How To Work From Home Like You Mean It | Hacker News Reader

How To Work From Home Like You Mean It

fastcompany.com

167 pointsifearthenight73 comments

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I've been working from home for many years now.

What gets me trough:

- Wake up at the same time everyday.

- Shower and change!

- Have breakfast.

- After lunch try to go work from a cafe or a public space where you have some "humanity" noise. Keeps you sane.

- Make work dates, we are social.

- Make sure you leave the house at least a couple times a day (even in the winter).

- Stay away from having a tab open with Social Media, block it on your main browser :P

- Learn to love podcasts.

- Invest in a very expensive espresso/coffee machine.

- Invest in Tea and a very large teapot.

- Learn how to cook, it's a good break too.

- Live downtown, so that you have things and ppl close by.

- Have a place with at least a balcony so that you can get some air and work from there too.

- Get a laptop, if you are going to not be in a office, don't replicate a cubicle in your house. Change up where you work, dinning table, sofa, desk, floor, etc...

- Buy a bike, and bike to the cafe in the afternoon.

- Make friends with other telecommuters/freelancer/artists/etc...

- Keep your place organized and clean, you spend a lot of time there.

- Meet close by ex-coworkers/friends for lunch.

- Stop working everyday at the same time.

Remember, it's not a vacation! But it's not an office setting either! Focus on getting the best out of each. You have a blank slate for you to create your best work environment now. Don't be afraid of trying different stuff and routines. You worked in offices for many years (school is part of that) it will take some time to get use to the new environment with lack of "forced" structure. You will be amazed about how much more you get done.

Happy working!

(edited for formatting, excuse any grammar erros and typos)

- Invest in a very expensive espresso/coffee machine.

If you don't want to drop a ton of cash, but still want fast and delicious home-brewed coffee, then I would suggest getting an aeropress instead: http://www.amazon.com/Aerobie-AeroPress-Coffee-Espresso-Make...

I love my AeroPress. I got one last year for Christmas, and have enjoyed it ever since. My thoughts in a bit more detail: http://www.alittletothewright.com/index.php/2011/01/aeropres... (Disclosure: Affiliate links within, use rgarcia's link if you'd like to avoid that)

Those are great contraptions, but you will still need a grinder or ask the shop to grind.

I actually prefer grinding just before brewing coffee. It's a $20 investment, and well worth it.

http://www.amazon.com/Black-Decker-CBG100W-Coffee-Grinder/dp...

A blade grinder like that won't do a terribly good job for something like an AeroPress. Grind quality is one of the most overlooked aspects of good coffee.

You really need a decent conical burr grinder to get a consistent fine grind. I like my Capresso grinder that I picked up for something like $70, but a quick googling turns up several well-reviewed burr grinders in the $30 range.

I like the ritual of a manual grinder:

http://www.amazon.com/Hario-MSS-1B-Mini-Coffee-Grinder/dp/B0...

It only takes 20 seconds or so for a single cup, and it gets your blood moving a little bit first.

Yes, ideally made of ceramic.

There is no point in spending money on good coffee if the other variables are not up to spec.

(This is totally my personal waist of money, in no way diminishing anybody's taste and budget)

Coffee snobs!

Also try craigslist. These burr grinders last forever. I got one for $5 that's probably 20 years old. Grinds are nice an consistent.

I prefer a Bialetti - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000CF3Q6/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...

Agree with everything, some additional ones:

- Take walks!

- Say NO to MMOs

- If you smoke, never get into the habit of smoking at your desk.

Personally, if you don't make money out of gaming, don't get into it, its a time sinkhole.

Smoking = Quit :)

Walking is great for relaxing and brainstorming!

> Personally, if you don't make money out of gaming, do get into it...

I'm gonna guess based on the rest of your post that you meant "don't" instead of "do". Otherwise, you're just evil. :)

If you don't make money out of posting on HN, don't get into it, it's a time sinkhole

I think you are making a decent point, but with too generic of a statement. If gaming isn't worth the money/time you spend on it, don't do it. But that should be criteria for many things, and it's very hard to do correctly and unbiased.

