
Be Productive Anywhere: Strategies for Better Remote Work - mariusavram
https://zapier.com/blog/productive-remote-work/
======
humanrebar
> If you make your bed every morning, you will have accomplished the first
> task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride. And it will
> encourage you to do another task.

It bothers me when people present anecdata like this. I don't have a problem
with people feeling this way. But it's a huge leap of logic to say that this
phenomenon is generalizable, especially since there absolutely are
counterexamples. I, for one, have never felt this way after making my bed.

~~~
wallflower
As someone who is not a morning person and who is experimenting with daily
habits like the above, I'd like to give you my thoughts on this.

One of the things that Charles Duhigg writes about in the "Power of Habit" is
reducing the barriers to action. One of the examples he gives is starting a
running program. The best thing that you can do is to reduce the barriers to
action for yourself by putting your running shoes and socks by the door. By
preparing yourself for action, all you have to do is act (e.g. lace up and go
out the door). If you have to find your socks or shoes in the fog of your
morning waking up, that is a barrier to action that might even be enough to
make you stay in bed.

Making the bed in the morning is a symbolic action. I believe it mentally
separates you from the 'sleep' part of your day to the 'wake' part of your
day. By choosing to make the bed, you are choosing to take action on something
that, honestly, isn't that important.

Once you start your morning, you can add other habits (reading a good book,
meditating, drinking coffee, playing with your kids, walking your dog). Note
that I didn't say these or good or bad habits - but something that you would
like to do.

In fact, some life coaches argue that perhaps the goal is to extend your
morning routine such that it takes up most of your morning and extends into
the afternoon.

There is a famous demonstration that involves a glass jar, sand, large rocks
(not so large that they wouldn't fit into the jar), smaller rocks, and gravel.

When you pour the sand in first, it is near impossible to smash in the rocks
and even some of the gravel.

The counter demonstration is that when you put the rocks in, then the smaller
rocks, and then the gravel, you can pour the sand in and it fits between the
voids.

This is an analogy for making time for the important actions in your day. The
ones that you want to do. The practical theory is that by doing what is good
for you right away, you won't procrastinate all day (e.g. reading Hacker News)
and do something relatively more useful like physical exercise or meditation
or coffee with a good friend.

------
lifeisstillgood
Remote work is like catnip to me. Not the actual work thing (I spent 18 months
working for a Texan university while five time zones away, so I know a little
about it) but the thing for me is the _movement_

Remote work _should_ be everywhere. Almost every office job could be done
remotely with far less crappy distraction. I think that there are genuine
difficulties with close co-ordination, with productivity etc, but these are
far far out weighed by the gains (I got some real work done remotely and I was
not the one of the best)

There are I think three things preventing remote working taking off

\- managers cannot manage. With remote worker you have to manage the work
itself, which means the proxies for good work (ie telling if someone is a good
worker, is engaged is enthusiastic etc) are gone, and so it is necessary to
define the work upfront, decide if you are getting that work and correct. This
is really hard and usually the managers reporting line wants them facing up
most of the time thus reducing the time they have to manage.

\- companies cannot compete. If your company is the only factory in say a
thirty mile radius, you are a monopoly employer and get to pick the best
workers for a pittance. If more factories spring up, you are now competing
with those other factories for the best workers and salaries should rise. Now
imagine the radius is 30,000 miles. Companies are now competing against _every
other_ company for their workers. It is possible remote workers will act like
football superstars and extract majority of profit from firms

\- the "out of place"'tipping point. Untill 51% of coworkers are remote the
company culture does not change and you are a second class citizen

I think these are big headwinds for remote working

