I feel like the idea of working remotely is pretty divided. People either love it or hate it. After reading a lot of posts and experiencing it for myself, I decided I wanted to write a few things I've learned to help those that are on the fence about it. I've been working remotely for 16 months now and have gotten the hang of what parts work well for me.
1. Learn how to set boundaries, even with yourself
The hardest part of working from home is the fact that if you're not used to creating a structure for yourself, it becomes challenging to set boundaries. When you work in an office, there are boundaries built in. When you are in the office, you're working. When you're not in the office, you're not working. It gets a little hairier when you don't have that built in.
Here is what I do to set boundaries with myself:
-I never work in my PJs. I always physically change into something, even if it's a T-shirt and jeans, but I find the actual routine of changing gives me the boundary of PJs = sleep and/or chill time.
-Additionally, I never work from my bed.
-I have an office that is dedicated to where I work. I don't work in common areas because those I prefer to associate that as "home."
-I observe when my meetings are. If I have an early meeting, I set an "Out of Office" block on my calendar after the 8-hour mark of signing on. Vice versa if I have a late meeting, I start working later. I am candid with my manager that I don't want to work over 8 hours. I haven't had issues with people abusing that. If you work at a good company, they should respect that your work should not take over your day.
2. Have a morning routine
Having a morning routine is absolutely key for me. I don't understand how people roll out of bed and open their computers to start working. For me, the separation between waking up and "going to work" is very important to me and has been really helpful for my mental health. I usually wake up around 7 am and get online to start work around 9:30 am.
Here is what my morning routine is like:
-Wake up
-Go to the gym. Pump some iron or get some cardio in.
-Cook breakfast and eat without anything work-related.
-Meditate
-Journal (optional, that's more on tough days)
-Work on blog
-Sign into work
3. Having a pet helps tremendously
When I got my cat, my quality of life went up so much. I actually have rejected opportunities because I don't want to leave her (which my partner thinks is silly, but he doesn't know how awesome it is). I'm sure this is also very similar if you have a pup. I imagine taking your dog for a walk is a fantastic way to take a break and stretch your legs. With my cat, she will sit next to me and cuddle, so if I am having a tough time, it really helps calm me down.
4. Take breaks, especially if you're feeling emotional and stressed
I take a 5-minute break every hour to walk around and stretch my legs. This is a short enough break to not completely have to re-familiarize myself with what I was working on, but long enough to really give myself a breather. This is something I do regardless if I am feeling great or awful, but it's mandatory in my workday routine.
Regarding tough times, one of my favorite things about working from home is if I am having a really tough time, I can step aside, cry and not feel self-conscious about someone seeing me. The fact that I release the energy really helps me let go and get back to work. This is 1000 times better than holding onto it for hours because of how much I am trying to hold back tears.
5. Get to know your conferencing software and how to use it
Know how to mute yourself and unmute yourself quickly. Make sure you're not saying snarky things while unmuted. In larger meetings, learn to use the chats within the software to ask questions.
6. Make plans to socialize outside of work at least once a week
I am an extrovert, so this is not difficult for me at all. I think working remotely is a little bit more difficult for introverts (my own opinion) because after working a long day, their way to recharge is to be alone. However, social interaction is always good for the soul, regardless of introversion or extraversion.
7. Be active in local non-work Slack communities
This is where I have met so many of my technical friends that I can actually go grab a coffee or a beer with. It's a fantastic way to network without awkwardly going to professional meetups without knowing anyone. It's also a great way to learn about meetups and events and see what meetups your internet friends are attending!
8. Set reminders to brush your teeth
Some people may find this gross, but I cannot tell you how many times I was working on my blog while drinking my coffee before signing onto work and just straight up forgot to brush my teeth. I set a reminder every weekday at 10:30 am, just in case I forget.
9. Try to set up "social time" at work
Admittedly, I am VERY bad at this. But sometimes you need little pockets of time to hang out on you conferencing software to just chat. You can even name the meeting "Water Cooler Chat." It's also really helpful for moral to do it after everyone has gone through a stressful launch of a product or website. I think the reason why I don't do this very often is that I am very much in work mode when I am at work and what I love about working remotely is not getting distracted. But some people absolutely need social time with their coworkers.