- Get a docking station

- Have a musical instrument nearby

- Workout

I've found having a musical instrument around to be incredibly helpful. It's great to take a 10 minute break to strum on a guitar, let your brain focus on something different and get your subconscious working.

10 min Meditation works too. But I'm now poised to maybe get a guitar :)

I've been working from home for eight years now and every single item on this list is spot-on.

- Like it or not, your spouse or significant other's days off will become your days off, so plan accordingly.

- Invest in a good chair. You'll touch it more than anything else in the world and long after you've ditched your current computer, you'll still be sitting in the same chair.

- Join a gym, preferably with classes that you need to schedule in advance so you can 'commit' to your entire week's workout schedule so it doesn't slip.

- Have a spot in your house that is always for work.

Great list, but help an old guy out:

> Learn to love podcasts.

? What is this for?

Background noise, News gets too repetitive.

Aha. I find shoutcast.com useful in this regard: I tune to a station with mostly soulless repetitive music. It somehow creates a space around me but doesn't make me "listen" and steal focus. Also, it requires no care and feeding after the first click.

I find somafm.com to have great soulful, working music that doesn't distract.

Their Groove Salad station provides consistently unobtrusive ambient, conducive to the zone. Which is the soulful station that you like?

I'm mostly a groove salad guy.

I mix it up a little sometimes with Beat Blender, or Lush.

Been trying out Suburbs of Goa if it's not confusing "Oh, it sounds foreign and exotic" with the real(er) stuff.

Been doing it for four years and couldn't agree more with most of this list. Plus, I'll add a couple of these to my repertoire. I'd also add that getting a fair amount of exercise reduces the cabin fever that comes with working from home. And the flexible hours allow you to get to the gym when no one else is there. I've found the biggest problem is not staying focused but being able to turn work off at night and live a somewhat regular life. +1 for Podcasts and maybe add Howard Stern and Sirius to the list :)

I've found blocking it at the browser level to be insufficient. This script helps: https://gist.github.com/875467

I use "StayFocusd"on Chrome, and use all the social stuff on Safari, which i QUIT after every visit...

It's only a problem when your main work requires social media (facebook apps, twitter integration, etc...)

Great tips. Having regular workouts and other hobbies is great too, even just to keep variety.

Hobbies are great, i often break apart and work on my bicycles while on conference calls :)

I've been working from home for the last four years, and maybe I'm an outlier but I literally have no issues with it. I am productive, I have a good separation between my work and personal lives, I never have an issue getting motivated, and I don't feel lonely.

It probably helps that I love my work, but I don't have any issues with distractions. I actually appreciate the fact that there are distractions around home, because if I need a break from work it's as easy and heading to the living room to play some games or kick back and relax to some tv on my comfy couch. When I need a change of scenery or human interaction, I just head to a coffeeshop to hang out and work alongside a friend or two who have also flexible work situations, or I go to a co-location workspace in the city.

I waste no time commuting, my workstation is setup exactly how I want it to be (complete with a Geekdesk and two 27" cinema displays), and I control the temperature. And if I need to "stay late at the office" it's not hard on my wife because she knows I'm just downstairs. Heck, she can even hang out in my "office" and read or do whatever while I work.

Every 6 weeks or so I will fly to the offices of my current contract to work on location, so it's interesting to compare that experience. I do end up getting into sync with the rest of the team a little better when I'm physically there, but not by too much since we heavily utilize collaborative tools like skype and join.me to great effect. What I do find is that I get pulled aside WAY more when I'm on location and my workflow constantly gets interrupted; I'm way less productive. I always end up with back-pain issues too because I'm working at a substandard workstation. I do admit it's fun to BS with my cohorts though, but I don't know how important that is to the project.

I know there are benefits to working on location, but honestly in my opinion working from home is better on almost all fronts.

These seem like pretty obvious details, right? I've never understood why someone wants to sit around in pajamas all day or waste time playing games/watching tv all day (don't get me wrong, I love doing those things, but I'd much rather get my work out of the way and then hang out). Just because working from home is an option, doesn't mean you're suited for the gig. A lot of people derive structure for their day from the physical act of going to and being at work. There needn't be any "hacks" or "fixes," you'll know almost immediately whether or not the lifestyle is appropriate for your working situation.

