Hey Insider, hope you had a good weekend, and spent some time away from the computer, and enjoyed the outdoors wherever you’re located!

Today’s email is a 6min 45sec read:

• 🐶 Worker sells family thanks to crazy CEO

• 🇨🇦 155K Canadian workers go on strike over remote work

• 🏨 Is subscription living the answer to digital nomad housing?

• ➕ PLUS almost ½ of people agree on the topic of working on the weekend, which camp are you in?

But before we jump into all that, this week on Remote Insider is productivity week, and over the next few emails, we will share with you how the top productivity experts in the world stay on top of their work.

First up, we have the enemy we have all dealt with at some point - procrastination!

💡 TIPS & TRICKS

How to Stop Procrastinating on Tasks

We’ve all been there, knowing that we have a task to complete, but instead deciding that now is the moment to do laundry or the dishes.

If you find yourself procrastinating on a task, it’s usually because that task is BORING or OVERWHELMING.

The first step is identifying why you’re procrastinating on a task, which will inform you how to fix the problem:

😴 Boring Tasks:

It’s important to understand that even though a task is boring, it’s not going away if you don’t do it. So your goal is to break up the monotony of the task.

Try working in small bursts of 15 minutes, then taking a 5-minute break where you do something fun like watch TikToks or a YouTube video.

You can also financially reward yourself for every focused block of time. Pay yourself $5 to use however you want for staying on task.

Another trick is to NOT be efficient. It may sound counterproductive but we put so much stress on ourselves about being productive that it can backfire, instead take it slow, watch YouTube videos in the background, or listen to a podcast.

In the end, you may end up getting more work done than if you try to be 100% efficient.

🏔️ Overwhelming Tasks:

The trick with overwhelming tasks is to break them up into tiny bite-sized tasks and create forward momentum for yourself.

Start by reducing the project or task into as small of steps as possible, and there is no such thing as “too small”, for example: create a new Word doc, open the browser, log into Hubspot, etc.

Physically write these out and start with the easiest task checking each step off as you do it.

It may sound silly, but subconsciously you’re creating forward momentum that will help you get through the task list even when the tasks get more difficult.

🔬 DEEP DIVE

Psycho CEOs vs Remote Work

Woof, what a week in the business world! Not sure if crazy CEOs had a meeting and decided it was time to show the world just how unhinged they are or what, but we have some kookiness to talk about…

First up is James Clarke who must be the head of the “psycho CEO” group. The Clearlink CEO hosted a video company town hall last week in which he announced that all employees are expected to return to the office.

If he stopped there, things would have been OK, but he continued and dropped some crazy talk:

• Stated that he expects employees to “just give an honest day’s work,… you know blood, sweat, and tears”

• Then he challenged employees to outwork him, but that they won’t, because he’s always the hardest worker in the room

• The cherry on top of the crazy cake, however, was when he “honored” an employee who went out and SOLD THE FAMILY DOG after hearing his message that employees need to step it up 🤯

Here’s a summary of the call if you’d like to listen to it yourself because at first I couldn’t believe it either:

Now listen, I’m a big fan of hard work. I’m currently writing this on a Sunday afternoon, on my birthday, but I’m also the founder of Remote Insider…

As the boss, you SHOULD be the hardest worker in the room and you can’t expect that the people working for you, will care just as much as you, about YOUR business.

John Swan on Twitter said it really well:

Also, the idea that “an honest day’s work” equals “giving your blood, sweat, and tears” while working for a freaking ad agency is an insane notion.

Now, the good news is that the moment this video was posted online, the internet responded with some beautiful jabs:

But James Clarke wasn’t alone in his quest for craziness last week…

MillerKnoll CEO, Andi Owen, on a recent video town hall (perhaps we should just stop doing those?) told employees to “leave pity city” when they asked how they should stay motivated after she canceled their bonuses.

Obviously, this did not land well with employees, and a recording of the talk went viral. Now Owen has earned the nickname “pity city CEO”.

Owen has since apologized and said that this was supposed to be a rallying cry that unfortunately did not come off right.

No kidding!

But those are just my thoughts on these stories, would love to hear what you think about them!