10. Do not force it if it doesn't work for you
You do not have to work remote. If it really is bad for your health and you struggle with these things, work in an office. I personally love it and plan on being remote for as long as I can. I love the flexibility that it adds to my life and the time I save on commuting. With all the things I am working on right now, it really allows me to have a social life even with all my side projects.
I'd love to hear, what are your tips for working remotely?
Top comments (54)
I have built my company for two years now, working entirely remotely (with about 20 remote devs today, most of them in Montreal area, with an office to share if necessary, but most of them are still working from home most days of the week).
I agree with all your points and would like to add some myself, about communication.
Communication is way more important when working remotely. Some think it will be an isolating experience, but, by my own experience, I found it is very easy to keep the line open with today's tools. However, I had to relearn it quite a bit:
You will be far more interrupt when working remotely instead of in an office. People will less hesitate to ask you a question or start a conversation because they will not know you were already engaged in other work or conversation. Which means:
Your exchanges will be terser, especially with people that supervise many others or are central to your organization. You have to imagine them surrounded by people like in a press conference and trying to answer everyone questions. Don't try to second-guess the intent based on what's NOT written. Ask for clarification when it's unclear. And, remember, you'll be this person too, so:
You really need to be more clear with your intentions. Even with emoji (or maybe even more?), intents doesn't travel that's well through chat and emails. Take the time to respond carefully, fully, and don't hesitate to request a video/audio call if necessary. Communication among people is still primarily an oral tradition, and body language is also an important part of it. And something I often forget:
Don't hesitate to schedule a meeting, even for 15 minutes. Create a chat room for it, if necessary. In an office, this corresponds to take a room to talk without both disturbing other, or being disturbed. Be sure that your online status says "In a meeting" during this time. This way, your conversation will be more productive and you'll keep the noise level at a minimum for everyone.
Well, that's my tips. No as well broad as yours but I hope that could help some people to join in the remote wagon. My quality of life has greatly improved since I did, and I'm pretty sure it is a step in the right direction to reduce the impact urbanization and promotes our more rural regions.
I LOVE THESE Tips! I agree with all of them :). Thank you for sharing them!
Hi Fabien,
Does GenVid's hiring ? Finding a cool game-oriented company which is ok with full-time remote work is a gem.
Don't want to sound cocky, but for a high-end streaming solution, your website could use some love.
Regarding communication/intentions. Emoji, while not perfect, can go a long way towards helping clarify intent. Use them.
I use emojis all the time!! I think it helps that I am a fairly animated person, so it's in my nature :)
Remotely off-topic (no pun intended, sorry): do you think that working remotely is a good start for a junior developer? With university a part-time remote job sounds perfect to me, I can just go to the library, do some work and when I'm done I'm ready for my academic duties, but I'm finding it hard to land a remote job as most of the postings ask for Sr. Devs. Is it because a junior dev is hard to manage remotely?
I think a better strategy for part-time remote work while studying at the university is looking for small freelance gigs. Most freelance gigs you can work where you'd like, they are easier to find and can give you the flexibility you need. You can take on only as many projects as you'd like!
This is my personal opinion, of course! I think finding a remote part-time JOB would be difficult, but maybe it's actually out there! Has anyone seen anything like that?
I've seen many that required to clock in for 5 hours a day, but as I said they where looking for senior devs..
As for the freelance gigs well, I actually haven't found any haha
The main difference would that I'd be left on my one and I don't know if I can already tackle that kind of job
For a junior it may be harder to find a corporate remote job. But you can find jobs from single employers with single needs. Go find a local shop that needs a website, or one with a website that needs some fixes or improvements. Such things can be a good start.
Thanks for the tip. Unfortunately where I live there aren't many tech companies, and the few ones weren't looking for junior roles so I had to look "outside". I'll scout the web for some local shop.