Obvious, but easier said than done. Like the author states, it's a slippery slope into the condition described by the Oatmeal: http://s3.amazonaws.com/theoatmeal-img/comics/working_home/6....

I work from home, and it's amazing how effective it is to simply "dress up" at 8am and "dress down" at 5pm. If I didn't do this, it's easy to fall into the trap of starting at 8am in your underwear and spreading out 8 hrs of work all the way till 11pm. It's fine when you're single, but a recipe for disaster if you are in a relationship.

Agreed. Since we homeschool our kids (and my wife does a large percentage of the schooling), when I work from home, I am relegated to the home office or the cafe for much of the day.

My typical work from home day starts around 6:30 AM, and I work 'til roughly 8:30, when the kids wake up. I help them make breakfast, and sit and eat with them. Around 9:00-ish, my wife starts the school, and I disappear 'til early afternoon. I'll typically stop working around 4:00 PM, and if necessary, work for an hour or two later in the evening, after the kids are asleep.

The schedule seems to work well for all involved, and gives me extra time to be around my family.

Agreed- I've had days where there's been a fire I've had to put out at 8 AM, and I work in PJ's, no shower, etc- if I don't take a shower and change clothes when things calm down, I'm much less productive.

I think the best part of the article was the last paragraph. Sometimes a lack of productivity is a lack of motivation in disguise, and no amount of dressing up will help that.

He doesn't mention flow, as in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology). Without it, you're pretty much wasting time whether you're at home or at the office. It might be easier to force yourself to do some menial tasks at the office, but it's much easier to get into the flow in peace at home, and then you'll be 10x more productive and able to do real work.

But home has so many distractions. I much prefer me in an office with noise-canceling headphones than working from home in terms of getting into the flow.

The only real distractions I have at home are the cats, whom I can hear even through my big headphones. But a cat's "I need you!" meow is as hard to ignore as a baby's cry.

The big question is, how do you train yourself to get ´in the zone´ when you are working in a project you don´t like with tools you don´t like?

I've almost finished reading "The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work".[1]

It's based on scientific results, so it's not yet another esoteric self-help book.

Now, back to your question: If you expect it to suck, it will suck. The author explains with princile #2 (the fulcrum and the lever) how this negative priming turns this into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Now, it might be, that the particular job simply stinks, but usually you can find something positive and just thinking about that shortly before will make that negative feeling go away. My explanation might make it seem simple and useless but I can't possibly replace all the valuable advice from the book. And it works. Give it a shot.

It's a very good read and I recommend it very highly.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Happiness-Advantage-Principles-Psychol...

Find someone that tells you "WOW that's pretty cool", even if he has little knowledge or experience about what you are doing. This will motivate you a lot.

I train myself to fix holes for the next job...

Discipline.

This entire article is about building one core skill, entirely summed up in one word. This core skill helps create all other required skills.

That's it.

Sadly it seems to dance around discipline, like we may, avoiding saying it to not to hurt anyones feelings.

Discipline forms habits. Discipline keeps habits. Poor discipline, poor habits.

Not having and always working on your discipline makes it hard to work from home.

Fast Company; I'm available for hire.

I'm pretty sure that they are not trying to avoid hurting people's feelings. The problem with "discipline" is that people see the word and assume that we're merely talking about strength of willpower. The key to discipline is building good habits and sticking to them, not mere willing yourself to do the right thing. People often make this mistake.

Interesting.. I think we might be saying something similar.

I think I've noticed most people cringe from the word discipline. They feel building discipline like it's some life / breath sucking black hole that kills all creativity and freedom. Maybe to procrastinate.

Wherever I've found anyone with:

- academic discipline (brilliant in a field of research)

- professional discipline (great at their job)

- social discipline (knows how to get things done with difficult people)

- physical discipline (exercises)

- dietetic discipline (eats well)

- emotional discipline (well balanced)

- mental discipline (don't suffer from analysis paralysis)

- spiritual discipline (can take the good from everything, learn how to meditate/focus, get into flow easier)

I find one amazing thing. We call them successful at what they do. It's tied to their discipline. Discipline of creating, maintaining and building on good habits.

