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Out of curiosity, how do you set boundaries with your employer?

One thing I've struggled with in the past is employers who seem to expect 8 hours of solid productivity a day if I'm remote.

When I was in the office, it was easier to say "well sorry, I've followed up twice in 3 days on issue x, and unfortunately you got back to me after I'd left for the weekend".

When I'm remote, since there is the flexibility to stop and start work, but that seems to come at the expense that when doing work that requires collaboration, someone can delay responding on something that's a block, and then there's some pressure to "make up" for the "unproductive" time. You don't get any good grace for "being present" and there's less of the social aspect. (If I had downtime in an office, I might make some tea and ask a coworker about their kids/hobbies, a random slack DM feels intrusive)

How did you handle this issue? Did you just establish "core hours" you are available?

I've encountered similar issues in non-remote workspaces, and it's something I'm keenly interested in. I am not a lazy person, but I desire a delineation between "work time" and "personal time", and struggle to set that boundary without seeing my career struggle.

A couple of things jump out to me. The first is that "hours" is a terrible measure of productivity. I find that I work best when I actually sit down and write code about four hours per day. Some days it's more like six, and occasionally it'll be even more, if I'm in the flow and have a clear path worked out. Even less often, I won't be able to focus and will instead putz around most or all of the day doing "soft work" - answering emails, reviewing small PRs, etc. The trick to this that I've found is to find an employer where you're evaluated in a way that makes sense. Story points work OK most of the time, but overall progress to goal is even better. To find a place like that, you have to evaluate the team you'll be working with. To keep it, you'll need to make strong ties to your team members and learn their rhythm. Your work schedule needs to work with theirs, whatever that might be.

The second is that you have to set expectations early, and stick with them. If you want to work set hours, then state that. Don't be easily accessible outside those hours.

Personally, I'm almost always available if something needs done at work, but very rarely have to jump up and do something immediately. It's rare that I want time completely separate from work, but when I do I just let my team know in Slack that I'll be incommunicado and it's not an issue.

>A couple of things jump out to me. The first is that "hours" is a terrible measure of productivity. I find that I work best when I actually sit down and write code about four hours per day.

I totally agree. However, the issue is being "engaged to work" as labor lawyers put it. If I am waiting for you to give me the information nessecary to perform those two hours, it can be a block on my day.

For example, my ideal day would involve waking up, doing some head down work for 2 hours, and then using the rest of the day to do more rote tasks - having meetings, reading up on technical developments, working less brain intensive stuff like tweaking some automation scripts, or anything else that can be done knowing someone might pop in with a question or concern.

But if instead I wake up, find no responses on 3 separate issues, sit through a long meeting skype meeting, then am frequently "pinged" for questions throughout the day as I attempt to do productive tasks so I can't take some "me time" and 8 hours later, someone responds on the core issue I need to work in... I think this illustratates the issue I and other remote workers often face.

>The second is that you have to set expectations early, and stick with them. If you want to work set hours, then state that. Don't be easily accessible outside those hours.

This is a good suggestion, maybe my issue was that the specific employer I'm thinking of did not have a good culture. I tried to set that expectation but got strong pushback from my manager that as a salaried employee I do not have set hours.

>It's rare that I want time completely separate from work, but when I do I just let my team know in Slack that I'll be incommunicado and it's not an issue.

You don't have any set times/days?

For example, I don't want to be inflexible - if I don't have evening plans I don't mind answering a slack query while I Netflix, but what I fear is if I do that sometimes, it sets a precedent I must do it at all times.

For me, having set times where I am "not at work" is very important, and I actively am thinking about how to set those boundaries without being a burden. I'm not a religious person, but maybe I should try saying Sundays are a day of rest for me...

> for questions throughout the day as I attempt to do productive tasks so I can't take some "me time" and 8 hours later, someone responds on the core issue I need to work in... I think this illustratates the issue I and other remote workers often face.

This is how my office life is..

This is how 90%, if not more, of all jobs are.

The sad irony of my situation. If given the right scope of work I can be productive almost 100% capacity (ie. it's almost like flipping a switch for me to get into 100% flow).