Thank you Lindsey for sharing your experience. I have the luxury to be able to reach our office within 5 minutes with my bike. Total remote is not a good solution for me because I really like my colleagues and the social environment (water cooler chat). On the other hand I really enjoy uninterrupted deep work which is hardly possible at the office. Combining these two things led me to a solution where I currently work at the office before lunch and after lunch I work from home. This is a great combination of both worlds. I guess it only makes really sense if you have short commute times.
That combination approach can also be practical if you can work while commuting e.g. on the train.
I love that! It's great to have that flexibility at your job!
I definitely love the social aspect of being in an office. I think if I lived alone, I would probably want that flexibility as well!
Great stuff already! I'd like to add: video conferences are your friend!
Have buffers between meetings
If you were on-site, you'd need to walk to a meeting. Keep ~5 minutes if you're in back to back meetings to remind you to walk
Have water cooler video slots
I had an "open" video conference time where I posted a video conference link when I had 15-30 minutes at a given time and posted the link in random or other Slack channels. This helps to just chat with others.
Have art or something that can spark conversation within eyeshot of your video
It helps break the ice and gives people a little of your "flair" similar to what you'd have at your desk
I love the time slot suggestion! Brilliant!
When I was working remotely I found that having a routine helped, but also "breaking" that routine sometimes and changing scenery helped a lot to.
So many times I would be working from a coffee shop for a couple hours, get completely stuck on a problem, take a walk to another coffee shop 15min away and 5 minutes later have solved the problem I was having.
Being able to change the scenery like that was, for me, the most helpful part of working remotely.
That's super true! I love the flexibility of it a ton. I love that I can go take the train up to my mom's house and work from there that week too. Admittedly, I get super distracted in coffee shops, but I love that I can change my scenery or work somewhere else depending on my plans for the week.
I find helpful the use of the Pomodoro technique too.
I really need to get better at that! I've been meaning to do it more often, but keep forgetting!
I use an app, Pomodoro Timer for Android. Simple and efficient. I really, really endorse using the technique.
This is huge for me, I need a morning routine over anything else. In the mornings I need time to set my goals for the day. Same goes for the evening, I need to end my day and have time to reflect and collect my thoughts.
I work remotely at a wework in nyc, and can definitely relate to not setting up enough time to be "social" at the office. When I visit our HQ in the Bay area, the moments to socialize during lunch, at the kitchen, etc. get "built in" to your day whereas out here, I've grown accustom to being floormates with other employees from other companies on my floor.
Hey Lindsey!
Just wanted to say thanks very much for sharing these tips. I just started a WFH position this week... with DEV actually! :-D I'm a Community Coordinator, and admittedly not a dev... yet.
Anyway, when I applied at the start of last month, I actually selected this post as something I'd choose to tweet out—basically meaning I think it's super valuable and well written. I can't remember what I actually wrote in my sample tweet, but I'll just say that at the time I dropped this in my reading list and I'm so glad I did.
I've been following your tips and living a healthy WFH life... I already have 3 cats (who do their best to distract me!) and I'm even regularly brushing my teeth, haha! But seriously, thanks for this, it's good to hear from somebody else who's already been there.
I am so glad! I'd love to hear how that goes and if you have some tips that you'd like to add too :)
At work I've started work remotely twice a week. It's interesting, because the company is in the other city and the company offers work remotely as benefits and a way to engage people to work there.
From São Paulo, Brazil, traffic is terrible and I prefer work at home than go there every day in the week.
Thanks for sharing your perspective, Lindsey. I find many things very resonating to my own experience. Cannot overstate the importance of social aspect - going to coworking space couple of times per week helps too to make it less isolating experience.
Great list. As a 100% remote worker (aside from travel), I depend on specific routines to keep me functional, and your list covers much of those routines.
Specifically: Morning routine (coffee, breakfast, workout), lunchtime dog-walk (~2 miles daily), non-work hobby stuff (photography and related forums).
The other thing I must remind myself of: Family time and disconnecting. That means... leaving the office and going upstairs. Putting the phone+laptop away during the evening when spending time with the family.
