I agree with most of this, and indeed, working from home solves a lot of the problems that happen in the office.
have a nice setup - hammock in the garden and ~ 23C temps for the next week. Check. Laptop & good Pioneer NC bluetooth headphones for when the neighbours are noisy. Check.
have a schedule - mine is actually better than if I were in the office. In the office, I'd be working 8-4, but now, I tend to work 5-4. Purely out of choice. I get 3 hours first thing in the morning where I'm not interrupted.
For the rest, I try to constrain how much I talk to people, but that speaks more to my office environment than it does anything else. We have a culture of everyone thinking "Joe knows this, so lets ask Joe the question" (without anyone realising that everyone else is also asking Joe questions, and Joe isn't getting anything done at all, other than helping others do their job).
At least working from home, I can choose when I reply to people, so I get the focused time, and I still help others out.
If only my partner & kids could adjust to working from home so easily... but still... NC headphones work for them too. ;)
I totally agree on the talking part. So often at the office I would get pulled left and right with question after question, but being able to control when I help has been a major boost to productivity.
Yep, being remote can help with our mental sanity as we can sometimes control how helpful we are by delaying some answers.
I get the same problem with the questions, most of the time in the morning, when I open the Teams app and see 2-3 questions or people asking for calls. Don't have a solution for this thought.
If you're going to do it, don't forget a tarp & paracord. Perfect sun-shade/rain cover, depending on your climate. Where I am, it rains a fair amount, and honestly, working in a hammock listening to rain hitting the tarp is wonderful! Sadly though, there's a bit too much background noise for conference calls - wind blowing the tarp (so for those, I often come back inside).
when I open the Teams app and see 2-3 questions or people asking for calls. Don't have a solution for this thought.
This might not work for you, but...
Email client stays closed, except for first thing in the morning. I've added an auto-responder that replies (word for word) "Sorry, but during lockdown I'm checking emails less frequently. If you need me to reply to this urgently, call me. If your house was on fire, you wouldn't email the fire department..." (thankfully, no 3rd parties know my corporate email address).
Skype (external comms). Signed out unless I need to have a conversation with 3rd parties. In which case, it's pre-planned, and I have a calendar invite (received at least the day before, or someone called me to tell me).
Teams (internal comms). Status message set to "If your house was on fire, you wouldn't IM the fire dept." All chat message notifications (individual and group) are disabled, and I only get notifications of calls.
I have two pre-planned calls per day, one is the team Stand Up which, recently, we've got down to 6 mins, and for everything else, I get to choose when I reply (I block out a chunk of time in the calendar for checking/responding to people).
I agree with most of this, and indeed, working from home solves a lot of the problems that happen in the office.
For the rest, I try to constrain how much I talk to people, but that speaks more to my office environment than it does anything else. We have a culture of everyone thinking "Joe knows this, so lets ask Joe the question" (without anyone realising that everyone else is also asking Joe questions, and Joe isn't getting anything done at all, other than helping others do their job).
At least working from home, I can choose when I reply to people, so I get the focused time, and I still help others out.
If only my partner & kids could adjust to working from home so easily... but still... NC headphones work for them too. ;)
I totally agree on the talking part. So often at the office I would get pulled left and right with question after question, but being able to control when I help has been a major boost to productivity.
I'm freaking Joe, man... I do love helping others, but sometimes I don't have time for my own problems :P
I also have started doing a similar schedule, it lets time for my own projects and to do stuff around the house.
I think every "Office Joe" should change their name, to Joe.
"Hey, Joe, can you..." - all turn around.
We could have regular meetups too to share horror stories.
😅
Love the hammock idea, need to get one as well!
Yep, being remote can help with our mental sanity as we can sometimes control how helpful we are by delaying some answers.
I get the same problem with the questions, most of the time in the morning, when I open the Teams app and see 2-3 questions or people asking for calls. Don't have a solution for this thought.
If you're going to do it, don't forget a tarp & paracord. Perfect sun-shade/rain cover, depending on your climate. Where I am, it rains a fair amount, and honestly, working in a hammock listening to rain hitting the tarp is wonderful! Sadly though, there's a bit too much background noise for conference calls - wind blowing the tarp (so for those, I often come back inside).
This might not work for you, but...
I have two pre-planned calls per day, one is the team Stand Up which, recently, we've got down to 6 mins, and for everything else, I get to choose when I reply (I block out a chunk of time in the calendar for checking/responding to people).
I made a VSCode theme specifically for sitting in the sun! :-)
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