🚨 WORD ON THE WEB

🇲🇾 Malaysia to relax visa requirements as applications see a 90% drop

• In 2021, the Malaysian gov changed the rules to its “Malaysia My Second Home” visa (commonly known as MMSH) asking to see $338K in liquid assets & over $9K in monthly income

• Since then, Malaysia has seen a 90% drop in applications

• Malaysia is trying to compete with other SE Asian countries like Indonesia & Thailand in attracting high-earning professionals.

🧑‍💻 Remote work at the center of Canadian 155,000-person labor strike

• More than 150,000 federal employees in Canada are on strike hoping to get better wages & working conditions, along with continued remote work

• Like many governments, Canada allowed federal workers to work from home during the pandemic, however, they recently announced that they want federal workers back in the office.

• Workers on strike say that they’re able to do their job perfectly fine from home and that there is no logical reason to force them back.

• Experts believe that the Canadian government will accept these demands.

🏨 Nomad hotels? How “work from anywhere” is driving the rise of subscription living

• Today, housing is one of the biggest friction points with the digital nomad lifestyle due to a competitive tourism rental market

• Hotels have the unique opportunity to begin offering “subscription living” packages, renting out rooms by the month vs by night

• Living in a hotel may sound boring at first, but there are many perks life serviced accommodations, familiar setups, and a built-in community.

• Brands like Zoku are already experimenting with this model, but prices remain high. As more competitors enter the space, the prices should drop and become available to the masses of remote workers & digital nomads.

👾 Get ready, Virtual Reality is quickly entering the workspace

• Like all new tech, VR was first used by consumers for games, however, the space is quickly developing and the next big use case is for work

• With remote work retaining its popularity post-COVID, VR will be a great tool to improve collaboration for distributed teams

• And it’s not just tech, some of the other sectors already adopting VR include healthcare, real estate, construction, manufacturing, and marketing.

• Training is another space where we can expect VR to make a huge splash, in fact leading VR onboarding platform Oberon Tech has shown a 4X increase in learner retention

📆 UPCOMING EVENTS:

April 25-26: Running Remote [📍 Lisbon, Portugal] - Largest remote work conference in the world for enterprises and SMEs

May 24-28: Vivel [📍 Multiple Locations, Turkey] - networking meets music at this one-of-a-kind conference for location-independent professionals

May 28th-June 3: Nomad Cruise 11 [📍 Mediterranean Sea] - The original conference at sea is back! Join 250 digital nomads on board a cruise ship in the Med to discuss remote work, business, and personal growth

May 28-June 4: Porto Santo Nomad Fest [📍 Porto Santo, Portugal] - A festival celebrating the digital nomad community, on a beautiful island off the coast of Madeira. Limited attendance.

June 16-19: Camp Indie [📍 Kent, Connecticut] - adult summer camp & conference for digital nomads & those living an unconventional life

June 25-July 2: Bansko Nomad Fest [📍 Bansko, Bulgaria] - for digital nomads, freelancers, and founders in the mountains of Bulgaria

📊 POLL

On Friday we asked you if you worked on the weekends, and the results were actually very interesting.

The percentage of people who always work on weekends, and those that never work on weekends was the same at around 28% each.

However, most people (nearly 45%) have no hard rules about the weekend and will work if they have to.

Here is what some of you had to say on the topic:

🧩 K.G: “I like working on the weekend when and if I feel inspired and pumped to do so, aka it gives me energy. I don't work on weekends when I feel like I need a break and work is draining! ”

👍 H: “In the end everything is work. For some of that work we ask money from other people (esp. as freelancer/contractor), other work is unpaid. I do two different kinds of paid freelance/contractor jobs, so in a sense I get some rest from one while doing the other one.”

🌍 WFA JOBS:

Looking for jobs you can do from anywhere in the world? We’ve done the heavy lifting for you, here are some jobs we think you’ll love:

⭐️ Mentor - Cyber Security Career Track @ Springboard

⭐️ Content Creator @ Ollie Health

⭐️ Junior Product Manager @ CreateApre

Our favorite thing in the world is hearing what you think about this newsletter, here is what a fellow Insider had to say about last week’s email 👇

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That's it from us this week, hope you have an amazing day!