I work from home part time and while I appreciate having that option, I do find there are negatives. Other than missing basic human interaction, there's something to be said about the chance encounter with a co-workers in the hallway that leads to an idea or being able to pop by someone's office to discuss a problem. I also find that face-to-face communication is a higher bandwidth medium than phone/IM chat.
How to work from home without going insane (purple monkey dishwasher)
81–90 of 104 posts
Re: How to work from home without going insane (purple monkey dishwasher)
#82Yay for the mention of the Pomodoro Method, it is quite effective and has gotten me through college. Your reasoning however for learning to be interrupted in our life, is something I am not necesarily sure about. Are humans just simply bad at long stretches of focus? I am not sure but i am and thats why I use the pomodoro.
How do you implement it? Paper+Timer or electronic?
http://e.ggtimer.com/pomodoro recently discovered that myself, i find it useful, maybe other do as well.
Re: How to work from home without going insane (purple monkey dishwasher)
#83How did all you people find jobs that allow you to work from home? I would love to try it, I just don't see many programmer jobs that allow this.
Stop calling yourself a programmer and looking at programmer jobs. If you're creating value for a business, by and large they'll deal with you not being in the office every day.
About half of my consulting gigs are 100% remote and every other time I turn down a full-time offer with "I'm flattered but enjoy living in Ogaki" I get told "We could totally work with that."
Re: How to work from home without going insane (purple monkey dishwasher)
#84I've been working from hotels in Europe and Asia for almost a year now. The freedom is exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. The best days are those when I somehow manage to write something in a day that would have taken me weeks of wading through office politics. The worst days are those when I feel like I haven't accomplished anything and can't stop thinking that nobody's holding a paycheck out for me at th…
Congratulations, we're many that are jealous. :-) (If the girlfriend gets a sudden attack of sanity and dumps me, I'll try to organise living in Japan for a few years.)
Check out http://bravenewtraveler.com and http://worldhum.com, two of my favorite vicarious travel sites.
Re: How to work from home without going insane (purple monkey dishwasher)
#85I've worked from my home office for the past few years, and I've figured out it's the ideal solution for my work pattern. I have a good work ethic, and stay very productive (better than when I'm in a client's offices.) And IM is a life-saver with the teams I'm on. The biggest challenge to transitioning to WFH was not the kids. They respect my office as a workspace and really go out of their way not to interrupt me. N…
I had the same problem with my girlfriend. We used to work together then I quit to work for myself. Whenever she had a day off she thought I was just playing on the computer too and just couldn't wrap her mind around the idea that despite the fact that I worked from home, I had to get x, y, and z done before I could go out to dinner or lunch or whatever. Its almost a year now and she left me which sucks but as a twen…
Pure projection. Useless people accomplish nothing on the computer and our first approximation of other people is ourselves.
Re: How to work from home without going insane (purple monkey dishwasher)
#86In case anyone is wondering why the words "Purple monkey dishwasher" is in the title, it's apparently from The Simpsons:
Bart: [walking up] Now for Operation Strike-Make-Go-Longer. [to teacher] You know, I heard Skinner say the teachers will crack any minute.
[the teachers whisper it forward through the line]
Teacher: [to Edna] Skinner said the teachers will crack any minute purple monkey dishwasher.
Edna: Well! We'll show him, especially for that "purple monkey dishwasher" remark.
[everyone shouts their assent]
Re: How to work from home without going insane (purple monkey dishwasher)
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had the same problem with my girlfriend. We used to work together then I quit to work for myself. Whenever she had a day off she thought I was just playing on the computer too and just couldn't wrap her mind around the idea that despite the fact that I worked from home, I had to get x, y, and z done before I could go out to dinner or lunch or whatever. Its almost a year now and she left me which sucks but as a twen…
Pure projection. Useless people accomplish nothing on the computer and our first approximation of other people is ourselves.
[deleted]
Re: How to work from home without going insane (purple monkey dishwasher)
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had the same problem with my girlfriend. We used to work together then I quit to work for myself. Whenever she had a day off she thought I was just playing on the computer too and just couldn't wrap her mind around the idea that despite the fact that I worked from home, I had to get x, y, and z done before I could go out to dinner or lunch or whatever. Its almost a year now and she left me which sucks but as a twen…
Pure projection. Useless people accomplish nothing on the computer and our first approximation of other people is ourselves.
> our first approximation of other people is ourselves
This is an excellent quote. It says things about humanity that I haven't been able to put to such succinct form before. Thank you.
Re: How to work from home without going insane (purple monkey dishwasher)
#89I've been working from hotels in Europe and Asia for almost a year now. The freedom is exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. The best days are those when I somehow manage to write something in a day that would have taken me weeks of wading through office politics. The worst days are those when I feel like I haven't accomplished anything and can't stop thinking that nobody's holding a paycheck out for me at th…
working from hotels for a year? wow, i'm impressed. I did travel/work for 5 months this year (Southeast Asia), and welcomed very much to stay at an apartment for 1 month (in Vietnam). Don't you feel lonely/unmotivated to do it that way? IMO hotels are not very conducive for creativity, and the quest to find a connection every day was a bit tiring at times. Something I missed was not getting to know other people doing…
i did the same for 10months. i basically move from city to city (different areas if it's a big city) every few weeks. If you stay at one place for 2-3 weeks you quickly learn where there's wifi.
Staying at serviced appartment type of places makes you feel like home (a kitchen in your hotel room has a lot of value even though you never use it. but you could).
It helps if you're not the most talkative person.
Re: How to work from home without going insane (purple monkey dishwasher)
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
working from hotels for a year? wow, i'm impressed. I did travel/work for 5 months this year (Southeast Asia), and welcomed very much to stay at an apartment for 1 month (in Vietnam). Don't you feel lonely/unmotivated to do it that way? IMO hotels are not very conducive for creativity, and the quest to find a connection every day was a bit tiring at times. Something I missed was not getting to know other people doing…
i did the same for 10months. i basically move from city to city (different areas if it's a big city) every few weeks. If you stay at one place for 2-3 weeks you quickly learn where there's wifi. Staying at serviced appartment type of places makes you feel like home (a kitchen in your hotel room has a lot of value even though you never use it. but you could). It helps if you're not the most talkative person.
a kitchen in your hotel room has a lot of value even though you never use it
I couldn't believe how much being able to make my own cup of tea in the morning makes a place feel more like home.