With SARS-CoV-2 spreading across the world, and the dramatic and sudden impacts it’s having on our everyday lives, I’ve been thinking quite a lot about the nature of remote work. I’ve been working remotely (notice I don’t say “from home” here) for over 20 years. Between 1999 and 2004, I worked remotely for at least 50% of my time, and from 2004 to present, I have worked remotely for 100% of my time. Over the last 15 years, I’ve been lucky enough to have employers who recognize that remote employees (and sometimes whole teams or even companies) can be just as effective as in-office employees, and that there are even sometimes benefits of remote work, both for the employer and the employee. Here are some of my thoughts on how to make it work, from the employee’s perspective. All of this is based on my experience as a white collar office worker – working remotely may not be possible to do if you work in a job where your physical presence is required!

The Good

So, I’ll start with some of the positive aspects of working remotely. Lots of these are pretty obvious, but I’ll list them out anyway. One of the aspects that I really appreciate is that I don’t have a commute. Most of the time when I worked in an office, my commute was a 35 to 40 minute drive each way, or an hour bus ride where public transit was an option. Having an extra hour and a half free in my day is great, saves vehicle and gas costs, and it’s better for the environment as well.

Another thing I like about working remotely is the flexibility it offers in where I work. While I work from my home about 98% of the time, being able to bring my work with me for the other 2% can be really helpful. Once in a while I’ll need to help out by taking my kids to an activity in the middle of the day, and if it’s not a quick thing, I will bring my laptop with me and get some work done while I’m waiting. The change in scenery can sometimes inspire me in a way that being at home doesn’t. This flexibility has also allowed me to travel with my family and work for a day or two while they have activities, but spend time together in the mornings and evenings.

Finally, as a software developer, in some of my jobs I’ve had to provide support when things break. Having my workplace in my home has allowed me to get “to work” when things break overnight. This could be viewed as a negative sometimes, but I’d much rather walk downstairs from my bedroom than have to drive to an office when things go wrong (fortunately in my current position I’m not expected the be on call, but the benefits are similar on the rare occasion when I need to deal with something early in the morning or late at night).

The Bad

Some of the good things about remote work can also be bad things. The lack of a commute is usually seen as a positive, but I also know a lot of people spend their commute time mentally preparing for or decompressing after work. Listening to the news, or an audio book, or favorite music can be pretty easy to do if you have a block of time set aside for it every day. When you work from your home most of the time, you still have that time available, but it’s easy to just try to jump into work at the beginning of the day and back to “home” mode at the end of the day, without any sort of transition. This blurs the lines between work and home, and can be a bit of a downside if you don’t have any way to separate the two.

Having your work at home also sometimes brings expectations from employers – after all, if you have access to all the materials you need to do your job when you’re at home, it makes it way easier for the employer to ask you to do something outside of your normal hours. For hourly employees, it should be easier to just say “no”, but for a salaried employee, the lines get blurry quickly.

The Ugly

You’re likely to gain weight. There. I said it. Having food available and easy to access during the work day can be a big problem. I usually get up multiple times every day to stretch and take short breaks. Most of those times involve walking into the kitchen and looking at what’s in the cupboard and refrigerator. Snacking can be a tough habit to get away from – it’s something that I still have to be really careful about, or else I find myself standing by the kitchen counter with a family size bag of chips that mysteriously is half empty.

Distractions aren’t limited to food – they come in all shapes and sizes, especially when you’re in a home environment that potentially has pets and other family members doing their own things. I’ve never found that I have a problem with TV, YouTube, Netflix, etc. but I know some people do. Outside interruptions can also come in the form of phone calls and exciting new package deliveries.

Fighting distractions and getting in the right mindset to do work remotely is the most critical thing to success. In the remainder of this article, I’ll talk about what’s worked for me, and why.

