Working as a Designer at SAAS Product: Remote Work

I decided to start a new series of articles. I would like to share a design process with you by combining with my previous experiences under the title of being a designer in SAAS product.

I recently started my first full time professional remote experience. For me, getting used to working remote was a piece of cake. For that reason, I want to share some tips and tricks of how I managed to adapt into the remote work environment. These tips and tricks focuses on applications that you can use to better manage your schedule and tasks. In addition to that, I’ve included a short personal summary about my daily routines. In terms of design and development processes, I’ll save those details for later and it will not be discussed in this article.

The very first thing I did when I started the remote work journey at Socio was changing my working area at home. This might not come as a surprise to some, however, the setup of your office or working stations will make direct impact on your productivity and ability to focus on your tasks.

Which applications do I use?

Ever since I started to work remotely, I’ve been introduced to many of applications that have helped me tremendously to boost my productivity. The biggest winner of the day would have to be Google Calendar. Google calendar makes it so easy to keep track of my tasks and deadlines, and as well as organize my meetings all in one place. ❤

Some of the other applications I want to share with you are Spark, Be Focused, and Zoom.us.

Spark is especially helpful for email management. It allows you to get control of your inbox by letting you see what’s important and quickly cleaning up the rest, smart search for certain emails, and customize swipes and snooze emails to handle it when the time is right. Other features of Sparks include creating emails together with your team in a shared draft, private team communications, and reminder to follow-up. It has changed the game of email management for me, and I believe it will change yours as well.

Be Focused is great for making a quick to-do list and execute it. It has simple features like customizable timers for each of your tasks, you can also manage your tasks by creating a list of to-dos and track the progress.

Last but not least, Zoom.us is the application I use to meet with my team face-to-face online. You can quickly create a meeting room and share the link with your team. There will be audio and video features, you can also share your screen with on the meeting.

These applications are my holy grail to succeeding at productivity. I highly recommend them to you.

What’s my daily routine?

My days consist of 24 hours just like everyone else, however, I have more time during the day. Simply, because I tend to sleep less than average.

3 to 4 hours of sleep will do for me. This is why my day usually starts around midnight. I will work throughout the night time and sleep several hours after breakfast and my morning workouts. This schedule helps me to execute my task more smoothly and also allows me to be online with the rest of the team in the United States. Other than attending meetings with the team, I am not required to be online while working on designs.

My usual work routine is very simple. It starts with checking my email inbox for anything urgent, then I would check for Slack messages from my team. The biggest part of my work would be JIRA tasks and missions assigned to me.

That pretty much covers it. Working remote is simple. If you have enough self-discipline, where you work does not matter.