In a way, discipline leaves you free to create and succeed.

I couldn't agree more.

> Discipline.

Yep, agree 100%. I've been telecommuting full-time since 2006. It's not just discipline to work though - as someone else mentioned in this discussion, you've got to pull yourself away from work too.

So discipline and balance, really. Pretty fundamental skills for success, but maybe not skills that everyone applies at home?

Totally. Been full time self-employed since '99 in Uni and I've had to learn discipline, routines, and maintaining all areas of my life. Sucked at a lot of it for many years, still improving.

The one thing I've realized there's always something to improve. If I was finished improving it means I'm not busy enough most days, lol.

I have worked from home most of my working life and these things are important, however, I discovered that, at least for me, I have to like the work i'm doing even more than I have to like it in 'an office'. For me it's much easier to procrastinate when I don't like what i'm doing/don't believe in. And really, procrastination can make you hate yourself, so it makes me drift towards things I like and believe in, much more than towards money. This has been working for me for over 20 years now up to a point were I really don't understand anyone doing it differently (most notably, people going to jobs they don't like for the money, as most people do http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/poll_most_in_us_don_li... (there are similar polls in EU countries)). Life is too short for that.

What do you do when you start to feel your interest/passion fade? Is it time to look for a new gig or do you have good ways to bring back the spark?

The awesome thing is that my ineterest/passion never fades. There's an endless list of things I want to try, do or test out that if my interest ine one thing fades I immediately pick up the next. When that's worked itself out, or interest goes, I find my interest in the first task is renewed.

My girlfriend, on the other hand, will not work from home because she thrives on having people around her. I guess we're all different.

I usually first try to get the spark back, but to be honest, that doesn't work very often. Because I start a new company for every 'serious' thing, I usually sell off the company which gives me > 1 year of cash to find a new Great Love.

I have worked from home for the past 2.5 years. The freedom is great, but the downside is that I found I work a lot more. There just ends up being so little separation between work and home that is all just blends into the same thing.

I'm taking a job soon where I'll need to go into an office and I'm excited. Now that I have done years in an office and out, I think the best solution for me is an office job that has flexibility to show up in a time window (been 8am and 10am for example) and the option to work from home when needed.

Learning to stop yourself is a hard skill.

I worked from home for 3-4 year in 2000-2004. 7 days a week, 16 hour days with the odd day off to catch up on sleep quickly became a norm because no one told me I had to stop.

I found better balance finding some time at a coworking space. The act of leaving the house and being surrounded by other similar entrepreneurs helps a lot.

One of the hardest things from working from home is if you share your living space with people who are unemployed and stay home most of the day.

Much more difficult to stay motivated when your house is full of people in pajamas who are surfing facebook , playing guitar hero and smoking pot.

Sounds like you need to find some new roommates. Surrounding yourself with losers is only going to bring you down.

Thank God for our detached garage. I walk out there in the morning (my commute, 2 days a week), and I am "at work".

I have to take frequent early morning calls (I am in California, everybody else in my working group on the East Coast or offshore), so I usually barely make it, but I do make it, and grab breakfast later. This is a bit awkward, but it works for me, and I usually finish the day at a decent time, even if I start the first hour or two in my sweats. I'm violating the preconception of wearing the costume and being ready first thing, but if I had to eat breakfast at 6:00 in the morning, I would be sick. Ugh. TMTOWTDI. (I don't have the luxury of starting at 9:00)

I've been working from home since 2003. Holy crap, I just read back that sentence...

Lately I've been thinking that I can't do this forever. But like all things that people do for a long time it's hard to find a way out.

Despite the fact that I can easily not leave the house for days at a time (and worse - not even notice) I'm a happy, social person. I have a wife, daughter, lots of friends around.

However, this year I've decided not to be such a hermit and mix it up with new people. So I've booked myself some conferences (inc sxsw) and local get-togethers and see what it leads to.

Nothing worse than getting into your own safe little world - one day you'll be too scared to leave it...

In art form, for the aspiring home-worker:

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/working_home

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co_DNpTMKXk

It's amazing how efficient working from home can become. What's even more amazing is when you realize how much time goes wasted in an office environment due to constant interruptions. The downside is that you end up with a lot of empty time to fill in.

