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My experiences of working remote for a year

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Re: My experiences of working remote for a year

#21

Post by mattt416 »

dijit wrote: post #8

I've always dreamed of working remote. I'm the kind of person who lives his work, I treat it casually (or try to) but when I'm in an office I feel the pressure to "look busy" and when I go home I (now) lose motivation to continue working (even when I get a surge of inspiration) I've looked for remote work for a long time, but being a systems administrator this is hard.. employers want you to be in a bullpen full of o…

Agreed that it's not nearly as easy finding a remote sys admin job as it is software development. On https://www.wfh.io, we currently have 20 active sys admin jobs versus 197 software development. I'm actually seeing this increase slightly though, so hopefully as more businesses adopt full time remotes we'll see this number increase. Our sys admin jobs FYI:

https://www.wfh.io/categories/2-system-administration/jobs

Re: My experiences of working remote for a year

#22

Post by eloycoto »

wiremine wrote: post #3

I've worked 100% remote for 7+ years, and it is awesome. - I've had the opportunity to see my kids grow up (they're 6 and 9 now). - I get to see my wife for lunch and a coffee break every single day (she also works from home) - As a developer, the amount of focus I'm able to achieve in my home office is incredible. It isn't for everyone, though. Here's some things I've learned: - If you're any sort of extrovert, you'…

I'm working from home for 3 years and I'm happy too. I share the lunch + coffee breaks with my wife, best thing ever.

But with 2 kids in home, Can you say to them that you're working? they respect you? I spoke with some people that had success working from home, but when kids born they couldn't follow working from home.

I may add make any sport when you working from home. Sport help me a lot to get fresh air and ideas.

Cheers

Re: My experiences of working remote for a year

#23

Post by nerdklers »

UserRights wrote: post #4

This shows the real problems with remote workers - they spread your company information to all kind of online platforms. The author here, of course, goes to the extreme with storing company passwords in a closed source password app and uploading them to dropbox! Remote workers must have some sense for privacy and security, this is more important than anything else.

How would you suggest dealing with shared passwords? I would rather have a much better solution than having a vault in a closed source app (even though it promises encryption) on Dropbox which pretty much have to release information to for example NSA if I'm not mistaken. It's by far the easiest solution I've found but would very much want a more secure and more private solution.

Re: My experiences of working remote for a year

#24

Post by jaawn »

copsarebastards wrote: post #17
ryannevius wrote: post #12

After years of working remotely, I find I'm very different than the author when it comes to being flexible with my day. While initially it was great to be able to head out for an hour here and there when I was feeling burnt or losing focus, I realized that I often made excuses just to get out of the house. It also meant that I was working "all day" and late into the night in order to make up for the lost hours from t…

> Long story short, find a way to be productive that works for YOU. Exactly. I am so tired of all these "Open offices are great", "Open offices suck", "Remote work is great", "Remote work sucks", posts. If it works, keep it, if it doesn't work, change it.

It would be nice if more managers agreed with the "what works for you" mindset, instead of "what works for the manager."

Re: My experiences of working remote for a year

#25

Post by wainstead »

wiremine wrote: post #3

I've worked 100% remote for 7+ years, and it is awesome. - I've had the opportunity to see my kids grow up (they're 6 and 9 now). - I get to see my wife for lunch and a coffee break every single day (she also works from home) - As a developer, the amount of focus I'm able to achieve in my home office is incredible. It isn't for everyone, though. Here's some things I've learned: - If you're any sort of extrovert, you'…

I've been working 6+ years remote, and agree: dedicated work space, GTD and pomodoros. Without a dedicated work space you'll burn out in a few months because you live where you work. Pomodoros keep you honest about how much real work you do. GTD makes sure you don't lose track of anything.

Re: My experiences of working remote for a year

#26

Post by dublinben »

nerdklers wrote: post #23
UserRights wrote: post #4

This shows the real problems with remote workers - they spread your company information to all kind of online platforms. The author here, of course, goes to the extreme with storing company passwords in a closed source password app and uploading them to dropbox! Remote workers must have some sense for privacy and security, this is more important than anything else.

How would you suggest dealing with shared passwords? I would rather have a much better solution than having a vault in a closed source app (even though it promises encryption) on Dropbox which pretty much have to release information to for example NSA if I'm not mistaken. It's by far the easiest solution I've found but would very much want a more secure and more private solution.

The best way to deal with shared passwords is to not have them. If you find yourself needing to share a single account with multiple users, then you're doing something wrong.

Re: My experiences of working remote for a year

#27

Post by jcater »

eloycoto wrote: post #22
wiremine wrote: post #3

I've worked 100% remote for 7+ years, and it is awesome. - I've had the opportunity to see my kids grow up (they're 6 and 9 now). - I get to see my wife for lunch and a coffee break every single day (she also works from home) - As a developer, the amount of focus I'm able to achieve in my home office is incredible. It isn't for everyone, though. Here's some things I've learned: - If you're any sort of extrovert, you'…

I'm working from home for 3 years and I'm happy too. I share the lunch + coffee breaks with my wife, best thing ever. But with 2 kids in home, Can you say to them that you're working? they respect you? I spoke with some people that had success working from home, but when kids born they couldn't follow working from home. I may add make any sport when you working from home. Sport help me a lot to get fresh air and idea…

I've also been working from home for 3 years and love it.

My 3 year old understands perfectly well that "daddy's at work... we can't disturb him."

Oddly enough, it was the teenagers at home during the summer that had a hard time grasping that.

Re: My experiences of working remote for a year

#28

Post by TallGuyShort »

wiremine wrote: post #3

I've worked 100% remote for 7+ years, and it is awesome. - I've had the opportunity to see my kids grow up (they're 6 and 9 now). - I get to see my wife for lunch and a coffee break every single day (she also works from home) - As a developer, the amount of focus I'm able to achieve in my home office is incredible. It isn't for everyone, though. Here's some things I've learned: - If you're any sort of extrovert, you'…

+1 to your advice. I've only been remote for a year and a half. The company is only partly remote, but very distributed between a few offices, and they make it work well. My system: before stopping work for the day, I make a small list of tasks too start first thing. I check for critical emails, then just hit the ground running. Hard.

Re: My experiences of working remote for a year

#29

Post by rizzin »

maratd wrote: post #7
wiremine wrote: post #3

I've worked 100% remote for 7+ years, and it is awesome. - I've had the opportunity to see my kids grow up (they're 6 and 9 now). - I get to see my wife for lunch and a coffee break every single day (she also works from home) - As a developer, the amount of focus I'm able to achieve in my home office is incredible. It isn't for everyone, though. Here's some things I've learned: - If you're any sort of extrovert, you'…

> You absolutely need to set yourself up for success. I have a home office in the basement, and it is _the_ office, not another room. This is the most important piece of advice. You need to have a space that is for work and for work only. When you enter that space, it puts you in a work mindset. If you work wherever, you will never be able to focus. > it is critical you jump on the phone a few times a week to touch b…

And what can be done if there's no easy way to separate "work" and "home" environments?

Pretty soon (in less than a month) I'm going to have the following working conditions: I'm gonna have a room to myself and a powerful tower pc. I need it both to work and to do non-work related stuff like videogames. Of course I can drag it to kitchen every day to work and move it back to my room afterwards but that seems absurd to me.

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