How to Work from Home and Get Stuff Done – An In-Depth Guide

If any CEO's reading this who want to migrate their companies to Working From Home, then never include managers in the decision process. In my experience managers view Work From Home as a enemy to their employment and will never let it happen.

For me it was rather simple: Do sprints

Most companies already adopted basic sprint structure with Kanban or Scrum. So if you work from home, you don't have to change much.

The sprints basically tell me what needs to be done in the short term/2 weeks and I need to work through it.

The article seems to be more about how to get a nicer working environment. Since I work from 3 different flats, I don't have much control over most things mentioned there.

I work from home, and have done now for the most part for about 3 years now.

I shifted to WFH after a re-occurrence of my depression and anxiety symptoms, but now, even with those symptoms totally under pill-management, I still wouldn't shift back to full time in the office voluntarily.

Things I do to keep my productivity up and to present a professional face:

1. Dedicated Office Space

This was a hard one, as my work is also my hobby. My personal computer space was a desk in my Study, but to focus on work, I set up a second workspace in a spare room on another floor of my house. Over time I found that having my kit in two different rooms was problematic (no-one actually works 100% of the time during their working hours... do they?) and gradually stuff starting moving into the spare room from the study. I gave up on the spare room and relocated everything back into the Study, and fitted a KVM that allowed be to switch between work laptop and home desktop. This combined set up actually made more productive! Never just use your laptop on it's own. Invest in a monitor and proper keyboard and mouse. Hunching all day over a laptop will wreck your back before you are 40. Trust me on this.

2. Communications

I work for large organisations, typically financial. These places have a heavy emphasis on Email & IM. Email isn't a problem, the kit is supplied by the Employer, and it's typically Outlook. I always set the 'new mail' alert sound to something loud and unique. That way I never miss an email. Prompt replies always go a long way, and even longer, if you are a non-visible worker. For IM, again the software takes care of itself, for me it's Lync/SfB, but the Employer will dictate that. Always invest in a REALLY good headset - it must have inline controls, for those quick unmute/mute situations. Camera - don't rely on your laptop Camera, get a good USB HD 1080p one, with a good lens. Arrange your home office so that when you are in the video frame, the background behind you is a plain wall with nothing non-work visible. For +1 technical points, install a whiteboard behind you, and ensure it's always got relevant diagrams on it. :)

If your organisation has an internal blogging platform, or room based IM (Slack etc.) be very active on it. Don't be afraid to let your presence status shift to 'away' occasionally - no-one will believe you if it's flagged as 'green' ALL day.

3. Social

Try to get into the real office, at least twice a month, this ensure that your face is seen and known. in that vein, always have the same professional head-shot on your work profile, and in your IM clients and Email (if supported). Your face is your brand. You need to maintain an active presence in the organisation, even if you are not there physically. When I recently changed contracts, I uploaded my usual pro-headshots the moment I got access to the systems. A couple of months later after working from home and chatting to co-workers in the office over Email and IM, I went into the main office. People knew who i was, even though mostly it was the first time I'd seen them face to face. Having my head-shot everywhere really helped people to recognise me.

4. Personal

YOU matter. Working from home can lead to a very sedentary lifestyle. It's important to get up and move about regularly - without the interruptions of a busy office, it's easy to slip into the zone and not move out of your chair for several hours, which is bad for your health. Try to implement a time management system such as Pomodoro so that you take regular breaks. If you get it right, your productivity will increase as well. As you are no longer commuting try to re-use that time in the day for exercise; Run round the block every morning, you heart will thank you in 20 years time. Don't be tempted to start work early, and/or work late. Just because you can, it doesn't mean you should. You are not being paid more for being at home, so don't feel you have to work harder.

This is just a brain dump, but it ended up longer than expected, and re-reading it I think I'll smarten it up and put it up on Medium. :)