Word of advice: Get a second part-time job/education/daily activity. Have a cuckoo clock on your PC (helps to bring you back to reality)

What I've found has helped the most is moving into a house with a real office in it and only working in there.

My condo was a work free-for-all. Working variously in the kitchen, bedroom and living room imbued the entire place with an emotional vibe that made it feel like I was always at work, even on weekends.

Also: Laying down the law and getting family to respect that you are at work when those office doors close. No requests for chores, no constant pop-ins for idle chit chat or (much worse) picking fights.

I've found these things work whether I'm in my underwear or not.

IRC.

I worked for home for 18 months. What made the most difference for me was having an IRC session open all the time with my 8-9 colleagues. We only talked about work issues there (more-or-less). It gave me what I missed, which was:

- the casual non-formal interaction mechanisms with my colleagues (like just popping over to their desk to ask something),

- it made me feel less alone

- gave me a reason to get up and start work in the morning (as others would see when I logged in, a bit like when others see when you get to the office in the morning)

- it made me feel part of the team.

> ..."arriving" on time, eating lunch on a rigid schedule, shaving, brushing, and so on seems pointless at first.

It did seem pointless to me at first. And then I tried it for a while and learned how to have a healthy separation between work and the rest of my life at home. And now I realize that most of these things are pointless for me when I work at home.

Been working from home since early 2008, and found one of the most critical things to do is to separate your work space from the rest of your "normal" life. For a while, I was waking up 24" from my laptop. I'd work non-stop all day, and much of the night. There was no separation, no respite even in my dreams. I don't care how awesome your project/business/start-up is, you need to occasionally come up for air.

Having a separate work space I could leave and return to was great. When I was "at work", I got stuff done. When I needed a break or was spending time with my family, I wasn't sucked in by work laptop screen within sight and was able to be, for the most part, fully present.

The best of both worlds.....

Why is "working" in quotes?

Just because the article is about working from home but not necessarily actually getting any work done. (and how to cope with the common problem)

What seems to work best for me is to have a todo list. I write this list at the end of the day for the next day. Not only gives it me something to focus on the next day, it also allows me to start thinking about the potential problems I might need to solve so that when I sit down at the keyboard things sorta flow better.

http://www.lukeschreur.com/posts/productivity

I found very productive to split my working time into slots called pomodoro, the famous pomodoro technique. I built a tool to help me getting things done and don't waste time called Tomatoes [1].

[1] http://tomatoes.heroku.com

If you built this while you should've been working on your day job then you are my new procrastination hero!

Ahaha! Yes I am!

Well, this tool made me work instead of procrastinate so I think it was kind of "good" procrastination, wasn't it?

Amazing how people who directly link to Neven Mrgan's blog still manage to add vowels to his last name.

I've been working from home since August 2010.

The part where you get up on time, shower, shave, dress well, etc, is very important, as the author says. It's psychological - you're gearing yourself up for a day of work. If there is no physical differentiation between a work day and an off-day, the two will start to blend together in icky ways. For this reason, even though in general I am a very lazy person, I always do this. I always clean up, always dress properly, and have a part of my home I only use for work. I also have meetings every day on Skype, so if I look like a hobo people will know about it.

On the other hand, I do clean and sometimes cook during the work day. I make sure to get my work done, but since I'm at home I try to get some mundane things done so I don't have to do them when I'm off. I work for a place that encourages a balance of life and work, so this is more in line with what others at my workplace are doing (ie, I'm not slacking relative to my coworkers).

Being social is still something I am struggling with. Since I work alone and I don't have nerd friends, having someone to talk tech with is kinda missing from my life right now. The tech scene in my city is good but I just haven't been taking advantage of it by going to events and meeting people. In general, being around people is less frequent now, so it's more distracting when it happens. I have been sort of letting this happen rather than trying to fix it.

>I have been sort of letting this happen rather than trying to fix it.

Fix it - make it a priority. You've already recognized that it's an issue, just need to take the initiative to act on it. And not only is it an issue that you know needs to be addressed, but it's an important one. Treat it as such, as you would any important work goal.

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