Be more yourself by embracing the feral nature of remote work.

Solitude is pleasant. Loneliness is not.~ Anna Neagle- - - - - A few years ago, an old boss reached o [View online]( [Coach Tony]( Coach Tony [@tonystubblebine]( Solitude is pleasant. Loneliness is not. ~ Anna Neagle - - - - - A few years ago, an old boss reached out to see if I’d be interested in working for them again. We didn’t talk numbers, but I’m sure it would have been a flattering offer. Instead, I cut their request off quickly: “I’ve gone feral and I don’t think you’ll catch me in an office again.” Mostly what I meant by feral was that I like working from home. It lets me live closer to my natural state. When I wake up, I go with my feelings. Sometimes that’s to jump into a work project. Sometimes it’s to enjoy a leisurely morning. It’s never to put on my best work clothes and commute to an office. My most productive times are in the mornings or the late evening. My least productive is the late afternoon. Left to my natural rhythms, the late afternoon is my ideal time to exercise. So that’s exactly how I work now: hard work in the morning, then meetings, then exercise around 3 pm or 4 pm, then another round of work in the late evening. - - - - - #1. Circadian rhythm’s intra-day cousin. My “feral” workout schedule comes from a concept called ultradian rhythms. If circadian rhythms are your daily pattern of wakefulness and sleepiness, then ultradian are shorter cycles of rest and activity happening several times a day. [More in this article]( from [Brad Buzzard](: Rossi does not provide a methodical approach to measuring how long your own particular cycle lasts. His approach to determining when you need to take a break is to pay attention to your body’s signals, and then to take a break when you need to — using the 90/20 principle as a rough guide. File this under yet another example of how you need to build a skill for noticing the feelings in your body. - - - - - #2. Take time to relate to remote coworkers. There’s a lot to like about [David Rock](’s SCARF model for what motivates and demotivates people at work. I first read about it in his book, [Your Brain at Work](, but for the TLDR, read [Ed Batista](’s [summary of SCARF](. The components of the model are Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, and Fairness. Offer to improve one of these and people will feel motivated. Threaten one of these and people will be upset. In the context of remote work, I worry about relatedness. How do you manage to relate to someone you never see in person? “In the brain,” Rock writes in “Managing…”, “the ability to feel trust and empathy about others is shaped by whether they are perceived to be part of the same social group… When [a] new person is perceived as different, the information travels along neural pathways that are associated with uncomfortable feelings (different from the neural pathways triggered by people who are perceived as similar to oneself.)… Once people begin to make a stronger social connection, their brains begin to secrete a hormone called oxytocin in one another’s presence. This chemical, which has been linked with affection, maternal behavior, sexual arousal and generosity, disarms the threat response and further activates the neural networks that permit us to perceive someone as ‘just like us.’” In my fully remote company, the idea of project status meetings seems obsolete. With digital tools and notifications, I’m always ambiently aware of project status. Instead, we used to start the bulk of team meetings with a social question — with the role of bringing a question rotating through the team. Now I have a meeting that I just call Water Cooler and it is just to connect socially. - - - - - #3. Replace the words slow and fast with effective and efficient. I was reading some feedback on this issue: [It takes what it takes: why you should retire the words slow and fast.]( I want to highlight two replacement words because the words slow and fast often have negative connotations. (As a manager, I get the most pushback when I use the word fast.) Instead of slow, strive to say effective. Are you being effective? That is a word that triggers for me alertness and carefulness. Instead of fast, strive to say efficient. That is a word that triggers me to look for shortcuts, to throw out cruft, and to work with intensity. - - - - - Discord: what are your remote work best practices? For those of us that are working remotely, what are your best practices? What do you need a new best practice for? [Join the #better-humans channel on our Discord.]( - - - - - Tips or feedback? [Send me a response on Twitter.]( Open Opportunities: * Habit Coach Certification: Early bird pricing for the next class of Habit Coach Certification is live until the end of April. ( * 20% off at 750words.com if you sign up through our Better Humans group. ( Don’t miss out on the other issues by Coach Tony [Become a member for $5 per month]( Did you enjoy this issue? [Yes]( [No]( [Coach Tony]( Coach Tony [@tonystubblebine]( Tips, inspirations, and knowledge on productivity, happiness, health, and making an impact on our world. Official email of the Better Humans publication on Medium. (@bttrhumans) You can manage your subscription [here](. In order to unsubscribe, click [here](. If you were forwarded this newsletter and you like it, you can subscribe [here](. Created with [Revue by Twitter](.