Oh, so I am super excited.If you just joined, feel free to drop where you're joining from in the chat and also your social so you can all connect work. This session is all about how to thrive when working remotely. So I'm excited to share all of my experience with you. I've been working remotely since prior to the pandemic. And then, you know, the pandemic hit and, like, everything started to go remote, what felt like remote. And then through my communities in collaboration with others and helping others, I've gained a lot of tips and tricks. So I'm gonna go ahead and share a jam packed twenty minutes with you of tips and tricks and also some tech stack that you can take with you.

Three areas that we're gonna focus on today is when you're working remotely, collaboration, how do you still collaborate and thrive, your work style and your preferences, what works for you, and then your office setup. So get ready to take screenshots. I'll throw stuff in the chat as well because I'm actually gonna give you some products that you can kind of leap over some of the, I wanna say, mistakes I may have made, but some of the goofiness that I I found along the way. So I'll make sure to share those. So go ahead and put in the chat for me, if you are currently working remotely. So it can be full remote or it can be hybrid. So maybe a couple days or something you're working remotely, put a one. And if you or have plans to work remotely or thinking about working remotely, put a two in the chat. Let's see who we have in the room today.

Currently work from home. Hybrid. Lots of ones. That seems to be very common right now. Ones once, once, once. Okay. And so whether you're working remotely or hybrid, it's not surprising that I see so many of you in the chat say that you have either hybrid or fully because more than 27,000,000 Americans, 27,000,000 Americans worked remotely in 2025, most of them full time. So I saw a ton of ones. So it makes sense that you are my people. You're in this room with me, and we're gonna, move forward and share some tricks with you. 70% of those workers so also something for us to be aware of. Seventy percent of remote workers surveyed say they had an increased burnout because of digital communication. So anyone experienced burnout out there? Think COVID. Think all these digital cameras. And it was so hard to find a camera during COVID, but just think how much we have to be on camera all the time, since the pandemic happened.

Seventy percent is a huge number. It doesn't mean that we don't do it. Right? We just have to be aware that burnout is real. So, yes, I'm seeing in the chat. Burnout is real. We have to recognize it, and we have to be able to balance because you can be super effective and still collaborate with teams without burning out. So we're gonna talk through some of the ways to do that. Three things that constantly come out through my work, through collaboration with others is, being productive. So you are super you're thriving when you're working remotely when you're effective in getting things done. So you're producing results. You're producing outcomes. You're also responsive, and so you're interacting. Someone emails you. You're gonna email them back. It doesn't mean you have to be on twenty four seven. Right?

We don't like that. I, in the past, have had a boss like that, but we don't want that. It doesn't mean you have to be twenty four seven. It just means, like, when someone tries to interact with you, you're not ghosting them. They're not saying that, oh my gosh. It's my correspondence went a black hole. So you're being responsive and collaborative. And collaborative, you're finding ways to connect with folks inside your organization and also maybe outside. And we'll show different ways you can collaborate today so I can, give you some tips there. How do you know you're effective at those three things? So if you're wondering, am I productive? Am I responsive? Am I collaborative? Easy way to find out is others notice that you do these things. You may perceive yourself as one way. Others are gonna see other things. And so lots of people have commented for me on those three things. I comment on others.

And, also, if you're not sure, find a trusted colleague, coworker, someone you work with or work for, and ask if you're those three things because you want them to be perceived as professional and polished because sometimes we can get a little bad rap when we're working remotely, and we don't want that to happen.

Three ways that you can collaborate because burnout, isolation, that is real. So three ways you can do that. One is with people. So you can, with the people you work with, interact, work on projects, collaborate, ask about their day, ask about their family. So you can do different things with the people you work with. You can also do it through community. This one I would highlight because this one has been super effective for me. And a lot of the people that I interact with through community has also said it's really helped them feel less isolated, feel like they have kinda something social going on besides just always working remotely. What I would encourage you for this one is to find the community that works for you. I know I had to try a couple different communities.

I found a couple really good ones. I've been in one for three years, and our cohort from three years ago still meets monthly. But what I would encourage you here is don't just find communities within your industry and workforce. Find it outside your industry as well because those social interactions tend to be a little bit different. You can be a little more open and transparent and not always on. So it's a good way to kind of balance and feel like you're still socializing. The other way is through networking. So all of you who put your, socials in the chat through this conference, through LinkedIn. Like, if you comment on a post and I see someone comment mine, it'll be like, you're, like, in the same industry as me doing kinda same similar stuff.

Do you wanna have a virtual coffee tea? And they're like, yeah. And then we get on the phone, and we swap stories. We meet, and voila. Wow. I have someone else to connect with. So that's another way that you can collaborate. We've done some LinkedIn lives together. We've done some projects together from someone I just met posting on LinkedIn. So there's different ways to collaborate when you're working, remotely. Now the big thing here is we wanna help prevent burnout. So I know some of you put before you burnout is real. It happens. How do you balance, especially with all this hype of digital communication? So, one, you wanna assess your digital tools. I will share some examples later of your tech stack. So you wanna balance between having to be on video all the time and chat phone, which I don't mean like old school landline.

