Working from home
mattgemmell.com
mattgemmell.com
I don't have a set routine. I don't avoid the sofa. If I want a mid-afternoon nap, I have one. If I don't get up until noon, that's fine. I monitor my outputs, not my inputs -- which is why you'll sometimes find me working at 5am on a Sunday morning, or over a public holiday, and why you'll sometimes find me shopping or in the pub during office hours. (Not to mention the gym: I try to schedule my exercise for times when everyone with an office job is at their desk.)
Outputs. As long as the work gets done, you're good to go. And apart from that, make sure you still have a social life.
Drawbacks: it's easy to vanish down the rabbit hole: working in an office is an oft-unacknowledged social experience, and even though your co-workers may not be people who'd hang out with otherwise, human contact is important.
"He lives ... with his wife..., a couple of cats, several thousand books, and an ever-changing herd of obsolescent computers."
The downside is that it can definitely blur the lines between work and play. I can live with that, however, because it does offer me a pretty significant amount of freedom with my time (that is, I'm willing to work a couple of hours later in the evening if I'm free to take advantage of a perfect spring day in the afternoon).
[0] This actually helps enforce a schedule because I am relegated to my desk in the bedroom during school hours. I can only show my face during lunch.
Walking around with earplugs/headphones all day is too painful and not an option, so now if I really want to get anything done I leave the house.
As far as home working is concerned, I do it (along with slightly different hours) during term time to allow me to do drop-off/pick-ups. There's no-one else at home when I'm working from home.
During holidays I'm either off to look after children or I work from the office. I don't have enough space to effectively shut myself off.
(Our flat has three bedrooms ... or rather, had three bedrooms: in practice, it has one bedroom and two offices.)
I would assume it is a bit different for you, right? You need to do whatever is necessary to produce a few very high quality works. Some tech workers like Linus Torvalds writing git are in that category too, but for most tech workers we just need to crank out decent software asap. Most software devs are using some form of agile & have fairly brisk targets to hit on a frequent basis. Is it common for writers to do something similar, like Chapter 4 has to be done in 2 weeks?
A common pattern I use when I face a challenging problem is to not work on it for several days. My mind is working on it, but not entirely consciously, and then when I do tackle it directly the solution seems to flow easily. As long as I produce results, even the people who pay me don't need to know the details of my methods. Often it's easier to keep them insulated from those details so I don't have to worry about them getting nervous.
I'm sure that for some people my strategies wouldn't work. The important thing is to figure out what works for you, and when you find it don't worry too much if it doesn't match the common wisdom.
When I'm at home I will sit in front of my computer for less time and it will appear that I am slacking off a lot more if someone were watching me, but my time in front of the computer is way more productive because I don't have to pretend to be busy for 8 hours but rather just have to do 4 really productive hours of work.
I rarely work from home though, so I'm sure my work habits might be different if I were working from home for an extended period of time.
edit: while it may not seem like it, I feel like I need these breaks in the office to "slack". I can't stay focused for 8 hours every day, but I do have to be in the office for 8 hours straight so... that's what the company gets.
I was always an extrovert before I started freelancing, and enjoyed meeting people and going to events/parties. Unfortunately, after a decade of working alone from my home office, I've slowly become an introvert, and am decidedly uncomfortable in social situations. I'm attempting to change this by forcing myself to go to various meetups, but it's hard.
Working from home has been a great benefit, and has helped my wife and I raise our children in the manner we had hoped. But I've definitely paid a price for 10 years of freelancing from home, by myself.
I'd recommend scheduling frequent social events on your calendar from the very start.
Obviously, this isn't feasible for everyone. But if I'm feeling isolated, I have about 10 cafes that are a 5 minute walk away, and crowded streets where I can see human faces. Really helps to relieve isolation.
Pittsburgh and Milwaukee are two where I've lived; Chicago is quite affordable for a major metropolis with 24/7 rail service; there are also many lovely college towns out there.
Between the isolation and the stresses associated with the job, I wound up moving back up to the bay area. I work in an office now, and essentially only see coworkers in the flesh for a few minutes each day, but I still feel so much less isolated.
All of that said, I am pretty sure that I want to be working from home again in the future; I'm just going to come up with some better coping techniques for it.
And I'm social enough that I do prioritize hanging out with friends and seeing people on the weeknights and weekends so it's a good balance.
You could try enrolling in a postgraduate program, if you have the time.
Um, did you read the section titled "Preserving sanity"? It starts with: Working from home can be a lonely experience. And goes on from there...
It's entirely possible I missed it, but you're commenting a day after this discussion took place, so it's also quite possible it was added to the post.
