I had a great conversation yesterday with some coworkers about working from home, including why some prefer it and others hate it, and our productivity tips. I've been working from home more frequently for health reasons, and I'm trying to get better at it! For example, I make an effort to get dressed and ready every day as though I was going into the office. Then, I try to leave my house for a few minutes, even if it's just for a walk around the block.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on how to most effectively work from home! What do you do to make your space more welcoming? How do you make sure you stay on task, or conversely, how do you make sure you remember to stop working at a certain time? How do you communicate with your team when you work remotely? I'm interested both in productivity tips, as well as self care tips, as I know that lots of folks feel more anxious and pressured to get things done when they work from home.
Top comments (19)
Hello there,
I will drop my 5 cents on this topics since I am on remote for 1+ year.
First of all, I never work in the same room where I sleep (usually), that is productivity killer because our brain gets used on the same routine and when you are home you are more comfy to lay down a little or just watch neverending TV shows.
When I finish with my job I just go out for a few hours, to refresh my self and to continue with social activities, I saw a lot of developers becoming too much asocial. How we would say "Leave me alone, I want to bite everyone" == anxious
For communication inside the team, we use SLACK, we have daily standups and we go often to grab a beer/ coffee during the week to catch up.. (besides when we are traveling).
There is Google Meet / Hangouts which help us to communicate faster and to kill the feel of our non-presentence in the firm.
For productivity, we are using the kinda agile method. We adapted SCRUM to our needs.
Every week we have a revision and planning for the next tasks and we have one rule, never move the task to another week and if you are done with everything you are free to go. (So we have these rewards to keep us productive)
Tips for productivity
Love the water reminder. For some reason, I'm good about staying hydrated when I'm at the office..but terrible when I'm in my own home!
Something I need to do is get a better setup. On days when I work from home, I'm at our big kitchen table that has a coffeeshop vibe. While it's really nice in concept, it's not ergonomic at all and my carpal tunnel always starts to kick in after a few hours. The only other suitable table is a desk in my bedroom which, like you suggested, is a terrible place to work!
I've been working remotely for all of my career (8 years+). Here are some tips that have helped me thrive:
Keep your work environment separate from any other area of your living space. When you're here you're in work mode. Period.
Do not have any work related things on your mobile phone. No Slack, no company email, nothing. At most I have Pingdom alerts when required in case shit blows up.
Invest in a great microphone. You don't want to be "that guy" that uses a terrible mic.
9am sharp, "Good morning!" in Slack. 5pm sharp, "see you tomorrow team!" - On time, reliable is what you want to project. Being reliable is very rare for people. Be that person. People learn to respect your work-hours if you follow this advice.
Over-share. You never want a client or someone on your team to ask what you're up to. If they ask you have failed as a remote worker. Give frequent updates on what you're up to. You'll keep on task, but more importantly people won't bother you.
Be very careful about how you express yourself. Your facial expressions or body language doesn't go through the wire, people will take what you say at face value. This happens even with a webcam!
Enjoy the perks of being a remote employee! Dentist appointment? Go for it! Want to go on a Costco run early monday morning? Why not! Dog park Wednesday afternoon? Yep! As long as you over communicate and do your work, no one will care, believe me.
Definitely prioritize developing a shared understanding with your team about expectations.
When you are communicating, it's really on you to be extra clear, but in between moments of communication, it's really a group effort to have shared understanding of expectations.
Working from home can be really magical when you don't feel the anxiety of not knowing whether you're expected to be hyper online all the time. I also think it's totally cool to determine that you should be at your desk and available between these hours and to have a clear break, but if it's not clear one way or another, you're always floating in a low-key anxious state.
My 2 cents, anyway. I'm not sure we've gotten this just right, but I think it's always good to push for and deal with it before it becomes an issue.
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:
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.
I only have a few tips:
1) Get out of bed. It's easy, and quite tempting, when working from home, to work slouched over/under your laptop in bed. It's not doing you any favours in terms of your work/life separation, and I doubt it's good for your posture.
