Working Alone Together

As remote work has become the new norm, working with your team over Zoom, Microsoft Teams or any other live video calling platform has become the most common method to keep connected and complete tasks together.

While these platforms are great and offer an amazing alternative, there is a key aspect of these platforms, when used incorrectly, that greatly hurts productivity: you are never disconnected.

When you and your team are working towards one goal or one task, it is common practice to split up the work, discuss expectations and have everyone complete their share of the whole task. This is how I, and most people that I know, like to work best in a team: working alone together.

Once, however, online video call platforms are used people often forget the part about working alone. After the day is planned and goals are set, everyone stays on the call and starts working (or tries to do so at least) on their individual tasks. This however leads to distractions: there is background noise, individual discussions and don't forget the constant pressure of knowing that you are (maybe) being watched or heard. Another problems which seems to be common is that people are unwilling to leave video calls, out of pure courtesy. I mean, who would want to be the first to leave a video chat?

That's why, especially in times like these, if you do encounter the above stated problems, be honest about how you want to work and ideally set goals for the day in the morning and meet in between or at the end to discuss progress or any problems.

Let me know what you guys think and what has been working best for you!