Tips for Remote Workers
Here are my top 20 tips for achieving maximum productivity:
.
'...
2. Get fiber internet, a 4k or better camera, an active noise-cancellation microphone/headset, and lights. It will pay dividends.
3. Separate living from a working environment. When I shut the door of my basement, that's it. Work begins.
4. I have my "office" shoes. I am primed to think that work just started when I am in them. It's a neat way to divide my routines.
5. Occasionally, go to a coffee shop or work with somebody you like for a day. Or go to the office.
6. Prioritize focused time. Block some time on your calendar without distractions. Just deep work. Google Calendar now even offers it under "focused time." I call it "doing the important work."
7. Always turn off sounds, notifications, and other distractions.
8. Please just put your phone out of sight and out of reach when on your laptop/desktop.
9. If you work on a computer, get a standing desk. That's it. Period. Go! And get that standing mat, too.
10. Figure out what calms you. Example: Sometimes, I take a shower in the middle of the day. On other days, I take a nap or go jogging.
11. It's OK not to be productive. Take time off the screen. Do it often.
12. Set up times in your calendar for (1) meals, (2) exercise, and (3) hobbies.
13. Try to have at least one day/week without meetings. Book it off. Fridays are good days for that.
14. Jam as many meetings together as possible. Keep meetings from being spread out too much. It will kill your productivity.
15. Do meetings standing. You'll finish them quicker.
16. avoid bringing digital/office gear to your bedroom.
17. Have two computers. One for work. One for fun.
18. Have something nearby that helps you to decompress... I have an electric guitar + and a loud amp.
19. Print out some valuable reminders. I have a picture that says: "Be kind to your mind."
20. If you can't get away from the virtual office, do something where you have to apply your undivided attention. For example, I do MTB or a long drive to someplace. Or do anything where you can't have the internet, and that'll do. :)
Add your tips in a reply...
—
P.S. I don't believe in a work-life balance. You are YOU, whether you are at the office or home. Hence, point no.1 is so important!
—
Keep creating
61 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 139 ms ] threadThis is _so_ key. Even if it's just having a laptop where you open the lid to work and when you close it, you're DONE. If you don't find a way to separate "work" life from "home" life, you'll go crazy.
- Take a break every hour to stretch, have tea, do chores. Set a timer for this.
- Sit outdoors to take calls and do paper-based work. It feels nice.
- If you don't have a fixed schedule, stop working as soon as your productivity dwindles. Go ride your bicycle or do something meaningful. Don't stay at your desk for the sake of appearances.
- Set up coworking days with friends. It's just nice to have company.
- Set boundaries. When dad's in the office, don't bug him. He's working. When you see dad not in the office, give him a hug (unless he's on the way to the bathroom) <grin>
Not that she'd ask me to do stuff, but that just because I'm home doesn't mean that I'm available for idle chit chat.
I also had to explicitly tell her that if I'm looking annoyed, it's because I'm deep in thought. I don't need a hug or to be told a joke or something to lighten my mood. I need to be left the fuck alone.
I don't have a standing desk; but I do have 2 or 3 work locations in my house. I obviously don't have a dedicated work area. Etc. As you say, figure out what works for you including the amount of structure that is useful.
After work, I don't let it blend unless there are emergencies. if it doesn't blend while working, it would feel lonely, instead having lunch with my wife is quite nice!
For the fiber internet that really depends on how the company's systems are set up. If you regularly need to upload and download large files, then fiber is a godsend. If you're developing over VDI or SSH with everything on the remote server, then fiber won't give you an advantage provided you have decent cable or VDSL. Rather what matters is that you have a stable and preferably wired connection.
Fiber: 1-2ms
DSL: 10ms (fastpath), 20ms (interleaved)
Cable: 15-20ms
Jitter is near 0 for fiber and is typically <5ms on a good cable/DSL connection.
All additional delays will be the same provided you're using the same ISP/routing. So say if you're connecting to your company's network with 50ms latency over fiber you may say get 65ms over cable. Over a SSH connection I can't feel the difference.
* If possible, set up your home office next to a window. Open the window whenever weather permits. I don't follow the "20-20-20" rule for eyestrain relief, but it's relaxing to just stare out the window for a few minutes when I need a mental break.
* Set up your keyboard, monitor, and desk correctly to prevent RSI, back problems, etc.
* If you're working, work. If you're not working, be somewhere other than your work laptop/desk.
Spend a month doing something different. Rent a coworking space for a month if that's an option for you. While I largely agree with having a dedicated space (again, if that's an option for you), I also like to move around. Changing your environment can help you get unblocked. Sometimes I'll work out of my kitchen for a day. In the summer, I'll go to a local lake and work under a tree or from a beach.
