The 10 Best Productivity Tips for Remote Workers and Nomads: Work Smarter, Not Harder

Remote work offers incredible flexibility, but it also comes with unique challenges. It’s easy to get distracted, lose focus, or feel overwhelmed. Whether you’re a digital nomad, a freelancer, or a remote worker, these 10 productivity tips will be the bests to help you work smarter, stay focused, and make the most of your time.

1. Determine your own productivity tips keys

What do we mean by this? Everyone is different, we can’t recommend all remote workers or nomads to go to a coworking or listen to soft jazz while working. The best to start off being productive is taking the job to determine when and what makes you be at your best.

Here are questions to help you analyze it. Take notes if you can, and read it every once in a while to remember your own secret productivity keys.

In a day, at what hours you feel more energy? Your senses are at their finest, you feel faster, more energetic. You should try to put your priority or harder tasks there, the ones that require a lot of focus and will help you the most in your goals.
Are you more productive working at home or in public places such as a library, a coffee shop or a coworking? If you haven’t, you shall try each of these options. Get to know yourself, your productive self and stay with the option that works for you the most.
What complementary things help you focus? Does music help? Does dressing in more office-like clothes help?

2. Analyze carefully what distracts you

In step 1, we identified what can boost our productivity. Now let’s analyze the opposite to that. Be very aware of the moments you find yourself distracted and take notes of it and if you can, think of the sequences of events that led you there so you can now cut it off from scratch.

Examples:

Out of nowhere I found myself checking at my phone instead of working. What took me to that? Did I had to check it because of an authorization code or a call? or was it the anxiety to check it?
I set one hour to have lunch but returning to work actually took me two hours, did I distract with something else in the way? Maybe I decided to make a deep clean to the kitchen or stayed texting or scrolling in that timeframe. Not to be ignored: we always have to try to eat calmly, our health and that includes our digestion, should always be priority.

This would be like the equivalent to spot our bad habits or things that take us to them. Once you identify your patterns of distraction, you can start planning things to do when you’re about to fall into distraction, and next time you find yourself about to get distracted, stop, notice it, and take control of what you really want to do. It’s not about being machines either, is about being mindful and taking control of what we do with our time, intelligently assign times and limits, reducing moments of distraction to productive or fulfilling moments.

3. Are you really doing what you should be doing?

As remote workers we can feel busy, even overwhelmed and be working all day long, but at the end of the day or in the long run, we don’t see results or we’re in the same place. That’s because we’re just being busy, not productive. Analyze what are those things you occupy a lot of time on, but they’re not actually helping you reach your goals.

I used to spend a lot of time running errands, prioritizing them over tasks that lead me to my goals. Tasks that are mandatory but not important should be completed as quickly as possible, without taking up the majority of your time.

It is also very common to over-prepare. For example: I can start working now, but first let’s make a deep clean in the room, one hour has passed and I feel good, I did something “productive”, but I should have lunch now, it’s a must after all. Now I feel I can start working, but my pen ran out of ink, so I go to the store or go online looking for a new pen… Bam!! the day is almost ending now, and I barely did what I should’ve done.

This point is very tricky because, as you can see, we feel we’re being productive. We justify ourselves and yes, these things, specially things that boost your productivity as we mentioned in point 1, are very good, but is important they do not take time away from the key activities, the ones that represent esential actions to achieve your objectives.

4. Control screen time

Nowadays, it is not at all strange that most of us spend a lot of time on our phone, tablet or laptop, especially when we work remotely or are nomads, since these devices are part of our work and even the point of contact with our loved ones who are kilometers away.

How often do you check your phone without even realizing it? Those quick scrolls through social media can add up faster than we think. Take a moment to check your screen time stats (most smartphones track this automatically). You might be shocked at how many hours you’re spending on your device.

Analyze and see how many of those hours were really worth it.

Did you learn something you wanna keep in your mind long-term?
Did you pick what to see in social media, instead of them deciding what to show you?
Would you choose to do something else with those hours? Good news is, you totally can!

How to solve it?

Once you know where your time is going, set small, realistic goals to reduce those distractors little by little. For example, if you’re spending 3 hours a day on Instagram, aim to cut it down to 2, then 1 and so on.
Set time limits for the apps that distract you the most.
In settings, reduce the amount of notifications, that way you are less likely to be triggered to pick up your smartphone.
Move your most distracting apps to a secondary screen. Don’t put them in easy access or on the homescreen.
Use focus time functionality. It’s a built-in feature designed to help you minimize distractions by limiting access to certain apps or notifications during set periods. Decide when you need to focus, whether it’s for a 2-hour deep work session or a quick 25-minute Pomodoro sprint. Activate focus time during those periods to block out distractions.
When you really have to focus, take the phone of our your vision range. Place it behind you, inside a drawer, on a table that’s not in your working area.
If you need your phone for work, it’s best to have two phones: one for personal use and one for work.
Chances are you look at your phone more than 50 times a day. Be very aware of the intention you have when you are about to unlock it and continue doing so only if you really want to, not just out of anxiety, curiosity, or just because. Be intentional, the more you do it the easier it gets. At the beginning is very hard.