I mean, like, chat tools, like Teams, has a really good chat, Slack, digital communications that aren't like FaceTime. But you can also find ways to balance the digital and the nondigital as well, and mix it in so you don't get burnt out so much. Especially important if you're a leader in teams and managing teams, you wanna be super aware. Now, of course, all of this is your company culture, right, and how much say you have, but I would try to bring it up to get different balance in your digital world. I would also say buffer times. This was very popular post pandemic. Not I can say not always honored, but when you can honor it, it helps. So rather than thirty minutes schedule, twenty minutes. Rather than an hour schedule, fifty minutes. And so buffer in between meetings if you're able to.

And then this one's huge for me. I didn't always have this, and I know others have been, like, really good that I talked to about being able to have this. And I'm like, I finally have this in my life, but a project only day. So once a week, do a project only day where you don't have to be on camera. You don't have to really talk to many people because you don't have calls, but you're just plowing through projects. Bonus tip. Like, I don't have to do my hair or my makeup in those days, which I'm always a little nervous because I'm like, what if someone calls me and wants to hop on a call?

But that helps me, like, kind of decompress of always being on and kind of balance, especially because I'm an introvert. I need that balance. Right? You wanna be aware of being burnt out, and you wanna communicate to your leaders. And if you're leading, you wanna ask your team about this. It used to be we couldn't talk about this stuff. Like, can't talk about burnout. Can't talk about being isolated. Can't talk about the stuff. You have to be polished and professional all the time. Like, who has time for that anymore? And so be comfortable with being able to be in a safe, transparent environment. If you're a leader, create a safe, transparent environment so people can come and tell you when they're feeling burnt out and kind of do it before it happens so they can take a day off or go and balance something else or go on a a trip or something.

So just a balance between the two. And then I would say, know yourself. Right? What works for me, what I'm sharing for me, my experience, and from others that I've learned from may not work for you. So take some of these thoughts and incorporate it, but I would say try to sit down. I did this, and I sat down. I said, let me figure out myself. When am I most productive? When am I effective? So for me, I have I found out that I really need to get out in the morning. So that's going to the bus stop. That's taking a drive to get a frappe with my husband, and that's just, like, me get out the office so I don't feel like I'm stuck at home all the time.

I generally have general working hours. Boundaries, if you've heard of boundary setting, it means something different to different people. To me, I'm okay flexing my hours. To others, they want hard set boundaries, which which is okay. You just gotta figure out what works for you. I figured I'm most productive in the AM hours. So it's PM. This is about time I start crashing. So, hopefully, I'm doing really good with my energy right now. Because, usually, I'm, like, going, going, going in the morning and then about time, like, in the afternoon, it's like, I wanna take a nap. So I know to protect those hours, and I also know to protect these hours because I wanna hang out with my kids and my family decompress. I'm okay doing some work at night. Some people are like, absolutely no. So, again, there's no one right answer.

There's a figure out what works for you and protect that. Protect those brownies as much as you can. And then I give you full I allow you to laugh at me if you like because I'm gonna show you my drop zones so you could totally laugh at me. I laugh at myself. So have drop zones if they work for you. So for me, what I call a drop zone, it drives me nuts to be, like, in I have a office, a room. It drives me nuts to be in there all the time. So if I'm not on, like, video calls, I'll work in my loft. I have my main desk, and then I have a second desk back back there that has a walking treadmill. So I'll walk while I'm doing, watching trainings and webinars.

I'll be in my living room sometimes. I will be in the kitchen. I'll be in the dining room. It or sometimes I have to leave if I have no calls and stuff going on and work at Panera. Now I don't leave all my tech out because they drive my family nuts, but it just for me, I need different spaces to be able to work so I don't feel like I'm trapped in, like, a one room place. And you love Panera. Amen to that. Panera has saved me a lot of time, especially their sip club. If you guys like sip club, you get free drinks. Yeah. So with that, three things always come up, when I'm doing this and I'm talking to others is your setup, movement, and socialization. So if you can build these three things in, you're gonna thrive when you're working remotely.

So the quality setup, which I'm gonna give you a lot of tips in just a second, fast Wi Fi, these video things have gotten a lot more resource intense, so that's been more important. Like, have you ever froze? I freeze in the worst angles. I kid you not. I freeze my mouse, like, open and everything, and other people have the best freeze positions. That's my Internet going wrong. So make sure your your Wi Fi is good. Some kind of movement. So whether I haven't been able to do that, but others have told me walking lunches on the on the phone. You could totally do that. I again, I told you about my treadmill. I try to walk in between meetings, some type of movement. Otherwise, your bones just get, like, stiff and sore. And then we talked about socialization to try to avoid being isolated. Now are you ready to take those screenshots and those notes? I'm gonna tell you some tech.

