The coronavirus pandemic dictates new rules. Companies are switching to remote work mode, which no one prepared office employees for.

We asked four experienced managers how they succeeded in building an effective job, sitting in their own kitchen, surrounded by family and neighbors with a punching machine, and ignoring the call of pajamas and endless TV shows.

Get ready to type a lot

Advice like "plan the day" and "do not work in your pajamas," of course, good, but to survive in a remote location interferes with something else.

First, if you used to work in an office, and now you have been transferred to a remote workplace, get ready to do a lot of typing. Yes, there are voice messages, but in shared work chats they are rarely appropriate, and you will have to explain and prove sometimes obvious things often. Even the people closest to you sometimes cannot read your intonation from a distance, let alone your colleagues.

Second, get involved in the life of the company or the project. In the office you can find out the latest news and upcoming plans while pouring water from the cooler, but remotely, it is easy to be out of context. If you do not want to get lost, talk to your colleagues, take part in discussions, take interest in the situation. And most importantly - understand that now few people care about your processes, the main thing - the result. The sooner you realize this, the faster you will establish effective work.

Sergey Bolisov, curator of educational projects at Tilda Publishing, consultant in organizing online learning.

14 years of remote work experience.

I learned how to close a work Telegram after a terrible burnout

When you move to a remote job, it is very easy to fall into a "life is work" state. Work fills all the space, and it seems that there is nothing else to do. You think: "I will just work a little bit more, so what if it's 1:00 in the morning. There's less to do tomorrow". All this builds up, like a snowball. And it does not lead you to anything good. Because the next day you do not get enough sleep, your brain does not think well, you are slow half the day and continue to work at night to meet deadlines.

I learned how to close my work telegram after a terrible burnout, because at a certain point I realized that rest is also my responsibility. The fact that I now work one more evening into the night will not be good for anyone. Burnt out employee - the grief in the company. So at seven in the evening I close my laptop and go lie in the bathtub. It is also possible to send work chats to the archive for the weekend and on vacation. If something bad happens, trust me, they will be able to text you so that you can see on skype, facebook, instagram, Whatsapp, and even send a carrier pigeon.

If you do your work on time and hand in your tasks on time, there can be no complaints about being unavailable after hours. And serfdom was abolished in 1861.

Anastasia Derbasova, Content Director at Huntflow.

5 years of remote work experience.

If something can be done today, do it today, even if it has to be done the day after tomorrow

Give up procrastination, especially if you have children. If something can be done today - do it today, even if it has to be done the day after tomorrow. Because "tomorrow" for people who combine parenthood and work at home, is always unpredictable: sick child, babysitter, something happens in the garden - and that's it. You will not be able to fit the necessary amount of work into the day.

Get as much mobility as possible. Put a maximum of useful apps on your smartphone or tablet so that small tasks (reading mail and answering letters, writing a small text, making the right calls, etc.) can be done while walking with your child, in a cafe, and waiting for the end of the child's lesson.

Irina Molodtsova, Executive Director of Family Tree, mother of five-year-old Maxim.

5 years of remote work experience.

No one can guess the rules of communication management at a remote site on their own

Think about exactly how to organize the team's communications.

Make a main channel where you post the main important team and company news that concerns everyone. Also make a separate place for "just chatting": about the weather, memes, and other things (if you don't do this, it's certain to make its way somewhere in the work chats).

Now when your team is not sitting at neighboring tables, introduce a plan/fact message format, such messages are better sent daily and weekly.

In addition to general chats and private chats, there may be a need to communicate on the same issue with different people - create additional chats for such purposes. If the circle of questions is constant, it should be a typical chat/ channel with a description, if it is a one-time situation - a temporary conversation, which can be immediately sent to the archive after the end of the questions.

It is important to restructure the format of the messages. In live communication, we mean exchanging phrases like playing ping-pong to get the desired response. This format of communication online will quickly become annoying. Formulate at once what you want to know/ report, what it is related to, what affects it, what options you see, what reaction you expect.

No one will guess the rules of communication remotely. It is better to have a remote video meeting and discuss everything together; maybe your team will come up with some great ideas that you have not thought of.

Nina Hyunen, Russian Office Superior at Valamis.

3 years of remote work experience.