Distractions, Distractions, Distractions

Snacks: I’ve already addressed the food issue, and I have no real solutions for that. Just be aware that if you aren’t careful, you’ll probably find yourself snacking far more often than you would in an office environment.

Other people: Let’s face it – having kids around can be distracting. A spouse or partner is probably more understanding, but it still can be difficult at times to make clear that you are working and shouldn’t be interrupted except in urgent cases. My kids do online public school and for the most part my wife is in charge of their day-to-day needs. That helps keep my interruptions to a minimum, but sometimes the kids still need help. One thing we’ve tried is to have the kids use a “please help me” slip of paper that they can hand to me while I’m on the phone, or even while I’m just at my computer working, and I can get to them when I have time for a break. Most conventional advice is to set up your office in a dedicated location, preferably in a separate room. I can’t argue with that advice, although for the past few years I have not had a dedicated room for my office, and it’s worked out ok (I work in the corner of a shared room, my daughter does her school from the other side of the room).

Web sites, TV, social media: I try really hard to use my work computer only for work. When I worked for AT&T, my computer was locked down so hard that I couldn’t install any software, and there was significant monitoring of employee’s web browsing and time logged in to the computer. I really felt that was too invasive, but I also understand why they were concerned about workers being distracted. Really the best policy, regardless of your employer (or even if you’re self-employed) is to dedicate your work computer to work, and only let yourself access social media outside of work hours (or quickly during a break you take during the day, with an understanding that you won’t get “sucked in”). Using a timer can help remind you to get back to work.

Time: This is the big one. How do you structure your day to be productive but not burn out? I like to have a pretty regular schedule. I typically start working around 7:30 in the morning, and will often do just a few minutes of work at that time, followed by a small breakfast, reading the newspaper, and taking care of things in the kitchen like emptying the dishwasher if it’s needed. Then I’ll head back to my desk where I typically spend an hour or so catching up on tasks that I need to do for other people, like code reviews or responding to messages. I also try to look at my calendar for the day so I have a sense of any scheduled meetings that will cause interruptions. Having a sense of how my day is going to go allows me to plan for longer blocks of working time when possible. I take a break at lunchtime to eat – many days I wind up eating at my desk, although in the last week with my whole family home, we’ve been eating lunch together more. Lunch is usually just a sandwich or leftovers, so it doesn’t take long to prepare. After lunch sometimes I’ll spend 20 or 30 minutes just reading a book or web sites on my phone. Then back to work for the afternoon – working from 12:30 to between 4:00 and 5:30, depending on how things are going. I do try to step away from my computer by about 5:30 most days, and try not to check it after that time. Sometimes I’ll peek in during the evenings, but I’m unlikely to spend more than a minute or two on after-hours matters.

Breaks: It’s really important to take frequent breaks – to stretch your legs, rest your eyes, and keep your brain active. While I sometimes find myself “in the zone” writing code, I still try to remember to stand up at least once an hour just to give myself a little variety. One method that I’ve tried several times without much success is the Pomodoro_Technique, which involves setting a timer for a short period (20-30 minutes) followed by a short break (5 minutes or so), repeated throughout the day. I think this could be very effective for some people, but I usually find that the work I do needs longer periods without interruption.

Getting out: With the current situation, it’s really hard to get away from your work environment, but it’s still very important. This is an intentional distraction from work, which can help you recharge. When possible, get outdoors for a while. I take a 20 minute walk nearly every day, and that should be possible even with social distancing. Getting outdoors is good for both your mental and physical health. I also try to exercise for about 45 minutes each morning before work, using a stationary bicycle or ski machine (both acquired free via curbside donation).

Being Present

Most of the distraction related comments I’ve provided here boil down to one thing: when you’re at work, be at work. When you’re at home, be at home. Blurring the lines between work life and home life is where trouble seeps in. The advice most articles give is to get dressed, designate an area for work, designate times for work, etc. All of these recommendations are really telling you that you need to keep your work and home lives separate. I tend to agree on this, although I’m not always the best at following those recommendations. You will be happier if you can turn off the “work” part of your brain when you’re at home, and the people around you will be happier to.