Except I work on a very large project. So my tasks are so much smaller and less significant than I could handle, it probably takes 50% of my capacity just to figure out how to work productively and efficiently. So regardless of my productivity I very rarely let myself work more than 8 hrs / day.

It's sad that in certain environments you're literally just not going to be "allowed" to work at your full capacity at any given point in the day.

I think this is almost without exception true in larger companies. There’s just so much communication that goes into doing pretty much everything.

I struggled with the same problem, the 8 hours of solid productivity a day is a killer after working remotely during several days. My solution for that is the Pomodoro technique, I wrote an article about that, hope you find it useful: https://medium.com/@marcochvez/how-i-get-my-workday-done-in-...

Sounds interesting. Maybe you could summarize here in addition to linking to your blog?

> I have been working remotely for two years and I struggled setting my own schedule. Sometimes I ended my day feeling unproductive or wondering how I was spending my time without being aware of what I accomplished.

> One solution to my problem is the Pomodoro technique, which is a method to break down work into intervals of 25 minutes.

> A study (that helped me to figure out that question) reveals that the average worker is only productive for 2 hours and 53 minutes per day, the remaining time is spent in activities unrelated to work (checking social media, reading news, discussing out of work activities with colleagues, etc.).

> Taking the 2 hours and 53 minutes as base, that gives us approximately 7 intervals of 25 minutes, although in practice I’m doing 8 to 10 intervals. This could vary per person and the type of work, but at least we could consider 7 as the minimum. Also I found out that writing down consciously what I’m going to do in my next interval helps me to create peace of mind about my productive time, because at the end of each day I finish with a task history that justifies my work.

> After a few months using a spreadsheet and a Pomodoro timer I was looking for a solution to integrate these tools seamlessly, Despite trying different and complex Pomodoro apps I decided to create a simple and minimalistic solution named Work & Flow

Do you have toddlers too or just the infant? I have a 3 year old at home and I work from home 2 days a week. It was fine when he was an infant but now I have to work either from Whole Foods or the library. It is challenging. I can't just get up and go to the bathroom and leave my stuff. If I try to work from home my 3 year old son demands my attention. I am desperate for a secure place to work from. I was hoping Lifetime Fitness would put one of their new co-work offices in my location but that may be a long time out. I'm just curious if you have plans for when your infant gets older. Maybe I am doing it wrong but there is 0 chance to work when I am in the house with him.

I’m also calling foul here: there is no way I could ever work in my office if my toddler was in the house without another adult supervising. Even if there is, the best I can do is lock the office door and hide from him...

One of my friends does nanny share and can work in his basement. That would work well, but you still have to be in stealth mode around the kiddies.

Wait, you're saying it's easier when they're an infant? Uh oh. I'm in trouble!

Once they're mobile, it gets many times harder. It goes something like this:

- Newborn to ~6-9 months: not mobile, and not too demanding either (especially early on)

- 6-9 months to 3 years: mobile and constantly trying to hurt themselves

- 3-5 years: mobile, mostly safe, but not understanding what "no" or "I'm busy right now" or "I'm on the phone" or "I need privacy" means; also not napping anymore, which means you lose that daily couple hours of bliss

- >5 years: gets progressively easier as kids begin to get independent and (somewhat) reasonable

Of course, this timeline is different for every kid.

We have four kids ranging in age from 1-7 years old. I work from home, but rarely am I in charge of taking care of the kids (right now, for instance, my mom is watching them while my wife runs errands). On the occasions where I am solely responsible for them, I consider any work I get done to be a bonus.

You've got such a great mom to help you out in this way.

We're incredibly fortunate to have family nearby that is able and willing to help.

Much, much easier with just one infant. I have a 5-year-old, 2.5-year-old, and 6-month infant at home. I'm considering keypad locks for the bedroom and office. I take calls from the closet or from the inside of a car.

Put whiskey in their drinks and you'll be fine

Infants are a dream compared to toddlers. Apart from when they need to be fed or changed, infants do practically nothing and don't have to be watched constantly.

Toddlers, on the other hand, are little balls of pure energy that get into anything and everything they can touch.

