Ask HN: How did you start working from home? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How did you start working from home?

I've been wanting to work from home for a long time, whether it be as a remote worker, entrepreneur, freelancer, whatever. The more I thought about it, the more I realized there has to be more people like me on HN.

So to all the people that are working from home (or have in the past), can you share how you got to that point (working from home) and if it was a positive experience? Looking forward to hearing how you did it!

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There are some huge advantages to working full time from home.

No one bothers me and I get a lot more done. On the flip side, there is no separation at all and sleeping disciplines go out the window, at least for me.

I worked until about about 2pm yesterday, slept till 7pm. Woke up, went on a date, came home, started work. At this rate it may be 4pm before I finally wind down enough to sleep. I seem to shift my sleeping a couple hours later every day and it eventually flips over.

In any event, I got here by working on a personal project on company time, against the direct marching orders of the overlords. Once I had a working prototype, I showed it off to said overlords, instead of results on the project I was placed on, and all was forgiven because they knew it would make them money :-P

Two years later some partners and I have built things up enough to break off what started as my experiment into a separate company seed-funded mainly by the company I used to work at full time. I now lead engineering from both my apartment and another company-paid apartment about 300 feet from mine and we are currently seeking second round funding.

I love it, I get a lot done, and I don't have "business stuff" hampering my natural workflow.

It all depends on your mindset and how disciplined you are in management. I know lots of programmers that when left to their own devices will do almost nothing, and happily take a paycheck for it while saying "I'm working on it".

In my experience that most people need a high level of accountability and external management in order to reach their ideal level of productivity, so it is not for most people.

Then there are people like me, who just want everyone to leave them alone so they can code for 18 hours in a row uninterrupted, and are perfectly happy doing so. Office environments and pointless meetings and people dropping into my office make me want to break things. No one knows how to manage my own time and attention span better than me.

I have never been happier or more productive than the past 3 months I have been working between these two apartments.

What you say is true, but if you really think about it, if you are going to have this work lifestyle its probably best to be doing it yourself (running your own startup) as why should you, or anyone, work 18 hours straight for an employer? I look at it as that the company knows they may not get optimal coding productivity out of someone who works in the office but they take this into account and it leads to work-life balance. If you want to work non-stop then at least put yourself in a situation to benefit from it directly.

I started almost by accident. The place I worked at was "downsized" somewhat viciously in the space of a year from 5 of us down to just me. Finally, the boss decided that office rent was costing too much and I started working from home instead. About 3 or 4 months in, the boss started to complain that my expenses were now costing too much (he was paying half my internet bill & 1/8 utilities - maybe £80/month) so I decided enough was enough and sought out some freelance work. On my first proper gig I made a month's wage in a day so I quit to do freelancing full time.

It does have its downsides (see other post re work/rest space) but overall I'm much happier working this way and would hate to go back to a normal office job. I'm not very good at getting up in the morning and I don't take orders as well as perhaps I sometimes should, so the whole situation is well suited to me.

Also, it's worth trying to get out now and then. Work from a coffee shop or somesuch (I found it remarkably productive). Every now and again I'll jump on a train to some strange town and stay there for a few days, work from a hotel/cafe/coffee shop and power through things. Working from 'home' is effectively working anywhere if it's web/writing work - so make the most of it!

working from home is fun for about 4 weeks... then you start to go stir crazy. i've actually started having problems sleeping since there is no difference between work/rest spaces

I solved this problem by working from the library. It's a quiet place with free, fast Internet access.

Another key is keeping a regular schedule. I wake up at 8am and go to bed at around 11 or 12, unless I'm working extra hours to get something released.

I can attest to this. For a few months I telecommuted as our business did not have an office space, and I definitely felt But as rick888 said, if you can separate the 2 somehow by discipline or otherwise, it can definitely work out.

yes, I know the feeling, I think its human nature to need a change of scenery on a nearly daily basis, there's a certain feeling to coming home from being at the office that just feels relaxing and if you are always at home you don't get this.

I found a job with a startup that didn't have an office, it made the work from home option pretty much default.

Then, after not too long, I got sick of it and got a job in an office, its not for everyone.. now I do get to work from home 1 day a week which is nice but I couldn't handle doing it everyday

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