Remember, it’s not about cutting out your phone entirely, it’s about being intentional with your time so you can focus on what truly matters.

5. Prioritize tasks

Photo by Milad Fakurian on Unsplash

As a remote worker or nomad that’s also traveling or living abroad, there is so much to do and see, that is easy to feel overwhelmed. Stay on top of your workload by:

Categorizing tasks to focus on the most important ones.
Identify 2-3 key tasks that must be completed by the end of each day. This keeps you focused and gives you a sense of accomplishment.
Avoiding overcommitment by being realistic about what you can achieve in a day, especially when balancing work and travel.
Group similar activities (e.g., emails, meetings, content creation) into dedicated time blocks to minimize context-switching.

6. Try some productivity techniques

The Pomodoro Technique

How it works: Work for 25 minutes, then take a 5-minute break. After four cycles, take a longer break (15-30 minutes).
Why it’s great: It’s perfect for breaking tasks into manageable chunks and preventing burnout. Plus, the short bursts of focus can help you stay motivated.

Time-Blocking

How it works: Divide your day into blocks of time, each dedicated to a specific task or category of tasks (e.g., 9-11 AM for deep work, 1-2 PM for emails).
Why it’s great: It helps you stay organized and ensures you’re dedicating time to your most important priorities.

Eat the Frog

How it works: Tackle your most challenging or important task first thing in the morning (your “frog”).
Why it’s great: It sets a productive tone for the rest of the day and ensures you’re making progress on your biggest goals.

The Eisenhower Matrix

How it works: Categorize tasks into four quadrants based on urgency and importance: do, decide, delegate, or delete.
Why it’s great: It helps you prioritize effectively and focus on what truly matters.

7. Balance flexibility with structure

Yes, even we nomads or remote workers got to have a schedule. Building something worthwhile will take dedication, consistency and time, and having a structure and consistent work schedule around our goals is proven to help. Plus, starting and ending the day with healthy habits creates a sense of stability.

However, the beauty of the nomadic lifestyle is its unpredictability, or working remote is its flexibility. Being too rigid can rob you of spontaneous opportunities. Build buffer time into your schedule for unexpected adventures or delays. Embrace the mindset that plans can change, and that’s okay.

The important thing is allocating realistic periods to take actions towards our goals. For example: if I sleep 8 hours a day, work 6 hours a day, spend 2 hours around working out, 2 hours cooking/eating. I only have 6 hours left of the 24/day, I could commit to working on a new goal for at least half of them, and the other half without plans, leaving space for flexibility.

At the end of each week, ask yourself: What worked? What didn’t? What can I improve? Use these insights to adjust your routine and priorities.

8. Take care of your well-being

Productivity isn’t just about work, it’s also about maintaining your physical and mental health. Being healthy, by default, makes us x100 more productive because we’ll have more energy, concentration and so on.

Incorporate physical activity into your routine, whether it’s yoga, running, or hiking. Just the fact of moving, taking some steps (indoors even) every 2-3 hours instead of sitting in front of the computer all day long makes a huge difference. Desk treadmills are becoming popular.
Fuel your body with healthy food to maintain energy levels throughout the day. A common mistake on us, remote workers, nomads or people that change routines quite frequent is that we tend to skip meals or being really hungry before looking for food, plus having unconsistent eating and sleeping hours.
Dedicate time to activities, people that make you feel good and happy.
Recognize what is bothering you or what is worsening your mental health and start taking steps to address it. Seek psychological counseling if you need to.
Prioritize quality sleep, even when adjusting to new time zones or dealing with jet lag.

9. Plan ahead

A little planning can go a long way in boosting productivity.

Think ahead about your next tasks. For example, think about your plans for the next few days the day before. A day before you start your week, set out the goals you have for that week and this applies to months, quarters and so on. Make notes about this, writing them down rather than doing it digitally will help you recognize it more and keep those notes present, around you, to keep you focused.
Write down your objectives. Short term (up to 1 month), medium term (2-4 months) and long term (+5 months) and keep reading them constantly to make sure your day to day stays on track towards them.
If you can, plan months before your nomadic travel plans. It doesn’t have to be the whole travel itinerary. Just by knowing for example, I want to go to Canada in 3 months and to Maldivas in 6 months and researching what I need for that, will be good enough to make the plans come true.
When traveling or visiting a new destination, make sure to reasearch about internet connection and Wi-Fi in that place.

10. Stay connected with other nomads

Being part of a community can boost your motivation and productivity. Here’s how to connect:

Join nomad groups: Participate in online communities for support and advice.
Attend meetups: Look for local nomad meetups or coworking events to network and share tips.
Collaborate with others: Partner with fellow nomads or remote workers on projects, or accountability challenges to stay motivated.

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I hope these tips help you boost your productivity a lot as a digital nomad or a remote worker! More tips around becoming a nomad here.

Comment below if you liked them and feel free to share yours.