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2016 has brought many changes. One of these is my remote position for Particular Software. This post will cover some of aspects of my working remotely and won’t cover me working for Particular per se.

Transport

I work fully remotely. I don’t need to travel for 40 minutes to 1 hour in one direction just to enter the office. This means that I have up to 2 hours more every workday, which gives me 10 hours per week. Additionally I’m not affected by unusual traffic, any snowfall, etc. Skipping the need of moving to the office actually makes your live much more predictable. And when it’s predictable it’s much easier to plan it.

Schedule

Even if you have 2 hours more you need a schedule. I’ve heard so many stories about remotes getting lazy and finally underperforming in official and private life. As I don’t actually have to move to get to the office, I’ve replaced that time spent in transportation with some positive activities in the morning

• I drop off our daughter to the kindergarten - it lets me go out for 10 minutes
• Regular exercises  - it’s again about timing and being predictable. No excuses that there was a traffic jam and I can’t make it today
• Sometimes watching some SF/horror movie - I’ve done it once so far (it’s 6th week of being remote), and I don’t want to make it a rule

This brings me to 9:15AM, when I usually start.

Office

I have a separate room to work, write blog posts etc. This works like an anchor, I know where I work and where I spend time with my family. Again, I find this strict rule very helpful. Maybe I could go with a more liberated approach, but as the current works perfectly I won’t change it.

Another aspect of having a separate office is that you can actually use term ‘office’ in your home and have some boundaries set. Next advantage is that if any other family member has some work to do, he/she can use that room and still, having a label ‘office’ can help just to work without interruptions.

Lunch break

This point is a bit more related to the company. If your remote company has strict rules about working hours this life-hack might not work that well. Anyway, the point I want to make is that sometimes I use my lunch break to do something else. Like visit a post office or deal with taxes. The majority of people cannot do it in the noon, so one can easily leverage this fact to do it much faster (shorter queues).

Life changer

Working remotely, not to mention working for Particular Software, is a life changer. I think that after a months I won’t be able to go back. On the other hand, why would I even consider going back at all? :)

Happy remoting!

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Comments

I worked about 5 years from home and I loved it for a long time. But then I began to miss the direct contact with my colleagues, a short private talk, a joke, something to laugh about... And after all these years I began to feel kind of lonly.

Only remote communication, only per phone and lync conferences can not replace real social contacts.

So I moved to another company, now drive to the office every day and yes: I love it! I'm allowed to work from home, but I prefer to drive to the office whenever possible!

For me one or maybe two days a week in the home office would be ok, but definitely not more...

However, I think this differs from person to person and may also change over time. I hope, you enjoy your remote work! :-)

by Micha at 2016-02-19 20:42:00 +0000

What about contacts with other people? Don't you miss that? I personaly prefer to discuss with colleagues face to face instead of calling them. Do you have no problems with that?

by Kazik at 2016-02-19 09:05:03 +0000

That might be your/my personal take on this aspext :-) We use Zoom/Slack for syncing or discussing anything else. It works amazingly well as everyone is remote. It's a fully distributed company & noone is colocated. I'm not the only remote guy ;-)

by scooletz at 2016-02-19 09:10:15 +0000