- Your office chair is the most important piece of equipment in your office. You're in contact with it most of the day. Buy a good one and it will last you for years. Buy a bad one and it will give you back problems for years.
- If you can, join a CrossFit (or similar) gym. Not only will you get in great shape, they become a social outlet and because they're time boxed, you're in and out in an hour.
- Whether you like it or not, your spouse/significant other's days off become your days off so plan accordingly.
- Enjoy the flexibility of working from home. While you don't want to plunk down and watch TV when you should be working, you can do things like meet a plumber at your house without taking time off.
- Build in a hard stop at the end of your day so you don't blur lines between the workday and personal time. For me, I have a rule that I never work while the kids are home and awake. My wife texts me when they're leaving daycare and that gives me about 15 minutes to save what I'm working on and shift from work mode to home mode.
We're moving from Seattle to the Tokyo suburbs next month. The time zone shift + foreign country are going to add a new layer of complexity to working from home. At least I get to bring my chair.
I've only, a few months ago, realized how much time I used to spend manipulating my managers, bosses and coworkers' behavior. And how much time they used to spend manipulating mine. It's such an exhausting time consuming thing that is now gone entirely.
Every now and then I join a meeting at the office of a client and right away you feel the tugging, pulling and pushing taking place. A laugh to encourage behavior, a verbal stab to discourage it.
Such a waste.
It's extremely difficult getting your spouse to respect the "working" part of working from home.
I've seen it suggested before (and it's something I've taken to doing) that you can provide cues as to whether you can be interrupted.
I've got it to the point that if the door is closed, no-one should interrupt me. Most likely I am on a call. If the door is closed, but I have music on, then I am working, concentrating, in-the-zone or whatever, so any interruption is not welcome, but I can be interrupted if critical. If the door is open then I'm around for some social interaction.
Couple of tips when interrupted: - Make them wait a few seconds.. hold on, let me just finish this.. re-enforces the fact they are interrupting you. - Ask for errands or such like to be written on a list you keep handy.. so you can do it when you get a chance. There's a maximum length to that list before it's obvious what is being asked of you.
Obviously YMMV, but keeps my wife and kids out of my hair when needed.
Not everyone, and I'm hoping not even the majority, will have to deal with this from their SO/OH/spouse, however. (I don't, thankfully. We both wfh to differing schedules, and work time is work time.)
No, my kid really. She just think: He's home! Great, let's play or 'look at me! And again... and again... '
It's the main reason I need to get out of the house. Thank God they're a lot of empty office buildings in my city. A lot of them have been made into flex-work spaces for freelancers or small businesses and you can rent a place with wifi at a low cost. The only problem: They close for the evening. I haven't really found a way around that.
We ended up coming up with a "red, yellow, green" symbol system. Ours is a number of colored magnets on a small whiteboard, but there's plenty of options there. Red means no interruptions, short of an emergency. Yellow means brief interruptions are OK, but conversations are not. Green means I'm open for anything (usually when I'm gaming, resting, etc).
Of course, setting up this kind of restriction means that you also have to spend all of your time with your spouse with your spouse. Mentally as well as physically.
No matter how clear I am about how I'm not to be disturbed, she can be incredibly cunning about it. The 'here's a cup of tea because you are working so hard' ends up becoming a 30 minute discussion about her current social circles interactions'.
Then there's the kids.
It probably also helps that she works from home with some frequency, so she understands the need to actually be productive at our jobs rather than doing errands and house work all day.
Now the in-laws, ya, they think I'm sitting at home all day watching TV. THEY used to try to ask that things get done since I'm home (I live very close to them at the moment) but saying 'no, I'm working' and looking at them like they're idiots solved that.
No, I used to believe so, but it is actually very easy. You tell her you are working and no you can't, and you actually mean it, you have to be really convinced inside.
My advice is that you look yourself in the mirror, you are probably projecting insecurity in your body language.
You don't need to get angry, quite the contrary , you need to control the situation in a calm assertive way.
Women are like dogs, they feel insecurity(they are much better at body language than men) y and try to get advantage of it in a subconcious way, watch "Dog Whisperer" to understand what I mean. The worst thing is that they disrespect those that are easy to control.
We are animals after all, and our inner chimpanzee is controlling most of what we do, the different is that we use reason to justify what our chimpanzee wanted afterwards.
> Women are like dogs
When I worked in an office, when the clock hit the 6pm there was nothing I can do to keep working, it was not possible, I miss that mindset despite I hate the idea to come back working in an office again.
That is my problem, working from home is great but is an awful experience when you are stressed.
"Squeaksqueaksqueaksqueaksqueaksqueaksqueak...."
"Uh, excuse me. No, I'm ok. I feel better now."
The problem is: I don't know what to do. Making webapps in PHP, creating web design, drawing, writing - I can imagine doing these things at home.
