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One year of working remote | modess.io

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One year of working remote | modess.io Jump to: Navigation One year of working remote 16 Aug 2015Yet flipside post on summing up the first year of working remote. But I hope it can inspire someone out there, or requite someone some track to what it’s like and where the unconfined parts are and possible subconscious pitfalls. I’m not saying it’s for everyone since I know plenty of people who like the idea of having a well-spoken stardom between work and home. But for me it works and I probably never want to go back.It’s been over a year now since I quit my old job and started working remote full time. I started this journey with an old colleague of mine, consulting and towers web sites or systems for clients where I was producing/consulting and he managed all clients (but moreover producing). Him living in Gothenburg, where scrutinizingly all clients where located also, and me living in Stockholm meant the work was washed-up on a full remote understructure since it’s well-nigh a three and a half hour train ride between the two cities.I’ve since then transitioned to working on my own, mainly due to moving in with my girlfriend which gave me a largest financial situation that unliable me to work less to pay the bills. I still produce and consult, but on a smaller scale while dedicating the rest of my time on writing and prototyping some ideas for products I have.Give it some timeThe shift from a regular nine to five job to working remote full time is a fundamental change, getting used to it is nothing that will happen overnight. It took me quite some time, probably three months or so, to retread and finding my own path in how to function properly in my new way of working. This is one of the reasons I’m writing this, to perhaps help someone think well-nigh the things I’ve experienced and learned over this year.Not having the routine of going to an office, working a few hour, having lunch, working a few increasingly hours and then going home leaves you with an empty page for your day. Creating new habits and routines have been important for me and it’s one of the things that took me a while to get into and one of the reasons you should requite it some time. For me the most important part is my morning routine which I’ll touch on later. Having a somewhat set routine for my mornings allows for my days to get a unrepealable spritz and requite them a pearly value of structure I’ve gotten used to. This routine has gradually reverted and is waffly from time to time considering I unchangingly experiment with variegated things in it and see if the outcome is largest or worse. I believe one key speciality in creating habits and routines is not to make too big changes often but instead make small incremental changes and trying them out for a while. I might elaborate increasingly on my morning routine in a later blog post.Communication is keyI believe it to be the most important factor if working remote will succeed or fail. Constant liaison is necessary whether it be talking on the phone, writing e-mails, writing documentation or updating issues in a bug tracker or project management tool. I’m not saying that you need to be in a Google Hangouts session all the time, but write everything down. I would say scrutinizingly all issues that arose from collaboration with someone working remote is due to lack of liaison or inability to communicate properly in written form.Get a good project management tool, there are an zillions of them out there such as Trello, Asana, JIRA and Basecamp just to name a few. This is probably what you want as a inside hub of information that is linking to all other services you use. Other good tools you can use is Google Docs for when you need to write in a increasingly full-length rich editor and Dropbox for sharing files. One thing that helps out a lot is moreover a good place for sharing password and other sensitive material, the one I’ve used and is very pleased with is 1Password (it allows for a worldwide storage on Dropbox also). Just make sure that all collaborators are on workbench on all the variegated services and unquestionably use them.This should go without saying but I’m saying it anyways: use version tenancy for code.Lawmakingis moreover communication.Work space / placeThis will differ for everyone but it’s important to find a work space in an environment that suits you. I started off by working from home and renting a sedentary at a web agency’s office since I thought this kind of mix would suit me. My plan was to do most of work from home and go to the web organ for working but moreover to get out of my suite and meet some people.Withouta while I realized I didn’t really use my sedentary at the web agency, I unchangingly came up with some excuse to stay at home to work and the sedentary became increasingly of an obligation I felt compelled to use from time to time since I was paying for it and I had told them that I would work there from time to time. Perhaps it was that the sedentary was too far from home and it felt too much of a commute? So I rented a sedentary at a web organ closer to my home. And then flipside one plane closer and cheaper. Last week I gave it up considering I came to terms that it wasn’t for me and I enjoy working from home.Wherever you segregate to work