Hello, it’s your hyperactive brain talking. The part of you that juggles so much you rival Akuma’s heavy Goshoryuken attack. You use Parsec to embrace remote work (or its more social cousin, the hybrid workplace), but something is keeping you from reaching maximum efficiency. It’s not your fault; the laundry basket’s full and the washer is right there (might as well run a load). And pop leftover takeout in the microwave. You wonder if the Thai place near the old office is still around. One trip down the Google rabbit hole and it’s been… an hour? Two hours?

Remote work is not all pajama pants and puppy kisses. If you struggle getting in the zone and staying there, here are some tips that work for us.

Do not work from the couch or kitchen table

To get in the zone, it helps to go to a literal zone. If you have an office, spare room, or particularly large closet under the stairs, awesome. If you don’t, create a workspace using room partitions or curtains. Your humble office should have everything you need to be productive – like a desk big enough to hold all your screens, ergonomic peripherals, and a comfy chair.

One thing – no gaming or taking breaks in your “office”. You’re training your brain to recognize that sitting here means work, which means focus, which means getting $h!t done.

Schedule your day

Do you have a skewed sense of time? Join the club! Master temporal order with your calendar. Block out specific hours for heads-down work, and silence your Slack notifications while you focus.

If you find yourself taking long breaks (or no breaks at all), schedule those too. Set a timer for 15 minutes and take a walk around the block. We hear sunlight is good for you (in small doses).

Minimize distractions with noise-cancelling headphones

Remember how noise-cancelling headphones helped you ignore chatty coworkers? Well, use em to ignore barking dogs, construction noise, or chatty roommates. Play music or ASMR if that helps you focus; use the noise canceling to create a quiet environment if sound distracts you. So you can have The Sound of Silence, or the sound of silence.

This above all: to thine own self be true

Now that you’ve read our tips you’re a hyper-efficient remote work machine, right? Alas, there will come a day where you can’t string together 3 words that make sense, and you feel bad again. My friend, cut yourself some slack. You’re only human… unless you’re really 3 raccoons in a trench coat on the internet.