~~~
Kiro
Or because people are like me - completely unable to work from home. I've been
doing it for the past 6 months and it has totally destroyed my productivity.
I've tried all the tricks, nothing helps. I'm just not fit to work remotely.

~~~
jackson23
I've been mostly working remotely (80-90% remote work) as a developer and
consultant for over a decade. The changing point for me was to have a
dedicated office space (an entire bedroom or den). Let's face it, if you are
working late in the evening at the office and no one else is in the office,
what difference is there from working remotely? Now, for me, it mostly doesn't
matter where I work from: home office, rented space, living room in a La-Z-
Boy, coffee shop, etc; anything but a cubicle or an open floor plan.

Slightly off-topic: my wife, who also works remotely and has a dedicated
office space (a tricked-out bedroom), commented today how she hasn't had a
sick day in over two years because she is not exposed to the multitude of
germs and viruses she was exposed to in the corporate office. I noticed
similar results: I have not called in sick to a client in many years while
working remotely. Not getting sick as much is definitely a productivity boost.
Not having to shave and dress up (good ol' pj pants and a polo shirt top works
great on skype) and make a two-way commute are also productivity/lifestyle
boosts.

I also have a camera behind me, overlooking my monitors and the back of my
desk chair (the monitors are not readable by the camera, can only make out
color blocks but can't read 12pt text). When someone skypes me, I just turn
around to face the camera. The viewer can more easily see that I am actually
working and if I have to check something on the computer, I just turn around
and let them watch me work on it. This has been very effective in eliminating
comments/feelings that remote workers are ineffective.

This week I do have to be onsite and the weekly commute will eat 15-20 hours,
depending on traffic, for my 26 mile commute (each way). That is 15-20 hours
of basically nothing but listening to podcasts or music. That's a productivity
hit, as other than the feel good of being in the office, there is nothing that
I could not do remotely, but it is a new client so I think it is a fair trade
off.

I also stopped using the phrase "work from home" as I truly can work remotely
from any location with electricity and optionally, wifi/cell service. I once
worked remotely for two weeks from the campgrounds near the Redwood National
Park and just drove to Crescent City to send/receive emails and code every
evening during my nightly and rightly beer run. I did have regular or extended
cell service (no data tho) if someone needed to discuss anything urgent.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
I like the camera position trick - very nice

~~~
jackson23
Glad you liked it. I use a cheap $9.99 1080p manually zoomable camera and a 20
foot USB extension cable routed under the chair mat and up a 5.5 foot tripod
to the camera. Having the camera taped to the tripod (no proper mount on the
USB camera) makes it super easy to use the tripod controls to pan, tilt, or
lock in place. Due to a conveniently located shelving unit, the tripod's legs
are not fully spread out, reducing the tripping hazard. A simple loop of
paracord and a knot 'secure' the tripod head to the shelving.

------
JshWright
The "you are all dehydrated and need to drink 37 glasses of water a day" myth
really needs to die...

I'll let Dr Carroll rant for me:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbHp7cu2Ubk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbHp7cu2Ubk)

~~~
mark_l_watson
3.2 liters of water a day is much less than 37 glasses of water. The article
mentioned 3.2 liters.

~~~
mark_l_watson
I am surprised by the down votes. I didn't realize drinking water was so
controversial.

One data point: my neighbors, husband and wife, are a surgeon and a
neurologist. We live in the mountains of central Arizona, and hiking is a
favorite pastime. Both of these doctors say one should drink 1 quart of water
an hour while hiking. I don't quite do that, but I certainly drink 2 liters on
a strenuous 3 hour hike.

~~~
JshWright
The claim you're supporting in the article is not about drinking water while
on a strenuous hike in a hot, arid climate. It's about drinking water in
routine, day to day life.

~~~
mark_l_watson
I was not 100% supporting the claim in the article. I was just pointing out
what I thought was someone's error in converting 3 liters to 37 cups of water.

------
camillomiller
These kind of advice articles about personal productivity never really take
into consideration that you might be sharing your living space with someone
else. Sure, I'll make my bed at 5.45 every morning, first thing of the day,
just let me wake up my girlfriend super early too, just because I'm a
productivity freak. Sorry hon', Tim Ferris told me to do that!

~~~
koonsolo
If you care about personal productivity, you don't have a girlfriend. ;). So
waking her up every morning should solve that problem.

So I agree, if you want to increase your personal productivity, make your bed
early every morning. :D.

