We’ve heard a lot about the Corona virus. Everywhere we turn there’s a new update, its hard to stay informed without allowing fear to seep into our daily lives.

I started a new job last week at Meratas: a SaaS platform that helps schools administer ISAs (Income Share Agreements) for students.

The job offer came at the best of times. Its a remote job meaning I didn’t have to adjust from working at an office to staying at home with my two dogs.

I believe how we work will be shifted by this epidemic. More than 26 million Americans — about 16% of the total workforce — now work remotely at least part of the time. I think that number will increase and many more people will start to work remotely.

Here’s a few tips that I’ve followed as I work remote.

1. Follow The Pomodoro Technique

Identify the task that you need to complete or work on. Set a timer for 25 minutes and focus all of your energy into getting as much as you can done in that time period. Once you’ve finished take a quick break: walk around your apartment for a second, pet your dog, or meditate.

2. Schedule Your Calendar

When I make sure to block out times specifically for what I need to get done during my work day I feel much more productive and less all over the place.

3. Watch Your Enviroment

I used to sit on my bed with my laptop. (I mean why not its comfortable.) I realized that doing this while working caused me to be tired and just think about sleep. So I bought a desk that now sits in the corner of my room that I work from.

First week.

Here’s What I’ve Learned

This new job excites me…and shocked me a little at the beginning. Why? I got hired on as a Sales Development Representative which was on the bottom of my list of jobs I wanted when starting Praxis. But, I’ve been loving the new skills I’ve been learning and the new tech tools I can now use.

Onboarding was just as I expected it to be — a lot of necessary information all at once.

I’ve written two email sequences for our Sales campaign and enjoyed taking my writing skills out of blog posts to catch people’s attention in emails.

I’ve also learned the in and outs of Hubspot and what exactly an ISA (Income Share Agreement) is.

What I’m Building Outside of My “Job Description”:

Even though I was hired on as Sales, since I was hired on at a small fast-growing Startup, they’ve also given me the liberty to help out on the Marketing side of everything. I’ve written two blog posts to combine into our Marketing Campaign.

I also took the skills I learned in month 5 at Praxis to create a video to combine into our Sales emails, that I hope will increase awareness on ISAs and how we can work with schools and programs to offer a financial option for people who wouldn’t have been able to afford the education otherwise.

I’m excited to continue building value at Meratas and helping increase awareness on Income Share Agreements specifically how schools can use them to combat the student debt crisis growing in the distance. Looking forward to the opportunities this job will create.

This article was originally published by Anna klawitter on medium.