Ha, I see others have written great responses to this already. I have heard not all children are difficult. I personally can't imagine such a thing, but I have one of those "spirited" children. The comment below from syedkarim about putting locks on the doors made me laugh. I tried that with limited success.

Yup, between 1 and 5 they’re mobile and active enough to require constant engagement but mostly not self-reliant enough to find it themselves. It varies a lot based on the child though.

Much easier if the infant isn’t fussy. Kids have “features” that light up every few weeks.

It was hardest for me around 3... my son just wanted to play all of the time.

I'm sorry but I don't understand, are you saying that you are able to do your work at the same time as taking care of a baby?

It is completely impossible to have a real full time job and take care of a child at the same time unless yours happens to sleep the entire time. If this was possible all those moms could just work from home! I can barely work at home without locking the door if children under 5 are in the house and there is another adult taking care of them.

Yeah, this is weird. I would be very surprised if the company doesn't have some sort rule against this. I started working from home a few months ago and as part of the agreement there is a clause about not being the primary caregiver of a dependent child while working.

I'm not sure how you could get much of anything done attempting to do that.

Lol. I find that to be quite something. I couldn't fathom attempting something like this. Every time someone distracts me I spend another 15 minutes or so getting back into the 'zone'.

People wonder why people look down on remote work, when someone is 'remote working' by being a primary caregiver to a baby.....

I've tried to do this with my six-month-old. (I don't plan to work if I'm the only adult in the house, but occasionally my wife needs a break...) It really only works if the "work" I'm doing is being on a call that I don't really need to be invited to.

I imagine this varies based on the child. How are you finding working and being the primary carer of an infant?

Do you have any particular strategies for getting work done, and somehow keeping your child safe, entertained and developing?

I've got a 6-month old daughter, but my wife doesn't head back to work for another 3 months. I'm a bit concerned about my productivity once that happens.

I absolutely love spending time interacting with my daughter, in my free time. However, I presently find it near impossible to work when I'm the only carer around, unless she happens to be asleep. Hopefully that changes in 3 months and she's capable of short periods of independent play - but I'm not quite sure what to expect.

I've worked full-time at home for approximately the last 5 years. So I have very much got that down pat. Unfortunately, I can't work on a laptop anymore, as I developed RSI doing so a few years back (was working long hours, my own fault). I've also got two dogs which I love having around. However, once my daughter can walk (and harass them) they'll have to be mostly separated from my daughter. They're 50kg, so any small mishap would be a large mishap - can't take that risk. We've got a fully fenced acre out back so the dogs can't really complain!

I'm also a night owl, its 4:30 AM here and I'm pushing Docker images to ECR ;) It's quite strange how much more efficient I am working at night. I've tried all sorts of things to work on a "normal" schedule. Running on the treadmill in the morning, going for walks at lunch etc. No matter what, when I really need to get work done, I fall back into a night routine - even though I'm putting in the same total hours.

How do you manage being a night owl and being awake to look after your child during the day?

I don't know how the GP poster is doing it, because it is practically impossible to be the primary caregiver of an infant or toddler, and be able to work at the same time. Don't fool yourself into thinking you will somehow manage, and I suggest you start discussing options with your wife for when she heads back to work.

It's alright, we're not totally naive. My wife is only heading back to work part-time, and we have baby-sitters lined up for 75% of the time. For the remaining 25% I'm fully expecting that I'll be working catch-up hours in evenings.

However, I was holding onto the hope that I might be able to get some work done with my daughter in the room, and was genuinely curious about the parent post's purported success.

I've been remote for ~6 years now. Started working remotely when I had my first. I have a dedicated office, but now there are 3 of them.

Oh, the noise noise noise noise.

I have a nice permanent office setup but the past few years I've taken to working on my laptop in various places around the house a lot of the time. Not sure why. I still need my desktop for certain tasks (like photo editing) and sometimes the dual monitors are really useful. But for day-to-day work, I usually just use my laptop.

Your advice is so simple and yet something I had never thought of- "set no work hours". Do you blog or have any other advice? You seem to have a lot figured out.

What type of it job is this? Software dev? Says admin? cots config ?