Technology

So, let’s talk technology. When I started working remotely, I was on dial-up internet and a landline phone. That made it difficult to make a phone call at the same time as being on the internet. These days I have a very reliable (if a bit slow) DSL connection and a cell phone. Video conferencing is a real possibility, although my upstream internet bandwidth is sometimes too slow for that. Audio meetings are a daily fact of life though. Whether you use Zoom, GoToMeeting, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Discord, or some other meeting technology, if your work involves working with other people, you’ll need to make sure you have some technology to support audio and maybe video conferencing. As a reminder, here’s what happens when you get a few people together on a conference call: A Conference Call in Real Life Some recommendations from me:

• Use your mute button! Whether that’s a physical button or a virtual button within the application, nobody wants to hear your dog, your kids, or the construction equipment outside your home. Unmute when you need to speak, and mute when you’re done.
• Invest in a good headset if you’re working from a computer. I don’t like Bluetooth because I’ve had way too much trouble with it being unreliable at maintaining connections, but you may have better experiences with it than me. If audio quality is important because you’re doing online music lessons, you might invest in an external microphone of some sort, but in general built-in microphones on phones are pretty great these days.
• Make sure everybody gets a turn. During in-person meetings, it’s easier to “read the room” and know when you can include your thoughts. On a phone call, it can be difficult to find a time to get your opinions in. I’m probably not great at this – over time I’ve decided that it’s just better to interrupt if I need to. But if you’re running a meeting, it’s good to call on individuals to make sure they have a chance to give their input.

Playing Nicely with Others

Over the course of the last 20 years, the biggest challenges in working remotely always seem to come down to communication. It’s a very different situation to have a distributed team than to all be in a physical office. The most difficult thing to get used to is the asynchronous nature of communication on a distributed team. At any given time, you have no idea whether a coworker is at their desk, in a meeting, deep in thought, or just twiddling their thumbs. Technology like Microsoft Teams can help by showing another person’s status, but that’s a rough approximation at best. I find it useful to prioritize communication, and not expect an immediate reply no matter what medium I use. A phone call, a call through Teams, a text message, a message through Teams/Slack/Discord – all of these can get an immediate response, or no response for minutes or hours. I’ve learned to accept that, and one of the strategies I try to use in these cases is to make sure I always have at least two or three projects in progress at any time. If I find my work blocked by waiting on a response from somebody, I’ll just move to another project until I hear back. In software development, this tends to be a hard thing to do, but it’s better than getting frustrated at waiting on somebody else.

Time zones also play a role here in the waiting game. I work with people in 4 time zones currently, and have worked with remote teams in India in the past. The fact is, you won’t always be able to reach somebody at the time you want, so plan for that.

Even though communication is frequently asynchronous, make sure to reach out often! Out of sight, out of mind comes into play especially if you’re remote and there are other people who aren’t – in the current situation that’s probably less the case, but still if you don’t make yourself visible, you can be overlooked very easily. Keep the lines of communication open and make sure you’re “seen” as often as possible.

Impromptu meetings are unlikely to happen in the same way when you are working remotely, so make sure you find ways to collaborate, even if it means scheduling time to get together and just chat. A lot of the best ideas come from overhearing a discussion somewhere, so if you’re using a group communication technology like Slack or Teams, make sure you keep most of your communication as public as possible. The notification overload is real, so watch out for that, but don’t hide communication that can be made public, because your coworkers will have good ideas to contribute to the discussion. This happens more naturally when you’re in an office, but has to be encouraged when you’re remote.

The Too Long, Didn’t Read Version

Yeah, that’s a lot to take in. Here’s the summary:

• Set up routines and stick to them
• Communicate with co-workers
• Keep your work life separated from your home life
• Remember the wisdom of these guys