I’ve been working at home for a little over a week now, and so far it’s been an interesting experience.
On the plus side, my coffee intake is down, a lot. I usually had 3-4 cups a day (of espresso), now I’m down to 2-3, depending if I remember to have one in the afternoon, rather than needing one. I’m getting about as much work done in 6-8 hours as I would in 2 days or so when I was at my previous employer, mostly because of lack of distractions, and in general, I’m eating less (and it’s better stuff – no more muffins!) and exercising more – even if “more” is a very relative term. That’ll change this weekend, because there is a Bikram Yoga studio opening up the road on the weekend. Yay for interesting exercise options.
I’m pretty sure my blood pressure is down, but I need a full day to check it – ie, take it every hour for a day. The headaches are long gone since my desk was setup correctly.
Using git is working out well. I pull code from a remote subversion repo, or work on my own stuff pushing to a local repo when I need to check in, and then pushing to my hosting provider when I want to do an offsite backup of the code. Not 100% ideal, but it’s working well. The head-shift and learning curve of git is quite steep, but so far, the pay back has been worth it. Git Extensions has helped a lot there.
On the downside, there is little or no interaction with other humans, which isn’t helped by Leonie being away in the Algarve this week. I can deal with that, mostly, and I have an option to work at Leonie’s work from time to time, which will make it easier. The other downside is I’m running out of podcasts – I had enough to cover about 2 hours a day (my previous commute), but not for 6-8 hours, so I have to hunt back through my music collection to find interesting stuff. Not a bad thing, really.
One thing, which I’m not going to let continue once Leonie is back, is getting up late. I used to get up about 7, and start work at about 10 (1-1:15 commute in there). Now I get up about 9 and start about 11, working until I get hungry about 7. Same amount of time, but the time-shift into the evening is not going to be practical when she’s back. Thats ok – it’s easier to get out of bed when both of us are getting up at the same time. The internet is also quicker in the morning – or rather, any time before 4pm, so thats another incentive to start earlier.
Does anyone else who works at home a lot (@kiwibastard? @irvtheswirv?) have any hints or tips? Or do both of you have family around, and hence it’s a case of blocking them out, not trying to let stuff in?
Pomodoro technique keeps me focused when I’m on coding tasks, when I’m not remote pairing of course.
Also, I’ve fallen into a kinda rhythm of working. I know that I don’t function until at least 10 – 11am usually. So even though I sit down at around 9am I tend to hit rss, twitter, etc etc. Once I have that out of the way I get started for a couple hours until 1pm, stop for lunch say 30 minutes or so then slog it out until around 5.30 – 7pm depending on how much I’ve accomplished. Now I’m not suggesting that this will work for anyone else, more that you need to find what works for you.
I have family around which in the 18 months I’ve been doing this (depending on how you count it) it hasn’t been too much of a problem so long as you either do what many people do and establish ground rules or do what I do which is try to be a bit more relaxed about it all. If I’m in a bit of a procrastinatory mood, occasionally I might just say sod it, and go off and play with the little un, it was kind of one of the reasons I made the change.
Biggest problem I have (actually there are a few) is that I have some pretty agressive targets to hit before I feel I’m in a position where I can relax even further. I want to be in a position where I can have an acceptable level of income where I can devote more time to what I really want to do which is writing. What this means is that for me working from home isn’t a 9-5 job it’s an “every waking moment” job where I can find myself being totally focussed on just the work and other things can potentially suffer.
I’ve been through a phase where after being healthier and fitter doing exercise etc, I then became lazier and started snacking more and more… this has taken some effort to knock on the head.
It’s a massively rewarding thing, being in a position to be able to work from home in terms of freedom in both professional and family terms but you have to find your own balance I think… and 18 months later, I’m still trying to get it right :-D
thanks Ben – thats pretty much exactly what I do :) Times and everything :)
and cheers Shaun :)
+1000 on Pomodoro. I’ve found this really helps in my scenario as there’s no one else working in the same timezone (I’m UTC+13 and the office is UTC+0).
For me communication overhead at night is a problem – but hopefully with the TZ changes we can settle into some kind of routine.
I also find it’s important to get out of the house regularly – even if it’s just to a cafe for lunch/coffee. I try and go kitesurfing a couple of times a week (depending on wind) which really helps blow out the cobwebs. It’s easy to just getup, deal with the family, work, eat, work etc.. and then realize that I haven’t left the house in 2 days.
In terms of social interaction – the Auckland Arch chats have been great since we’ve been here (June) – but I do miss having an office full of people sometimes.
j.
Thanks Josh – I think thats something I need to do. Even tho I have GREAT coffee here, I have a lot within close walking distance. Of course, it being winter outside is not helping! Atleast, for me, the rest of the team is only +1 away (GMT vrs GMT+1).
Must drum up a few friends who work in Canary Wharf (10 mins walk away)…. been meaning to for a while….
The biggest problem I’ve found working at home is the interruptions of other people who think because I’m at home, I’m not really working. The lack of social interaction bit is a negative, so that’s where meeting friends for lunch comes in…and sometimes taking a walk, just to clear your head. The main thing is to be careful that because your work is at home, to set limits about the amount of time you work; set a balance between work and down time.
Hey Nic – I do a bit of working at home which is problematic for a couple of reasons;
1) The Whanau find it hard to separate “dad/Ben at home” from “dad/Ben at home working”
2) I never “go home” so don’t discipline myself to “switch off”
On the other hand I also find it kind of hard to discipline myself to keep on target – there’s way too many distractions at home (a kitchen being the main one) to get in the way of workflow.
I’ve toyed with the idea of working from our granny flat and creating a pseudo “going to work/coming home” situation… at this stage I’m not working from home enough to justify it.. maybe one day!
cheers!
Nic,
Just came across your blog (good to see you ystrday at the Gorilla thing).
Before the Beeb I worked freelance – mostly from home – for about 5 years. It definitely takes a bit of effort to make it rewarding. Living inside your head for long stretches was maybe the hardest thing – I found social interaction with actual, real life human beings quite strange after solid hours of solo time. it felt like i was outside of myself looking in. (that’s possibly just me, early onset psychosis).
anyway, depending on how long-term the freelance thing is – and how good the cash flow – i found freelance offices are the best way to go. 180-200 quid a month for something that you don’t really need (a desk space, broadband etc) seemed a bit stupid at first but it was brilliant. it gives you that social interaction, often with interesting people doing similar-ish things (i was in a place with developers, designers, architects, photographers and other writers). i actually got quite a lot of work out of it too, so that covered the extra outlay. plus, you don’t have to go in every day if you don’t want, no one is your boss and there’s no office politics. also helps to create that space so you can actually stop working. when it’s all at home, everything seems to blur for me..
take it easy, paul