Comment by finaliteration | Hacker News Reader

Comment by finaliteration | Hacker News Reader

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I really believe that working remotely or from home is a skill that needs to be developed over time in most cases. There may be some people who are just naturally better at it, but the first time I had a remote job we went from five days in the office to five days at home abruptly and I was horrible at it and inefficient at my job.

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.

But like didn’t you go to high school or college? Did you never have to study at home? How does one get into the modern office workforce without ever learning how to be productive when left to their own devices? I don’t get 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.

> But like didn’t you go to high school or college? Did you never have to study at home?

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).

> But like didn’t you go to high school or college?

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.

> For example, college won’t necessarily teach you how to [..] stick to a schedule even at home

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.

Unless things have changed a lot since I was in college, a student who can't easily study at home could always go to the library or the computer lab.

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.

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