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Comment by AaronBBrown | Hacker News Reader

Here's my big secret about remote working...

I sit at my desk a lot less, but work a lot more. I'm one of those people that simply cannot solve complex problems while sitting at a desk. Because I'm not beholden to butt-in-the-chair syndrome, I am free to spend an hour or more going for a walk, visiting a local coffee shop, or taking a bath so I can think and problem solve before typing into a console. As a result, my work takes less time and requires fewer revisions than when I was sitting in a chair at an office.

The down side...I'm always at work. In order to create the separation I have to make sure to leave the laptop upstairs in the office or else I'll just keep working at the kitchen counter.

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Adding another Amen here. I work from home, and I can get done in an hour or two what most of my colleagues take all day or even 2 days to complete. Why? Because I'm left alone!

The only time I work is when I want to work. That means, in order for me to tackle a project, I have to be motivated. When I'm motivated, I get the task done better, more quickly and more succinctly the first time.

If I'm forced to sit and stare at a screen and made to feel guilty when I'm not working, I'll never be motivated for anything. And working on something when my brain keeps saying "Fuck This!" is damn near impossible. I'm more likely to put some sort of half-assed hack through in such a scenario.

Some people, like you and me, Aaron, can motivate themselves and make sure things get done on time without someone standing over them. The manager standing over you scenario comes from a world where work is supposed to be dull, soul-crushing and horrible. Yer not supposed to want to go to work, so we have to stand here and make sure you do everything.

Helps to be passionate about what you're doing.

But yer also very right about dividing between work and life. I often find myself replying to work emails at midnight on a Saturday night, or working on a project on Sundays, or even while on vacation. In such cases, it helps to have a spouse who can shout at you to put it down.

Amen, brother. Heck, I use a wireless headset so that even when I'm in a hangout I can walk around, go outside, etc.

Don't ask me to think about something and then sit still while doing so; you'll get whatever lazy answer I can come up with quickest - or no answer at all.

When I was at Broderbund I got a rep for walking around a lot. My boss wrote me up saying that there was no way I could solve a problem when not sitting at my computer.

When I quit he hinted that with his contacts I'd never get another job in games, I was working 5 days later.

Myopic views, such as "must be sitting at a desk in an office", will never be the path to creative solutions to problems.

Managers who have nothing to do love to go after people for stuff like this. When a manager's job is just to crack the whip, not to remove barriers, things get bad pretty quickly.

Recommendations for a good wireless headset that has decent range?

I'm using this one: http://www.logitech.com/en-us/product/8391

The range ain't great, but it's enough. Combine it with a laptop and good wifi, and I can go quite a ways.

I've been having good luck with the LG HBS700. It feels a bit flimsy but it works well.

> I'm one of those people that simply cannot solve complex problems while sitting at a desk.

My best ideas? In the shower.

Number of businesses I've worked at where it was possible to take a shower during the day at the office to solve hard problems? Zero.

Working remotely with washable crayons on a shelf in my shower means I get about 3x the concept creation time. I figure a number of businesses I've worked at (in the office) have lost out on more than a million dollars of creative output due to not having a shower available.

Another downside is that I have completely lost perspective on how long it takes me to "get ready" to go outside the house if I have to be somewhere early in the morning. My routine is that I get up, feed the kids, eat breakfast, read the Interwebs, check up on the night's disasters at work, then move upstairs to my office. I often don't get myself groomed until lunchtime or so.

To those that I work with...don't worry. I always wear pants. But don't expect me to want to video chat with you too early in the morning. :)

Yes! I work three times as hard from home, and love it. I'm much more productive, to the point of doing projects that would take 2-3 people alone myself. I'm currently looking for a remote full-time position (email in profile).

The best code in the world is usually written faster and better by a single dood in a basement working non-stop for a couple days than it is by teams working for months.

Yes, so true. I'm also working on 99% of the Nuuton code by myself. Front to back end, including the web crawlers. Its strange, but I can definitely get a lot done like this. I sometimes even get bored and started building my own life-size robot. It will act as my administrative assistant.

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