As the world becomes more accustomed to working remotely and from home, it occurred to us here at the Digital Tattoo that we are something like experts in the area of making workplace magic happen from afar. Since our establishment in 2009, our team has worked together while split between Vancouver and Toronto. With all our meetings taking place online and in-person collaboration rare for us, we have ample experience in making cross-country (and cross-institutional) cooperation work for us.
With this in mind, we present to you the Digital Tattoo Guide to Remote Collaboration. Here you will find top tips from the 2019-2020 student contributors that draw on our experiences. We hope you find it helpful!
Samantha
I genuinely enjoy working remotely with the Digital Tattoo team, and a big part of that is the fact that we take time every meeting to chat and catch up with one another. It can be tough to build a convivial relationship with someone you’ve never met on the other side of the country if all your meetings are just about work. We ensure that our meetings are just as human as they are business, which keeps me engaged and always excited for our next meeting.
My top three work-from-home/working online tips are:
- Actively make your online meetings human. Create space to talk, laugh, and think about things not directly related to work. This can help keep team members from getting burnt out and ensures your meetings will stay fresh.
- Make it clear how your team communicates, and why. There’s nothing worse than getting your wires crossed because one conversation is happening on email, another one on Slack, and a third over text. Make sure your team has a clear understanding of what tools are used for communication, and if you use multiple tools, which tools are used for what. We use email almost exclusively.
- Keep a clear to-do list, both personally and as a team. Meeting notes are great for this. Because you won’t be seeing your colleagues every day, it can be tough to remember deadlines or things you have to do to help them out. Keeping your to-do list up-to-date is key to staying on top of your work, both online and off.
Defne
As someone who can sometimes have the concentration skills of a peanut, the idea of working and collaborating online initially scared me. When I joined the Digital Tattoo team, I had some doubt about whether I could be successful at online meetings and work. However, I learned a few key things that really helped me out and set me up to excel in my goals. These tips were a lifesaver when all of my work migrated online (thanks, COVID!).
- Write down or input every meeting and deadline into a calendar. Preferably, a calendar that will send you push notifications or email reminders. I had a tendency to blank on work that needed to be done when it was assigned via email or in an online meeting. I thrive person-to-person. Over Zoom, not so much. That’s why I keep my calendar extra detailed with notes and set reminders for myself on my phone.
- Be communicative, detailed, and ask questions. Nothing is worse than misinterpreting tasks assigned to you, or tasks you assign to others. Being on top of how well you understand the tasks at hand is crucial in ensuring lines of communication do not go down. During meetings or emails, ask questions to receive clarity. Remain detailed and open with your colleagues.
- Organize your email! By keeping emails for different responsibilities in different folders, you will be able to quickly search through and find what you need. This is very important when it comes to following up or pinning important messages.
Ese
Collaborating online through the Digital Tattoo Project was a learning experience for me. It gave me the opportunity to work with people in a different part of the country from me and learn through them, their experiences and the differences in our reality. In addition to our working relationship, it kept me abreast of things going on at our respective cities and institutions. It also taught me a great deal about time and project management. I learnt to keep track of the different things we were working on and tried to ensure that they complemented each other. If you asked me before COVID, I would say working from home was great – productive, quiet and helped me focus, but COVID-19 and everything going on around the world since March taught me a lot and required some relearning.
- Planning and coordinating are important but they can also be fun. Whether you favour using digital tools and calendars or paper to plan, you can come up with creative ways to do so. Like Defne and Samantha mention, make sure to note down everything and set reminders for deadlines, but don’t forget to have a little fun with it. You can colour-code your responsibilities or use fun printables to add some personal flair to your organizational process. I like using both paper and digital tools and keep an overall to-do list in addition to my daily and weekly schedules. In all planning, it is important to go with what is intuitive for you, which helps make things easier rather than more complicated or chaotic.
- Find dedicated places to work. During the pandemic, I realised I missed having to go to the office, working at my desk and using a bigger screen. This was as much from the structure this provided and getting to interact with others in person as from getting bored or tired of being stuck at home. I found that setting up a desk and area of the house as my office helped. When I grew tired or bored, it also helped to work outside on the grass or on a park bench. Alternating between these and adding in coffee shops when that became an option helped a great deal.
- Share what you’re doing with others. The DT team has always been a communicative one – with biweekly check-ins, student team meetings and one-on-ones. It is important to share what you’re doing with other members of the team. They might have ideas that could improve your work and I have definitely been inspired or gotten ideas from hearing about other’s thoughts or what they might be working on. Remembering to communicate can sometimes seem like a chore, but updates help keep teams aligned as well as motivated.
Written by Samantha Summers, Defne Inceoglu, and Eseohe Ojo
Edited by Rachael Bradshaw
Feature Image by Mohamed Hassan, used with CC0 licensing.
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