But I am a Java developer. Who would hire a freelancer to write a server-side code?
How to start?
Then maybe contact some business that use the kind of code you make, and ask if you can chat over coffee about whether and how they use contractors.
Doing those two things will give you some idea of the landscape. I'm sure there are contractors doing what you do – there are in almost all fields.
* Save as much money as you possible can, and lower your expenses
* Start looking for a client or two on the side
* Think about what skills you can productize (e.g. an e-book guide to some sub speciality you're good at, in a niche who use that speciality to make money, and for which no good guide exists)The gist is that people love to talk, and will rarely turn down a sincere request to give information. As I'm doing right now.
My brother got a job this way, and build a professional network at the same time. And almost everything I started in business came from a (well-targeted) cold email or phone call.
Pitch well and they'll usually go for it as it's cheaper to have a contractor working than a full-time employee.
I've seen this done successfully multiple times, and never seen any employer turn it down.
Alternatively, you can go on http://angel.co and look for remote positions.
I don't need predefined time for exercise - our homestead keeps me busy with physical work like gardening and woodworking all the time. We live in a hilly rural area with no car, so going to buy groceries is a good exercise as well.
All due respect to the author but routine like this scream "boring to death" for me. I can't imagine committing to such way of living unless I had no other choice. Like cstross said above, the output / result of your work is far more important. YMMV.
Some nitpicks:
>It’s not possible to spend too much money on a chair and desk that prevent repetitive strain injury.
If that photo is of the author's office, I think I recognize that chair as a very inexpensive, mass market chair.
>As I mentioned, I have an exercise bike in my office that I can use whilst working on my MacBook Air
Exercise is about energy output. If you can type emails while you workout, you are likely not working hard enough, and would probably be better served, efficiency-wise, by working harder for a shorter period of time.
Having my spouse adjust has been a challenge. Being asked to feed the cat etc. while 12 frames deep debugging is very frustrating.
I was initially concerned about discipline, but found rather that I now end up overworking - it's deceptively easy to work 10 or 11 hours a day when at home, as you tend to micro-scrutinize the time you spend not actually typing code. If I'm at the office and I spend 15 minutes chatting with a coworker, I don't feel guilty about those 15 minutes. If I'm at home and I read Facebook for 5 minutes I probably work another half an hour. Something I need to get better on, at any rate.
I love reading these submissions though, as they have already given me enough good ideas to make working from home work for me. I'm curious to see, as more and more people start adopting this lifestyle, what other tricks and strategies will emerge. (For me, a pre-dawn winter hike and a bit of skiing at first light is worth whatever other lifestyle changes I have to make to adopt to working from home!)
I no longer follow it, but the rhythm is somewhat ingrained, and I take regular breaks for context switching, etc. biggest difference is that I allow for longer stretches of productivity while being more conscious of passing the burnout point.
I'm also finding that it helps to vary what work that you do rather than attempting to crunch out just one kind of work endlessly (spend x hours on sales, spend y hours on the project, spend z hours on marketing, spend xx hours learning new skill, spend yy on email/news/social media).
I have also tried co-working and hated it because it's like an open plan office except with strangers. Coffee shops are even worse, although they can be OK for a context switch with white noise playing on headphones. I think the best compromise is probably either a small office outbuilding on your own property or an affordable office nearby.
Another key: wake up super early in the morning every day. Becoming a morning person has made a big difference for me. Wouldn't be able to do it without eating melatonin, but it gets the job done.
I really enjoy it. My advice is: find someone-partner with someone else that loves to do and is good at what you hate, and vive versa.
If you find yourself procrastinating in some area of your work, you need to do this. Is usually means finding the opposite personality of you.
E.g I love creative work but hate so much constant work doing the same thing over and over. Solution: There is people out there that loves to do the same thing over and over but hates getting out of their comfort zone.
So this way I explore a new problem, I digest it, plan it with detail, then I give this to the other person to complete the job. She loves it, because something impossible becomes very easy to do once I told her all the steps.
You can't do anything alone, you need a team. Study personality types, then go hunting for help.
Main problem is what do we count as work? High quality output or do we count research phases too?
In my experience, working at home and honestly measuring productive time can surprise menu. While I can pull more than four hours of productive work (daily total), it is _very_ unusual to see more than four. Comparing with other professionals, when I could ask them (and I have asked menu), shows similar results. At least on realms I could check, four hours per day seems like magic boundary.
Is this unusual? Do others manage to pull six, eight or more quality work hours? Looking at Matt schedule it seems he should be publishing several books by now?
