking a streak generally involves a small amount of disappointment. This disappointment can be utilized as motivation for doing a task on a day when the streak would otherwise be broken. The major reasons for not using streaks is that they can be tiring in themselves, that they can enforce the bad behavior of not updating one's priorities (in case the task is no longer as relevant or useful as it once was), and that they have a major discouraging factor when broken that may lead to not taking up the task again for some time.

Long Term

• Meet old friends. It is incredibly important to stay connected to your old social group - wherever it is. Make sure to go out of your way to meet fellow nomads.
• Keep in touch with friends at home. Write letters, skype, facebook poke. Do whatever you can to keep mundane relationships going.
• Foster community where you are. For instance, throw a NodeSchool, join #Nomads, go to CouchSurfing meetups.
• Give back to your communities where you are. This will help you feel connected and fight loneliness.