I call it the tech stack. I'm gonna give you some tips. If you don't have a quality sub, you may. And if you have a quality sub, something you love, you absolutely love using when you're working remotely, drop it in the chat to help other people because, again, it's not just my word. It's every it's collaborative learning from each other. Full disclaimer here. Everything I share is either from my experience or from one of my communities. I am not endorsed by any of these products, and it's totally up to what you want to get. I'm just sharing some stuff to maybe help you. So what I'd like you to do is think about your office setup right now when you're working remotely. Most of most of you in the chat said you're working full time. So do you have a dedicated room in your house? For me, I need a dedicated room.

I need my husband to have a dedicated room all across the hallway or drive me nuts because we'd hear each other. But think about your current setup. You could be in the home. You could also be on the road. Like, I know some people who are digital nomads. Do you know those people? I'm like, oh, that's kinda cool and kinda scary to be in a different city or state each week or each month, but it works for them. Or you could be traveling for work and have drop zones kinda in airports or different areas. K? My number number one recommendation, if you take anything from this, is a stand up desk. This has been a lifesaver for me. I can't stand sitting all day. My bones get really hurt all the time. I started with this desk, but I I had to, like, lean over and pull it up, which hurt my back.

And then I'm looking up, and I'm, like, kinda tall, and I'm like, this is weird. And so it didn't quite work. And so then I got a then this next one. So if I'm going down, the whole thing moves down. See how cool this is? Like, the whole thing will move down with me. And so then I can sit down here and talk to you all from my desk down here. So the whole thing goes down, which I I really like this one. I've had this one for a long time. And then the best one is this one over here on the right. And I do not think those links are gonna work for you, so I'm gonna throw them in the chat so you have them. And that's not gonna work either.

Let me throw the next version. See, I prepared for this. So I'm gonna give you the I'm just gonna give you the link so you have the details, there you go, for them if you wanna check them out. Again, it's totally up to you all. But what I want you to think about as we kinda round up here is quality camera ready when you have to be on camera, quality video, quality background, quality lighting, quality audio. This here is the tech stack for good, better, and best in terms of video. I have this first one, which I absolutely love. I'm actually honestly getting used to the filters on Zoom and virtual. It makes me look so smooth.

And then I go out in real life, and I'm like, oh, that's awesome. So quality filter video is important. But if you in my community, they said a better and a best version is here for you. So you can also do those. It just depends if you're on virtual meetings like this or if you're presenting. And I'm gonna throw those in the chat so you have those options as well. Quality background. So you definitely want a quality background. A room divider. If you go down to your video settings, you can blur. You can use a virtual background. I'm actually amazed at all the great virtual backgrounds these days. You can also, take a picture and upload it. There's also, like, soft focus in there or personal touch. I I do recommend the soft focus on your background. So that's a good one. Or the real real one, I'd say, is the best.

People ask me all the time, is this real? And I show them I can pull a book. I'm like, yes. That is real. I can pull a book. I worked hard on that. But please, please, please, please, please, please, whatever you do, try to avoid the bed in the background. I've heard from a lot of people that's a pet peeve. It just puts a different image in people's head. So six alternatives to a bed in the background, We just went through all of them, but I wanna make sure you have them. So staged, virtual, blur. You can make your own virtual background. Room divider, or you can also adjust your camera. I've had to push my desk back and forth to make sure I have the right angle so you could do that too.

The lighting, I have all kinds of lighting. I have a big light up here. I have a desk light. I have recess lights. So lighting's also important. But if you had to pick from all of them, not the most important. And so I would say if you have natural light, just make sure the window is in front of you, left or right, just not behind you. Because have you ever been on those calls where you're like, you can't see because the lighting's so bright? So one of those. And then quality audio is huge too. That's probably behind the standing desk, the number two. You can do a basic USB. You can do a a RZR was the second one I used. And right now, I'm using a blue blue Yeti, which tip, you have to YouTube and figure out where to talk into. I'm talking to the side.

You're not supposed to talk into the middle. Or you can do a Shore one. So I have not upgraded to the shore one yet, but that's an option. Alright. So I'm a throw that in the chat. And then as we round up here, there you go. Also helpful, I'll let you just take a screenshot of this one, some different tips. Again, some of these are small. The biggest one I'll point out is the walking pad. Here, if you're standing a lot, huge, huge, huge saver on your legs. Right? The biggest thing I'll say, do not pay full price for any of this. I wait for Black Friday days. Rakuten just had a 15 to 20% off sale, so I stacked deals from the shop site and from Rakuten.

Use AI to figure out where you can get the best discounts or to help you stage your new office. Just don't pay full price. There's so much out there these days. You should not have to pay full price for doing this. So the call to action for you, if that's your situation, are you collaborating your work style in office setup? But the key to remember is find what works for you because only you can answer that. So thank you so much for joining me today. Connect with me. Connect with each other. See you in the other sessions. But I appreciate appreciate you all joining me today. So have a good rest of day.