036: Working Remotely

In this mini Fragment we touch on a highly requested topic - working remotely. Donn talks about how to ease into remote working, tools for working remotely, tips and tricks for staying sane and productive while remote and he wraps it up by discussing the benefits employers have when hiring a remote workforce.

Remote work is best suited for information workers (programmers, designers, engineers, etc)
Read Remote by DHH and Jason Fried

Great book that echoes what I feel about working remote.
Tip: Listen to it on Audible, it's faster to consume.

How to ease into remote work at your current job

Convince manager to allow a 1 day trial for one - three months.
Remote day should be on Friday (fewer critical things happen on Friday, on average)
After trial, if success, aim for 2-3 days of remote work. (Again, do this at the end of the week. Wed,Thu, Fri)
Once successful, rally for full week of remote with an occasional in office visit (a day every week work two)

Staying sane while working remote

Donn's blog post on this topic
Create a work day schedule (5am-2pm, 8am-5pm, 10am-7pm, etc)

When you're done, you're done. Leave work (your office/etc).

Schedule. Schedule. Schedule. Stick to a schedule.

Get up at the same time
Get dressed for work (no PJ's etc)
Do your hair.
Be presentable
This is all mental

Prepare for the day

Get coffee/tea/water and snacks
Try to limit the opportunity of distractions

During the day

Take a lunch, away from your desk.
Go out for lunch with someone (significant other, friend, etc) at one to two times a week.
Work out of the house a couple times a week, this increases our creativity.

Outside of Work

You need social interaction, Cabin Fever is a real thing.
Exercise 3-4 times a week if possible.
Group classes are perfect for this.

CrossFit
Martial Arts
Yoga
Pilates
etc

Communication When Remote

Put 3x-4x more effort into communicating than previous. You're not visible seen so you need to be more vocal.

Call
SMS
Blow up the Slack/Hipchat channel/etc
Objective - Clear your own path

Tools

For remote to work effectively, everything should be considered remote. If one employee is remote, then all meetings should occur as if the team is remote. This ensures that everyone can work effectively without missing anything.
Communication

Group Chat

Slack
HipChat

Video Chat

Google Hangouts
Skype
Join.me
Zoom.us

Task Management

Trello
Jira
Asana
GitHub

Remote for Employers

Benefits from Remote workforce

Much larger talent pool than the exhausted pool (or non-existent one that local). Higher quality employees/contractors/consultants for the same overhead.
Remote creates much more loyal employees. You're giving them their life back and this is reciprocated.
Your company becomes anti-fragile as you're able to adapt with the industry faster. You can hire in areas others cannot.
On average, remote employees work harder and are more productive than their office counterparts.
Less overhead! No need to pay for additional office space.

Sponsor

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Contact

@fragmentedcast [twitter.com]
@donnfelker [twitter.com]
@kaushikgopal [twitter.com]