Adding to the ideas of scheduling your meals and taking long lunches, take full advantage of being home for lunch and do yourself the favor of having good/healthy food options available. If I have food to make a salad in my fridge, I'll have a salad for lunch. If I'm out of healthy options, I end up eating garbage, like a bowl of sugary cereal. I try to make sure on Sunday that my fridge is stocked for the week, and as time permits, I'll grill a few chicken breasts for salads, omelettes, tacos, sandwiches, etc.
Unless it's specifically forbidden by your work:
Reframe "Working From Home" as "Remote Working".
Don't limit yourself to your home environment unless that really is the best place for you.
Eg. I have found that although I have a good setup at home (including computer chair, mech keyboard, plenty of screen estate, silence, etc etc), I will often get more done with a small screen laptop in the local cafe - just because I'm amongst people and life.
I'll also go into the office occasionally for similar reasons.
Variety and flexibility are key - whatever works for you on a particular day at a particular time is the point.
And good gear. Don't cheap out on what you use to make 100% of your income and has an impact on your health.
> 18. Have something nearby that helps you to decompress... I have an electric guitar + and a loud amp.
I've got one of these. It's loud but doesn't disturb the neighbours.
https://www.amazon.nl/dp/B0824PN6WQ
My last two projects were only two weeks ago. But at this point I am only a couple of weeks away from having to either beg my family for money or shelter or just becoming homeless which I would almost prefer in a way because I have never asked them for anything and really don't want to start.
If anyone has work, I have lowered my rate again from where it was before because I'm pretty scared. https://www.upwork.com/freelancers/jasonlivesay
I did post in the who wants to be hired yesterday but no response.
how much time do you spend on applying for projects?
The last few weeks I have had more people act like they wanted to hire me and turn out to be scammers or wasting my time than I can remember ever happening before. I have had multiple long "interviews" where it eventually becomes apparent that there was no job and they just wanted a free consultation.
Now, I am not married and live alone. I suspect I'll be ditching this setup if I choose to go down that road, again, but I ditched the whole "separate work from life" from a physical standpoint. It hasn't caused me to work "all kinds of extra hours", but it has allowed me to quickly sit up and write a few lines of code that are sitting in the corner of my mind keeping me from falling asleep. Before I'd just ruminate on them for hours b/c while I was awake enough to struggle falling asleep, I was tired enough to want to remain in bed.
When I dropped $300 on this thing I thought "this is a stupid waste of money" ... that week, my laptop battery failed resulting in it being impossible to use since any vibration causes the power cable to stutter resulting in its immediate hibernation. But plug it in and set it on a stable surface with an external keyboard/mouse and it'll run all day.
Since then, I've found I finish work feeling less sore (this position is extremely comfortable and my monitor stand adjusts/tilts so it's at exactly the right position). I'm no expert in ergonomics -- and I have a fantastic, highly adjustable (Herman Miller Aeron) chair in my office and an adjustable desk, but I've never finished my day without something aching until I started using my mega-bed-desk setup.
And the best part is it tucks away nicely so it's not the focus of the room unless I'm working.
Worth every penny -- it's very sturdy (pain to mount, must be perfectly level, but anything this big is challenging), and extremely adjustable (including stiffness at each of the positioning points which took a little while to get right -- you want to easily move the display but not so easily that gravity starts walking it around the room).
And it bled into everything else that I did. I tried to replicate the office experience in my home office and I really had no choice at the time -- that's how everyone I worked with worked.
But in some circumstances, you have enough control over your work/environment that all of those artificial boundaries prevent you from taking advantage of the unique productivity benefits that working remotely can allow. I don't stress over how much I work. I work around 45-55 hours a week. I spend no time in traffic so on an average week I have more free time than I had in the office. I'm allowed to complete my work during whatever time of the day works for me. So I do. I write boilerplate better in the early morning. I write complex abstractions better late at night. I complete more work in less time because I don't get hung up on keeping hours.
Sometimes I fight with a problem for an hour, head off to bed, wake up at 2:00 AM and have the answer in my head. Having my computer nearby means "I do it" -- ten minutes, fixed. The usual path that went was "I forgot all about that until something reminds me of it mid-day after I've spent half that day trying to fix it." And that happens to me enough to add up to a few days of time. I still work the same total number of hours in a week, but I am less stressed because things are being built better, fewer mistakes are being made and the "impact of my job on my life" feels like a lot less.