Oh, and then there are "hours." At home, I'm not boxed into a set work-day schedule, especially working with a global team. Sometimes there's a doctor appointment or kid activity and I disappear for a few hours during the day, but then I can get back to stuff in the evening. Easier said than done: Such a work schedule requires buy-in from the family, and careful (and considerate) coordination.
One last tip for other home-workers, which touches upon your item #5: Webcams. On almost all of my calls & meetings (aside from global team meetings where it would be a mess if everyone had video), I have my camera on, which encourages other teammates to do the same. This (in my opinion) has a profound effect on reducing work-from-home isolation.
"Make plans to socialize outside of work at least once a week"
This always reminds me of:
I have the feeling most people who want to work from home are not very social. Maybe they don't like much people, and then they want to get out of the office, so they don't have to meet them.
In the end, they sit alone at home and wonder how they could have gone for weeks without socializing.
For me, it was somehow different.
I didn't work for a year, and at the end of it, I had a full schedule. I had the feeling to have so much to do in my private life, that I couldn't work anymore. So I started working remotely because it gave me much more time for my friends and partners.
It comes from a combination of the "hacker" stereotype and the fact that a great many (if not most) software developers (who are arguably the pioneers of mainstreaming remote work) tend to be introverts. Between the two, you end up with the stereotype that "working from home" equals "no socializing, ever." There also now seems to be this idea that your work is your socialization (this, to me, is all kinds of messed up).
The reality, though, is that if you're not socializing outside of work (regardless of where you work), it's ultimately your own fault. Working remotely just shines a GIANT spotlight on your negligence in that department, because it removes the "socialization" veneer of working in an office around other people.
Working remotely forces you to be mindful of a great many things that you can essentially ignore/neglect when working in an office.
That's such a good point. I never really thought of it that way "Highlighting what you ignore/neglect when working in an office" <- SO FREAKING TRUE.
I guess for me I never really had problems socializing outside of work. In fact, I usually need to cut that back because I am human and the amount of socializing I did was really hard for me to maintain my home routines/structure. I am really glad you pointed this out though because that is definitely where I think working remotely gets a lot of the negative associations.
Working remotely I think will get more popular with my generation (millennial) because of the flexibility of it. I have a suspicion that it's going to be even more popular when my generation has more kids (my friends with kids already are taking more work from home days)
I can't stress this more: "if you're not socializing outside of work (regardless of where you work), it's ultimately your own fault. Working remotely just shines a GIANT spotlight on your negligence in that department".
I believe the most healthy relationships emerge from your permanent hobbies. Work socialization can turn into changing skins every time you change your work, which is more often now than older generations.
Yeah, I honestly hate changing my personas. I am usually unapologetically myself during interviews (note this does not mean unapologetically cocky! hahaha), so that if I act like myself during work, nobody is confused.
But to your point, being proactive outside of work to socialize is very very important. I agree that working remotely just points it out and makes it more obvious how much you need it.
I don't know, most of the people I work with (a mostly remote company) are actually very social people. I guess it depends from culture to culture, but the reason I put that tip in is that regardless of people being social or not, we all need some human socialization for our health. It's good to be proactive. :)
Do you have any tips for finding remote positions? How did you find yours?
Hey Andrew,
To be honest, I am the worst person to ask this question because I am the queen of stumbling upon opportunities instead of actively looking for them. The way I have found all my positions (remote or not) has always been from my network. I found my current role because I was working on a volunteer project and a fellow developer on the project thought I knew my sh*t and asked me if I was interested in a job where he worked. Frankly, I did NOT want to be remote at first and being remote was the major con of taking the job. I eventually fell in love with the flexibility and freedom it gave me though, it didn't take long ;).
I have seen a few posts/comments on posts with links about where there are lists of remote opportunities. I will do my best to find them and comment them here.
You can find many offers on WeWorkRemotely :)
Hey, I actually wrote about it here if you're interested: dev.to/klamping/how-to-find-a-remo...
I am so, so glad that I'm not the only one who needs help remembering to brush their teeth. 🤦🏼♀️
Definitely not the only one!
Some comments may only be visible to logged-in visitors. Sign in to view all comments.