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Discussion on: What are your best tips for working from home?

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Nick Janetakis • Edited

I've been a freelance developer for about 20 years and 99% of the time I work from home.

For the past ~5 years or so I've been doing:

  • Walk ~3-5 miles a day in multiple 30min to 60min blocks, every 3-4 hours.
  • Standing desk, where I typically wear flip flops and stand 95% of the time.
  • Optimize for comfort (shorts, tshirts, etc.)
  • If you like music, alternate between headphones and speakers to give your head a break (if you wear serious business studio quality headphones)
  • Spend as little time as possible scanning Reddit, HN, dev.to (sorry Ben :D) and try to limit this to maybe once or twice a day
  • Besides walking / exercise, take a legit meal / mess around break (Youtube for fun, games, etc.) at some point.
  • If your job requires email communication, try to get it done as early as possible, and avoid Slack unless it's absolutely necessary (to ask questions, get feedback, etc.)
  • If you find your brain is melting, take a short break because it'll save time in the long run

My brain is wired to finish things as fast as possible, otherwise I'm not happy. I don't mean to rush, but overall I'm much happier if I put in 10 hours one day if it only means doing 6 hours tomorrow, rather than 8 + 8.

With that said, I don't really stick to any real schedule. I get up when I wake up and goto bed when I'm tired. I only use alarm clocks when I'm traveling, in which case I usually set like 3 of them even though I'm a light sleeper, I'm super paranoid I'll miss important wake ups.

Also, if you're dealing with clients in different time zones, always communicate to them with their native timezone. Make things as easy and pleasant as possible for them.