Reading through your list, though, it sounds like you are already a very disciplined person. Outside of "writing software", I am not (which is why your #1 is so important, I'd have a tough time working remotely if I hated my job). It probably works perfectly for people who share your personality. Most of the items on your list I have tried at one point or another and because of my personality/tendencies, mostly backfired. Most of the changes I made are centered around eliminating any friction related to "getting started". If my bladder isn't screaming, the first thing I do when I wake up on a week day is grab my monitor and turn it on/check work-related things. Within ten minutes, I'm awake, I get up and do the morning routine/breakfast/etc. But it keeps me from having to "do the drudgery stuff" when I'm ready to "start working" and it helps me to get into a "work mood" when I'm waking up -- both of which I hate doing, but doing them together feels like I only "take the hit once."
For example, I learned early on that I hated working in my office. I used to sit at the kitchen table with a laptop, sometimes while the kids were playing video games, but usually with a TV on some program I've seen a million times. I need the non-distracting noise and open space or I feel the need to get up so frequently that I can't focus long enough on the problems I'm solving. I carry my laptop between rooms when I'm feeling stuck and it often helps.
In almost every way the more I remove from "forcing an office way of working on my remote work life" -- essentially, giving myself as much freedom around where/when/how I work -- I am more productive and much happier.
And just to restate: I'm not taking issue or saying any of your advice is wrong. Most people do not work the way that I do. Maybe most would find working my way horrible or might lead to being a workaholic (my motivation for changing things was to work less and it worked ... for me). I get that there's probably a lot of folks who would have exactly the opposite experience doing exact...
- Get some plants, photos, or other decorations that add some life and personality.
- Dislike having cold hands? Get a heated desk mat (I started out with a heated mouse but upgraded since I hated only having a warm mouse).
- If you don't like seeing a mess of cords, get monitor arms and cable trays.
- Figure out what size cup/water bottle you prefer. If you like to get up and stretch a fair amount, a smaller cup can provide more excuses to do just that. If you're like me and drink less from smaller cups since you don't want to risk running out when you're in the zone, get a larger one.
- Send kid(s) to daycare ASAP unless you really want to homeschool. Send them to swimming/boxing/whatever during weekends too if you can afford.
- Exercise...a LOT. I can't do it as much as I like because I have small issues all over my body. If you can, exercise as much as you want, and buy massage and physical therapy services as much as you want.
- Completely split work and life with separate equipment, home office (with a hanged sign if possible), separate "uniforms", separate furnitures and such. If you have to deal with some emergencies in life (work is a lot forgiving regarding emergencies), quit the home office first. If you have to do off-time on-calls, speak to your manager that you only have limited capacity for that.
- Hire cleaning services maybe once per 2-4 weeks so that you don't have to do deep cleaning once for a while. Since you are working remote I assume you have good salary. Same principles for other services. If wife complains about cost, ask her to do it.
- Have an indoor hobby and a couple of outdoor hobbies and try to bring your kid onboard ASAP. Why two outdoor hobbies? Because in Canada there are about...4 months of winter so you might have to switch hobbies (e.g. camping in summer and skiing in winter). But again, this is totally up to you. I'm actually going to do a lot of winter hiking/camping when my son reaches say 7-8 when he is strong enough, so I only need to keep one outdoor hobby.
- If both of you are working remotely, it's important to keep good relationship with your wife. I figured out that the closer two people are, the more nitpicks they will make for each other. Keep separate home offices. Buy a few surprise gifts once for a while. Whatever that works.
- If you find a good recruiter, and if you are of at least senior position (for us IC, that is: senior, lead, staff), I'd advise keep a good relationship with the recruiter. Remote jobs are less common these days and you never know when it's going to become rarer.
- Be flexible. This is really very important as being flexible smoothes everything else. If you have to stay in a certain city, that means your opportunities have a foreseeable upper limit. If you have to stay in a certain country, that means you cannot enjoy other opportunities.
- Learn a bit about home improvement (I don't know much at the moment). You can actually turn it into a hobby if you want. If you are a handyman, this not only opens new opportunities on the house market, but also improve your flexibility. Let me explain: There are MANY houses out there that are badly maintained with a cheap price (and still no buyer because of the status), and if you can do some improvement and undercut the contractors they are you to take. My friend managed to paint all of the rooms and remove all floor tiles, carpets and other stuffs with a crowbar, which saved a HUGE amount of $$$ in renovation (painting the house alone will take maybe $8K-10K). This also improves your flexibility as you can now move to remote areas and enjoy the view, without worrying about finding a plumber when there is a small leak.
Of course we all need to do the same for everyone else's benefit too :-)