But yes, do act like a professional. I guess if you can actually do a full day's work in a bathrobe then good for you, but I find the daily routine provides valuable structure to the day. I also Skype with my coworkers at least once a day so if I look like hell all the time that would probably not look great.
A musical instrument is a great addition to the office, but i would go to a gym instead of exercising at home, it's a good excuse to get out of the house regularly. Ditto for walking, or getting a bike.
I wonder if there are forums where home-workers hang out to talk about their days and experiences.
I am not very disciplined by nature. If I am able to put in 4-5 hours of concentrated code in a day, then I am extremely satisfied.
Below are some highlights of my experience.
Exercise replaces commute:
In Indian metros these days, commute to work is a curse. And people suffer from it. On an average (anecdotal) people commute 1.5 hours a day. I am really really thankful, I don't have to do that. Rather I use that time for exercise, alternating between Cardio and Strength exercises on adjacent days.
Routine:
Wake up at 7:30. Go for exercise at 8:30. Breakfast at 10/10:30. Start work by 11/11:30 AM. But once I start work (which includes communication, sysadmin work, tax etc. work and of course coding), I am at it till roughly around 6 or 7 PM.
Distractions:
Social media is a modern day curse. And people who are able to conquer it, will rule the world. I have had my weak phases. But I have mastered it to a reasonable extent.
A simple rule 'No Facebook till 5 PM' has served me very well. I may check twitter some times during the day, but unless there is some true breaking news, or I am in my weak-easy-to-get-distracted phase, I am not much affected by it. One reason could be I post less on twitter. So have less post posting anxiety of counting RTs and reactions to it :-)
And BTW the rule for FB applies to HN as well. But somehow HN is far less addictive (and not at all in that bad way) than FB. Typically my evenings are for HN. And of course, I am so thankful I have it. As it offsets the effects of not being in the know of the tech Industry, because of not going to a place to work.
Family:
I don't have a very strict rules. So my family keeps on walking in all the time. Particulatly its summer now and kids have vacations. I don't mind it, if I am doing some communication kind of work, or (ironically) if I am too deep into my code. The way, I interact with family, does not put any pressure on me, when compared to say communicating very formally. So I could be answering them, while I am in the deepest recesses inside my mind, solving a coding problem.
On the other hand, If I am frustrated, by failed efforts of not being able to concentrate hard enough then that's another matter. Then I am quite irritable, and I share that with my family as well, and ask them not to disturb me.
I am very thankful to my wife here. Who has almost mastered the art of communicating with me during work with minimal impact :-)
Advantages:
Advantages are many. Main thing is that, your time is yours. You love the freedom. And would never want to trade it with commute-to-work if possible. All the ones which the Matt's essay mentions apply, e.g. afternoon show movies, kids can walk in with their codecademy.com doubts (that's one of their summer tasks BTW :-)), easily able to attend to a need by a family person (e.g. medical need, which happened last month).
Also the main thing i.e. work, also gets done very well. And if you can focus, you will be very very productive. As I said above, I am very satisfied if I have had a day of 4-5 hours of coding.
Disadvantages:
Self doubt - Occasionally I have doubts, if I am missing on something by not going to work. Especially was a bit concerned about my business communication skills suffering because of it. Written word over emails is fine. But was worried about the verbal discussions part. This was true for the initial year of working from home.
But now with the passage of time, I am more assured. I do have once in a few months face to face meeting with my co-founder. Also there are other business face to face meetings, with an approximate average of once a month.
I do socialize with people in the park, where I go for my runs. And I discovered some of them, also work in the same mode.
So if you can manage to be productive and are able to work, the disadvantages are not many. Even philosophically speaking, why should the information age workers work in the same way as that of industrial age workers?
Edit: Format. HN text area input does not deal with new-lines in an intuitive way - some times you have to give two.
But local Startups typically are more flexible, with sites like HasGeek[1] showcasing some of the more suitable jobs from a work-from-home/free lancing perspective.
Now to answer the question of interesting work. That depends of course. One tends to pick up consulting work on some overall factors like rate etc. In my case consulting work was mainly to support my product. (Thankfully now product is in a shape, that it can support itself. So past few months I've had the luxury of working on my own stuff). And so the work I do, thankfully, looks very interesting to me.
Thanks for asking.
edit: minor
Also I think, HN itself draws a lot of India based programmers.
At college level you also have things like topcoder.com and hackerrank.com
I'd recommend Focus [2] instead -- much nicer experience, and I believe it's made by a fellow HNer.
Distractions are everywhere, but overall more work gets done over the open-office environment I was coming from. I don't really have too much ADD during work hours anyway, I can focus in. Probably not for everyone, but definitely is for me.
This is pure gold. I was beginning to think I had a pretty serious concentration problem, but it seems it's actually more normal. Good to know.