Most people just don't have the discipline to work remotely. I think productivity will be reduced overall and it might prevent remote working in the future.
With my current job we started doing 1-2 days of working from home a week over the last year or so. Doing it part time has given me a chance to develop the skills and space needed to be successful and now that we are being pushed into it full time I feel a lot more prepared for it.
I do agree, though, that for most people who aren’t used to it or haven’t had a chance to develop the skills needed it’s going to be a rough transition and productivity is likely to decline, at least temporarily. Some of that may be due to working remotely, but I’m sure at least a part of it is just due to the general circumstances and anxiety surrounding it.
For me working from an office or working from home is literally the same thing. I’m on computer with headphones on and talking through slack.
My (admittedly limited) experience with education is that no, you don't have to study that much. Pay attention during classes/lectures, do your exercises during the breaks and that covers most of the stuff. Maybe do an hour here or there at home.
Then there's the one off course that has you do more work than you can pull within these limits; dread the deadline and slack on. Pull an all-nighter before the deadline. That's how it goes.
I'm watching a close relative attend university and I feel like they're studying even less than I did.. they attend lectures maybe 1-3 times a week, sometimes watch a video lecture... mostly just stay at home, play games and slack on. Jeez! Seems to translate to something like 10-15 hours of work a week? And not particularly demanding work. In for a shock when they need to be at work 8 hours a day and actually try get some stuff done every day (every hour even).
I was home schooled for K-12 but I did go to college and I was actually pretty effective at working on my own. But I think the nature of the work you’re assigned in college is different from that of the workplace, at least in most situations. For example, college won’t necessarily teach you how to communicate effectively with a remote team, how to stick to a schedule even at home, how to set up a space so you can take calls, etc.
I also think I sort of unlearned the skills needed after being forced to come into the office between X and Y time of the day for several years after college, so when I was suddenly left to my own devices again it was a difficult shift. Had I jumped straight from college to a fully remote job I may have done a bit better.
Now that I’ve relearned those skills I much prefer a mix of working from home and being in the office, that way I get a good balance of focused time at home and social time at the office.
If anything, I'd say it's especially good at teaching the opposite if you dormed on-campus - how to fit work in between randomly-timed socializing.
Personally I had no problem working at home on things I was finding interesting - but if I was studying something I was less passionate about I was liable to get distracted unless I distanced myself from distractions like browsing the internet.
It really varies by personality. Some people do a lot better by themselves. But if you hire me? It's worth paying for the office space.
- Keep a morning routine and a regular schedule
- Regularly check in with my colleagues, and post progress updates.
For my own personal anxiety, I'll not allow myself to feel guilty if I'm being slow or unproductive, (even in the office, sometimes the energy's just not there today) but I will allow myself to feel guilty if I'm failing to keep regular contact with my teammates. Without doing this, it's far too easy to slip into a rabbit hole researching something interesting, but ultimately not work related. Or, y'know, refresh the HN homepage for an hour and get nothing done.
I'd phrase it differently: most people don't start with the discipline. However, it's something you can learn. I don't know if everyone learns. I don't know if everyone learns in the same circumstances. I don't think nearly as many people will learn under exceptional circumstances (virus pandemic) as they would if they were starting to do full time remote permanently. And yes I'm concerned that a lot of people/companies will draw the conclusion that remote can't work because that one time we had to do it, there were problems...
What works for people without that discipline ?
Why can't the boss just tell at them over Skype ?
Amphetamines. Seriously. Prescription, of course. Coffee is a distant second. Thiobromine can be better for some people - you can get supplements it you can buy brewing cacao if you want to experiment with a potentially tasty drink.
Yeah, sure, there are behavioral interventions but for a guy like me, if I can just do it with a reasonably pill I'm willing to take the risk. Your risk tolerance may vary. Meditation is a good alternative but it takes time and, ironically, discipline.
Incidentally it may be the reverse, that people who are good at meditating are those predisposed to having good discipline!