2) Stay connected. Either with co-workers on something like Slack, or with other developers on something like Twitter or dev.to. Most of us really enjoy talking shop, and if you don't make a deliberate effort to chat to peers, it's easy to feel like you're working from a prison cell.
3) No procrasticleaning. Unless you're deliberately taking advantage of the flexible hours that working from home gives you, avoid getting pulled away by errands that "only take a minute" during work time. Before you know it, you'll have a sparkling house and that horrible feature that you've been putting off because it's too complicated will be no closer to completion.
As for stopping work at a certain time, my partner tends to let me know if I'm dilly-dallying on the computer for too long after clocking off time. 😅
I consistently underestimate how important this is.
I LOVE working from home but it can be a challenge. I find I usually end up being more productive because there are less distractions but it is hard to find the right balance. I've had some experience over the years working for different companies that have a work from home policy and while everywhere is slightly different, here are some of the things I try to do when I'm working form home:
Morning Routine - Before I jump into work, I like to take some time for myself, stretch, shower, get dressed, cup of coffee or tea, breakfast, or maybe a walk. Whatever sort of routine you do to start your day is important to keep up even on work from home days. I sometimes find when I jump right into working my whole day feels a little strange and more chaotic.
Pick up the Phone - Slack is great slack for being able to stay in touch when working remote. But I also find sometimes its easier to jump on a call and sort something out in 1-2 minutes instead of taking longer going back and forth messaging. I think some people feel hesitant to do this, but if you ask the person if they can hop on a call, it might be easier.
Change of Scenery - When I'm feeling stuck or feel like I'm not being as productive I like to go to a coffee shop and do work there. Usually I lay out the tasks I want to accomplish while I'm there and don't leave until I feel I've done that or made pretty good progress on it. I don't always need to leave your house, sometimes moving from the desk to the couch can also do the trick!
Set an End Time - I usually plan to go to yoga, the gym, or go for a walk at the end of my work day. If know I'm planning to go to a 6:30PM yoga class, I'll be more mindful of the time at the end of the day and not end up working way later than I meant to. It also allows me to fully sign off and transition into non work mode. For awhile I found that really hard, I would say I was done working, but then my computer would still be open so I'd keep going. These days I find it best to shut the computer when I feel I'm done for the day.
First, it's all about routine! You need to get your brain ready to start work than a real way to shut off the work. So for me before work, I get my workout in and then I can focus in on working. After work, I fully shut down my systems to be fully integrated in my family life. When I first started being remote I struggled with the start and end because it's easy to be flexible. I know for myself I need a routine.
Second, leave the house once a week to get work done in a "social environment" aka for me the coffee shop for half a day. Helps restore my energy.
Third and my last tid bit, make your social interactions outside of work intentional. Set up friend dates or events to get out and be social. This will help keep the loneliness at bay.
I'm also an extrovert so these things help me but I'm sure they can help someone else too!
When I work from home I find these things to work for me.
First, I make sure to actually dress like I was heading into work. It helps my mindset think that it's not the weekend or a slack off day. Second, I have water available wherever I'm working and take a few walks outside or indoors when I need a small break.
The biggest pain point for me was setting the expectations of my family that working from home requires the same focus as working in an office. Just because I’m “at home” does not mean I am there to babysit the neighbor kid, run extra errands, or do chores during my work hours. I am still “at work” when I’m in my office.
These are just the things I started (or stopped) doing after a few years of working from home, but I have to say I don't always work "from home" often I work from the homes of my girlfriends.
I try to set a goal of things to do for the next day, so I can start work right after standing up.
I stopped setting an alarm and sleeping until I felt rested.
I stopped using chat/phone nine to five and do more communication via email and issue trackers, so people stop bothering me all the time, haha.
I stopped to work in hours, but in tasks. The day is done when the task(s) I did felt enough work for the day.
Lately, I started to think about what I want to do for the week and write it down, so I have a list of accomplishments at the end of the week. I tried to fill this list with enough stuff so I don't feel overwhelmed but still had the feeling I am productive.
The problem is that you always can do more, but you still have to live your life XD