~~~
camillomiller
> if you want to increase your personal productivity, make yourself single.

FTFY!

------
coldcode
No matter what the work I still find being around people I work with to be
much better than working by myself at home, despite Slack and email etc there
is no replacement to talking with people in person. While the occasional day
at home is fine I just can't enjoy being alone all the time and still try to
be productive. I'm sure it works for other people but not me.

~~~
aboonaboo
I'm actually the complete opposite I hate working with anyone in the room with
me

It's almost as if everyone is different lol

------
wott
Don't give orders to other people when in fact you just present a list of
things that work for _you_ (at the moment). There's nothing universal in those
advices, it just fits _you_ (at the moment).

------
oliwarner
Working remotely is hard enough. Working for yourself is even harder. A good
manager should be making contact at task-appropriate intervals. Keeping
organised and going shouldn't be too different from office life.

But when you're alone and it's your responsibility to keep yourself
motivated... Base urges (and laziness) creep in. Takes a while to find your
efficiency.

This may be relevant.
[https://youtu.be/co_DNpTMKXk](https://youtu.be/co_DNpTMKXk)

------
everyone
This article seems rife with BS.. Not going to bother going into detail. But
one example: you need to drink 3.2 L of water a day, is completely baseless as
far as I'm aware.

------
inlineint
The article assumes that you don't find your work interesting enough to keep
your attention focused for a prolonged period of time. Maybe it is better to
try to understand why it is not interesting and find ways to make it actually
catching rather than figure out workarounds. Because why should we spend time
on things we are not interested in?

~~~
snowwindwaves
sometimes work becomes work. I really enjoy providing control systems for
hydro electric power plants, but when people change their minds and I have to
re-do the same work, or if some equipment provided by another firm doesn't
work properly and it eats up a bunch of my time it is a drag. Or I get burnt
out after working 12 hour days for four months so that we don't get sued if
the power plant isn't generating on time, and then I might have loads of work
to do after to clean up the documentation and other parts of the contract so
we can get paid the full amount, but man I just don't feel like working
anymore, whereas if I'm doing a moderate amount every day with lots of time
for exercise and socializing I really enjoy the same work.

edit: I should add that I work either on site at power plants or remotely from
home

------
sharmi
There have been multiple comments here calling out drinking specific
quantities of water.

I am not sure about the scientific validity of the advice and hence not going
to comment on that.

But what I do have realized is (atleast is my case) often we mistake thirst
signals from our body for hunger signals or rather as cravings and grab a
snack. This idea was suggested in one of the n number of resources I read
online about weightloss, so I am not able to cite the exact article.

Consciously noting craving signals and just substituting water often made the
cravings go away. When it doesn't, obviously I am hungry :)

Now we are venturing deep into the land of extrapolation. So, take this with a
huge grain of salt. I suspect that in our hunter gatherer days (or earlier0,
water was not readily available at hand. So humans, then, would have depended
on fruits and leaves as a source of water as well as food. Hence why atleast
some of get our hunger and thirst signals mixed up ;)

------
saurabhjha
I have been working remotely for past few months after spending years at
offices and I can say, it's way more productive.

~~~
methyl
The same for me. Author claims that remote working is less productive, but I
can negate it very easily - for me, it is not. I feel much more productive
when the only distractions are Facebook and Slack. They are still there in the
office and we have to count in additional distractions like people talking.

------
exabrial
Great article!

------
karma_vaccum123
Embrace contrived progress meters.

I put every trivial to-do related to a repo into a github issue.

I commit routinely, even for small changes, with a short message.

These stink of make-work, but they expose my progress to my other remote
colleagues.

Slack is an exception...using it as a progress meter just annoys others.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
Hmmm, I wrote a todo-inator that extracted todos etc from code comments. I
would use that as micro-tickets so my progress was visible to me. Expanding
the idea to show others what I was doing was a blog thing that never took off
but I like the general idea.

Plus I hate slack

