
My experiences of working remote for a year - nerdklers
http://modess.io/2015/08/16/one-year-of-working-remote/
======
wiremine
I've worked 100% remote for 7+ years, and it is awesome.

\- I've had the opportunity to see my kids grow up (they're 6 and 9 now).

\- I get to see my wife for lunch and a coffee break every single day (she
also works from home)

\- As a developer, the amount of focus I'm able to achieve in my home office
is incredible.

It isn't for everyone, though. Here's some things I've learned:

\- If you're any sort of extrovert, you're going to need to find outlets to
recharge your social batteries (I'm an introvert, so not much of a problem for
me).

\- It is MUCH easier working for a 100% distributed company. I've had friend
work in both fully distributed organizations, and semi-distributed, and it is
much tougher in the semi-distributed environment.

\- You absolutely need to set yourself up for success. I have a home office in
the basement, and it is _the_ office, not another room. You need something
more than your kitchen table if you really want to do it long-term.

\- You need to find a system to keep your focus up. I use the pomodoro
technique and GTD.

\- If you work with a team, it is critical you jump on the phone a few times a
week to touch base, and a few times per year face-to-face. It is as much for
human interaction as it is for the work itself.

Like I said, it isn't for everyone, but I think more companies should give it
a go.

~~~
maratd
> You absolutely need to set yourself up for success. I have a home office in
> the basement, and it is _the_ office, not another room.

This is the most important piece of advice. You need to have a space that is
for work and for work only. When you enter that space, it puts you in a work
mindset.

If you work wherever, you will never be able to focus.

> it is critical you jump on the phone a few times a week to touch base

In my experience, it is critical for you to jump on the phone every day, once
a day. Like clockwork. The meeting shouldn't last more than 5 minutes.

Go over what you did the previous day and discuss what you're planning to do
today. Discuss anything that's blocking your progress. Then start your day.

~~~
rizzin
And what can be done if there's no easy way to separate "work" and "home"
environments?

Pretty soon (in less than a month) I'm going to have the following working
conditions: I'm gonna have a room to myself and a powerful tower pc. I need it
both to work and to do non-work related stuff like videogames. Of course I can
drag it to kitchen every day to work and move it back to my room afterwards
but that seems absurd to me.

~~~
_benedict
I manage just fine without that isolation. However I'm the opposite end of the
spectrum: I have a laptop and work from wherever I happen to be. It works just
fine.

I don't find concentration is at all hard to come by, however switching off
can be difficult.

~~~
DaveWalk
Yes -- I think the separation for you (and me) is to see the _laptop_ as the
"separation" device. I have a home office, but the distractions are
everywhere. If I can grab my laptop and head anywhere else, my productivity
shoots through the roof.

Ultimately, the beauty of the GP's quote "set yourself up for success" is that
you must do absolutely whatever works for you. If it's working in a bar at 2
in the afternoon, do it. With no "office" to go to, it's an ideal situation to
experiment.

------
ryannevius
After years of working remotely, I find I'm very different than the author
when it comes to being flexible with my day. While initially it was great to
be able to head out for an hour here and there when I was feeling burnt or
losing focus, I realized that I often made excuses just to get out of the
house. It also meant that I was working "all day" and late into the night in
order to make up for the lost hours from taking these breaks.

Ever since I have converted to my own set schedule (5:30 am and finished by
early afternoon), I've never been more productive. Long story short, find a
way to be productive that works for YOU. This may mean working early, working
late, or working in chunks from morning until you go to bed. The author's
experience didn't parallel mine, and it may or may not parallel yours.

~~~
copsarebastards
> Long story short, find a way to be productive that works for YOU.

 _Exactly._ I am so tired of all these "Open offices are great", "Open offices
suck", "Remote work is great", "Remote work sucks", posts. If it works, keep
it, if it doesn't work, change it.

