2009 / April 20/ Working Remote

For about a year now, I’ve been working from my house — working on stuff for entp and the occasional contract here and there. Overall, I think it’s been an immensely positive move.

The good things

Let’s start off with what’s been working out great. First off: I get to focus when I want. Previously, I was one of those “9 to 5″ workers, meaning I got into work at 8:30am and left around 6:30pm or later. My problem is that my greatest focus time is generally around 7-9pm and 11-2am. The time I was at home. So now I get to work when I want, which means I get far more done in less time.

This whole focus thing can’t be exaggerated enough. I do not function in the mornings. Sure, I can force myself to wake up, get dressed, get to work, pound some coffee, but I just don’t get the work done I do later on in the day. Don’t give me the “you’ll get used to it” speech, because I did this 8-6 thing for 5 straight years. My body just doesn’t function in the mornings.

The second best part of working from home is controlling my nutrition. When I worked at an office, my diet was pretty horrid. I was constantly grabbing quick food from various places, for lunch, for dinner, for a breakfast snack. But now I get to wake up, make some coffee and enjoy a bowl of fruit or oatmeal as I catch up on the day. It’s also a lot easier to make several smaller meals throughout the day. I’ve also been able to exercise a lot more — I don’t have to wait until getting off work, or worry about bringing my gym bag, etc — I just go for a run when I have some spare time.

Lastly, I tend to waste a lot less time when I set down to work. I spend much less time in meetings (meetings used to consume an ungodly amount of my time at an office). I can close myself off in my room, put on some headphones and just get things done. Nobody to come by my desk and annoy me, or useless meetings to attend. Less talking, more doing.

The not so good things

My biggest problem right now is separation of work from home life. My desk sits opposite my bed right now, which means my computer’s always there in my bedroom. My next place I’d like to try and get a loft or something where there’s a really clear separation between sleeping space and working space. (Let me know if you know of an awesome loft opening up in San Francisco around July)

The second problem for me has been not working human hours. I have a few friends downtown who try and get me to go have beers with them at 5 when they get off. Unfortunately by then sometimes I’ve only clocked in a couple of hours for work — so I have to stay home and work through. This is of course directly in battle with my productive times, so it’s hard to find a clear winner here.

The future, perhaps?

Back in the late nineties, it seemed as though everyone thought telecommuting was going to be the future. I wonder if maybe we’re swinging back towards that now. Traffic of course only gets worse — while people’s homes are getting larger and further from city centers. About half of entp works from remote (from Tennessee to Uruguay) right now and we seem to get things done alright.

There’s no denying having an office is awesome, but I have a feeling it’s going to move from the “necessity” column over to the “nice to have” column in the next decade or two. Especially for professions like design & programming which take a certain amount of closed-off concentration to get things done. The problem is that people in our profession work well in small groups — and much worse in large groups. A small group breeds healthy debate and conversation, while a large group breeds endless arguments and criticism.

In any case, I wish more companies would try out having less strict hours for working in offices. It’s crystal clear to me that forcing people to work 9-5 only breeds a culture where your effort is measured in hours spent, and not work produced. It’s easy for someone to put in 8 hours of programming and get less done than another person who puts in 1 hour of work. It all has to do with breeding work conditions that work towards their advantage.

1. 

   Jg

   April 20 | #

   Working from home — and for myself — was a terrific burst of freedom. It took a few months to disassociate myself from the regular working-hours stigma, and to train my new clients to my schedule, but when I did, I found that I worked better at night. Usually all night, followed by sleep around seven a.m. I miss it sometimes, but not for all that long.

2. 

   Winnie Lim

   April 21^st | #

   Am always happy to find people who do not function in the mornings – I feel like some alien when most people are talking about early rising and a 9-5 routine to maintain work at home sanity. I tried it for a long while, and finally gave up on it recently when I went back to working at night which was forced by circumstances and realised how much I missed it.

   I remember telling people that if I ever have a company, one of my rules will be no working hours as long as the deadlines are met. I was one of those who never got the hang of 9.-5 while being employed and I usually spent mornings idling my time away because I simply couldn’t work.

   I have a spare room at home which I converted into an office and it works much better than the bed + desk thing. It may be something worth considering in the long term. For the second problem, personally I will go for that beer if I feel like it and either come back to work later or do a bit of rescheduling or swop a weekday’s work to a weekend. I am working for myself though so it makes it easier. All the best. :)

3. 

   chris rhee

   April 21^st | #

   It’s been just about a year for me, too. [Starts writing own post.]

   There’s some shared office spaces in San Francisco, if you wanna go that route to separate your personal/work space.

4. 

   Daniel Howard

   April 22^nd | #

   Do you live with others? I live alone, and the thought of working alone in my place just seems like a terrifyingly lonely prospect. Is this a consideration for you and how do you mediate it?

   Also, for what it is worth, I live in a cozy 1BR apartment in San Francisco. I keep the computer in the living room, which means I have a beautiful corner office looking out over the Sunset district down to the Ocean. And my large monitor can double as a viewing screen for DVDs. (No TV.) The bedroom is for sleeping (and snuggling, ahem.) and I power down the computer when not in use, in order to save on carbon impact.

   I do appreciate your observations regarding diet and exercise. Though, my employer’s office has a gym. :)

   Sincerely,
   -daniel

5. 

   Kyle Neath

   April 23^rd | #

   @Daniel: Yeah, I live with two other guys right now. Personally, I guess I find it easy to leave my apt if I wish to so long as I live in a big city. There’s always something going on in SF somewhere, so it’s just a matter of me leaving to interact with people. If I lived in a small city / suburb, I’d probably be worried about getting lonely.

   I also tend to float around to cafe’s / coffee shops every now and then if I want to escape my house. If I lived closer to downtown, I’d probably hang out more at friend’s offices / coworking places too… but as of now, it’s a bit of a bus ride downtown (about 30m).

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