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15 Best Books on Working from Home

15 Best Books on Working from Home

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Working from home is part of the new normal.

Just because it’s a regular thing in today’s workforce doesn’t mean it feels natural or easy for everyone.

If you want to make the most of your time working from home, why not learn from the experience of those who have already been doing it successfully for years?

These 15 books each offer a little piece of the puzzle that can help you become the most productive version of yourself while you work remotely or from home.

1. Working Remotely: Secrets to Success for Employees on Distributed Teams

By Teresa Douglas, Holly Gordon, and Mike Webber

Where most books focus on self-employed people who work from home, this guide is aimed at employees who work remotely for a company. There are a lot of good lessons on organizing yourself, staying connected with the rest of your team, and continuing to network for career advancement.

Although the target audience is employees, the remote work skills you learn here can help anyone get into the right mental frame of mind to work as productively as possible. You can apply the strategies anywhere to formulate a healthy work plan for yourself in your home office.

2. The Remote Facilitator’s Pocket Guide

By Kirsten Clacey and Jay-Allen MorrisRemote, meetings are one of the worst parts of working from home, but books like this one help you make it easier than ever to do remote meetings well. Learn expert techniques to host remote meetings with confidence and effective collaboration.

Follow the steps outlined in the book to improve the quality of your video meetings, increase your awareness of others in the call, and turn the meeting into a productive use of everyone’s time.

3. The Ultimate Guide to Remote Work: How to Grow, Manage, and Work with Remote Teams

By Wade Foster

Wade Foster, CEO of Zapier, has been a work-from-home advocate since 2011. In his book, Foster talks about the ins and outs of remote work from first-hand experience over more than a decade.

This is a great resource for both those who run remote teams and those who work in them. You’ll find a lot of wisdom to help you optimize your work-from-home situation and stay on track for success.

4. Work from Home Hacks: 500+ Easy Ways to Get Organized, Stay Productive, and Maintain a Work-Life Balance While Working from Home

 

By Aja Frost

No matter your personality, work style, or job, you’re likely to find useful tips in this book to help you improve your home office and at-home workflow. You’ll find actionable productivity and time management hacks to help you boost your productivity while working from home. There are tips that address everything from arranging your workspace itself to setting up background noise and regulating your morning routine.

Reference this guidebook as you need it and you’ll make the best of the benefits of working from home while canceling out as many of the negatives as possible.

5. The New Corner Office: How the Most Successful People Work from Home

By Laura Vanderkam

Vanderkam interviews successful remote workers and references her own experience working from home for nearly 2 decades to help you find a system that works for you to be productive, creative, and healthy at your home office.

Learn from those who have been working from home successfully for years. Avoid common mistakes and take advantage of proven strategies without having to go through the painful trial-and-error process yourself.

6. Working from Home: Making the New Normal Work for You

By Karen Mangia

This is a great resource for those who are new to working from home. You’ll get a beginner’s perspective to help you start strong and avoid common pitfalls like burnout and distractions.

Since this book was written in 2020, it also includes a lot of great information about online meetings, helping you get around zoom fatigue and plan for success in a virtual workspace. Mangia goes a step further by giving you tips for online presentations as well.

7. Surviving Remote Work: How to Thrive as a Leader and Entrepreneur in the Remote Age

By Sharon Koifman

Written for leaders and entrepreneurs, Surviving Remote Work is one of the best leadership books that focus on how to lead a remote business effectively. You’ll learn about creating a positive company culture for your virtual team, hiring and onboarding new team members, and managing relations between team members.

Beyond the people management aspect, you’ll get some insight into how to set up an effective virtual communication system and how to deal with data storage, sharing, and security. This is a must-read for anyone leading a remote team.

8. Work from Home Superstar: How to Stay Focused and Rock Your Day

Best-Remote-Work-BooksBy Jack Wilson

Focus is one of the hardest parts of working from home. For anyone who’s struggling to stay productive and focused working from home, you’ll get tips for staying on track throughout your workday and reducing or avoiding as many distractions as possible.

9. The Long-Distance Leader: Rules for Remarkable Remote Leadership

By Kevin Eikenberry and Wayne Turmel

As co-founders of the Remote Leadership Institute, the authors have a lot of insight into leaders working with remote teams. Their aim is to demonstrate how you can apply the foundational principles of good leadership to the remote team management as well.

This book is based on a model called the Three O’s: outcomes, others, and ourselves. To complement this strategy, the book also talks about how to use technology for effective work rather than a distraction.

10. How to Declutter Your Home or Work Office to Improve Productivity

Work-From-Home-BooksBy Sarah Adams

Do you struggle with organization? This book addresses organizing your workspace and creating systems to help yourself stay more organized.

It doesn’t matter at what point you’re starting. You’ll get practical advice about how to start from nothing and build good organizational habits one step at a time.

11. The Home Office Handbook: Rules of Thumb for Organizing Your Time, Information, and Workspace

Remote-WorkBy Lorie Marrero

Unique among work-from-home books, the author Lorie Marrero is a professional organizer giving her perspective on how to make working from home a less stressful experience.

Along with the book, you’ll get access to printables and bonus videos to provide a more tangible benefit for you in the long term.

12. Balanced: Finding Center as a Work-at-home Mom


By Tricia Goyer

Goyer takes a look at a specific group of work-from-home professionals: moms, or more broadly, parents. If you’re working from home while also caring for your family, normal advice for working from home may not always apply.

This book helps you look at working from home from a more holistic perspective, bringing family time and normal home responsibilities into the mix. The focus is entirely on making your situation work for you rather than basing your version of success on how you compare to others.

13. The Remote Worker’s Guide to Excellence

By Eryck Dzotsi

This is a shorter read that goes over a lot of the basics for successfully working from home. After reading this, you’ll be better prepared for staying productive at home and creating an environment that helps you work well without distraction.

14. There’s No Place Like Working from Home

Best-Remote-Work-BooksBy Elaine Quinn

Working from home doesn’t have to be stressful or unproductive. Time management consultant Elaine Quinn gives pointers in this book to help you deal with everyday communication tasks, avoid isolation, and prevent procrastination.

Time management is one of the most difficult aspects of working from home, so Quinn’s book is a timeless read that can make it easier for you to establish a healthy balance between your work and your daily life.

15. The Art of Working Remotely

By Scott Dawson

Remote work is a skill you have to learn on your own. No matter what field you’re in, you learn a skill as if you’ll be working with others in person. This book aims to help you learn to work from home, starting from day one.

Set up your workspace, build helpful habits that foster success, and learn how to thrive even as you work remotely.

Conclusion

If you’re working and earning from home, take the time to learn from others who have years of experience doing the same.

Set yourself up for success by building good habits from the start. Don’t get stuck later on by falling into traps you could have prevented.

With these books and others about working online or remotely, you’ll be able to learn what it takes to do excellent work from home without having to make all the mistakes yourself.

About the Contributor

Georgi Todorov is the founder of ThriveMyWay, a place for online entrepreneurs, bloggers, SEO specialists, and freelancers to find success in their own way.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgitodorovbg/

Twitter: @GeorgiTodorovBG

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