~~~
jaawn
It would be nice if more managers agreed with the "what works for you"
mindset, instead of "what works for the manager."

~~~
tfigment
I try to be nice but people will take advantage even if they don't think they
are.

They will say that they are getting the work done so those 5 hour days are
justified. I don't always agree and as a working manager I'm working 10-12
hour days cleaning up the rest and need more help and that attitude doesn't
help me.

If you finish early, there is usually nothing stopping you from helping out
with other miscellaneous things than just the big projects.

~~~
jaawn
You should have clear, stated goals for deliverables, each deliverable should
have a group of people who is responsible for it. Anyone who is is responsible
for any deliverables which are delayed should not be working 5 hour days.

~~~
tbrownaw
It's delayed because one of the big dependencies is delayed, and there's not
much to be done until it's ready.

~~~
jaawn
Then, depending on structure, people could assist on the delayed dependency,
or devote time to a lower-priority project until they are able to work on the
more important one.

If neither of these are possible, then it probably _is_ okay for that employee
to work shorter days in the meantime, and leadership resources should spend
time solving the bottle neck issues to prevent the situation in the future.

------
dijit
I've always dreamed of working remote.

I'm the kind of person who lives his work, I treat it casually (or try to) but
when I'm in an office I feel the pressure to "look busy" and when I go home I
(now) lose motivation to continue working (even when I get a surge of
inspiration)

I've looked for remote work for a long time, but being a systems administrator
this is hard.. employers want you to be in a bullpen full of other people,
random noises, distractions, people looking at your screen nonchalantly. I
just can't get used to it.. although over the last 8 years I've become a
little harder to it.

Working from home 4 out of 5 days makes the most sense, you meet people when
needed but "get things done" the rest of the week, communication is crucial
but face to face communication, while important, is not the most important
thing at the sacrifice of comfort and quality work.

~~~
mattt416
Agreed that it's not nearly as easy finding a remote sys admin job as it is
software development. On [https://www.wfh.io](https://www.wfh.io), we
currently have 20 active sys admin jobs versus 197 software development. I'm
actually seeing this increase slightly though, so hopefully as more businesses
adopt full time remotes we'll see this number increase. Our sys admin jobs
FYI:

[https://www.wfh.io/categories/2-system-
administration/jobs](https://www.wfh.io/categories/2-system-
administration/jobs)

------
lenomad
Nice article. As someone who has never worked at a normal office, I'm glad
that you're finding remote work better.

I'm in my mid 20s, I do contract work and has several personal projects that I
have high hopes for. But there are moments when I'm bored/stuck when I think
having a coworker nearby whom you could instantly talk to would be better.

~~~
dereke
Just because you are remote doesn't mean you can't instantly talk to
coworkers. Just call them by phone/skype/hangouts/screenhero.

My remote working friends and I have a slack group where we hangout and chat
about stuff, it is great you never feel alone.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Conversely, just because you're in an office doesn't mean you can instantly
talk to the right coworker.

I find on-site has high-bandwidth communications but limited productivity
because of distractions.

Remote is the opposite.

However - it's usually easier to find ways to increase bandwidth than to
remove distractions in a shared space.

------
UserRights
This shows the real problems with remote workers - they spread your company
information to all kind of online platforms. The author here, of course, goes
to the extreme with storing company passwords in a closed source password app
and uploading them to dropbox!

Remote workers must have some sense for privacy and security, this is more
important than anything else.

~~~
yoz-y
A classic company nowadays will have their code in Github, their e-mail and
documents over at Google, even more documents in office 365 cloud, critical
company files in Dropbox etc.

All for the sake of convenience. For me the important thing is to keep a work
machine which is solely dedicated to work, which is only connected to the
necessary services.

~~~
ryandrake
Really? That sounds very unusual to me. I've never worked at a company where
critical, confidential business information was permitted to be hosted on an
external service. Critical company files on Dropbox?? That sounds to me like a
fire-able offense. Maybe fine for a start-up, but for a "classic" company?

~~~
yoz-y
Fair point about the startups, indeed that is what I was talking about. I do
not see it as much of a problem, personally. (side note: I do not have access
to critical company information, however I know it is hosted on Dropbox)

Our code, which is probably the most critical part, is on Github and that is
definitely the case for many, many companies.