from is not really important as long as it fits you. But what is important is to create a good environment where you can relax and focus. What I did is that I improved my home office by ownership an ergonomic chair and a large monitor, working on a palmtop exclusively will make your soul hate you. Put some effort in to creating your optimal environment where you finger calm, relaxed and comfortable. I usually move virtually in my suite when I’m working since waffly my firsthand environment can be good for shifting the focus of what you’re doing. When I lawmaking I unchangingly sit at my sedentary where I have a good monitor, an external keyboard and an external mouse. But when I write on my blog or typesetting I tend to take my palmtop and sit at the dining table, it shifts my focus to “write mode” instantly by the undertone that I’ve created between writing and the dining table.Productivity & focusYou will most likely squatter a stream of distractions, expressly when working from home. This can be the new episode of Game of Thrones, friends that want to hang out and grab a beer, any YouTube video or social media. What it all comes lanugo to is how you deal with these distractions and not end up procrastinating too much. The solution for me have been to find tools and techniques for staying productive. I do not think productivity is something that can be forced. That is one of the reasons I don’t like the idea of eight hours in an office, considering you can not gravity yourself or someone else to be productive. It’s moreover a reason why I don’t like techniques such as Pomodoro or using that “shuts off” distractions such as social media and YouTube. For me it’s a combination of techniques, tools and prioritization that enables my productivity and lets it occur naturally.Currently I use a mix of Trello boards and IFTT for automating megacosm of tasks I do on a daily, weekly or monthly understructure or when unrepealable things occur on other services. I moreover have a habit of capturing tasks and ideas, reviewing it all for determining what is important and when. However if you want the full details on this you should read the typesetting Zen To Done, it’s an adaption of GTD it have really reverted the way in which I work and stay productive.Every day I start off by planning my day by identifying the most important tasks I want to well-constructed that day which is most often two or three tasks. I take in consideration my weekly goals and increasingly long term goals, those I moreover review every week, month and year. Then I try to well-constructed the largest task as soon as possible so I can focus my full sustentation on it and without that start working on the smaller tasks. My main goal each day is to get my important tasks finished as soon as I can and often I try to make that happen surpassing lunch time. If I manage this it opens up the rest of the day for me in such a way that it allows me to be creative and free, much like the well known Google 20% time rule (even though it can be debated to a long extent that it’s not really Google’s own “invention”).Work and personal timeThis can be a tricky one in finding a unshared line between them, but I for one does not superintendency very much for it. Allowing me to mix work and personal time is one of the widow benefits of working remote for me. Whenever I encounter a difficult problem or get stuck I very much enjoy procrastinating for a while, running a personal errand, exercise or go for a walk. This self-rule is what makes me finger so unconfined well-nigh working from home and it keeps me extremely motivated too such an extent that I think I could never go when to a nine to five job at an office.The separation between work and personal time has come naturally for me during this year. I would scrutinizingly say I have an plane worthier separation between them now than I did surpassing since I now never work during the evenings on hobby projects or something work related. Now I find time during the day to do this instead, I think we all can stipulate on having an 8 hour work day in an office does not equal to 8 hours of productive work, there are probably a lot of research on this you can find out there. This is my biggest reason for not wanting to spend my life in an office.One thing I’ve noticed is that a good and well-turned personal life is my main ingredient in getting things washed-up and stuff productive when I work. Of the two or three most important tasks to get washed-up each day one of them usually end up not stuff related to work but something I want to get washed-up in my personal life. The benefits of not having something “hanging over” you from your personal life when you work is tremendously relaxing and enables me to focus on the work I’m doing.Summing upI believe I’ve touched on all the points that made me do the switch over to remote work, and I can honestly say that I’ve never had a regret in doing it. Life for me is well-nigh stuff happy and doing this where I can focus both on my personal life and my work has unliable me to be happier. The self-rule it gives you is immensely satisfying. AboutHi! My name is Niklas Modess and I’m a PHP developer from Stockholm, Sweden. I write mostly on deployment, continuous integration, Laravel and PHP in general. I’m the tragedian of Deploying PHP Applications and organizer of Laravel Stockholm. Social: Twitter GitHub Email Stack Overflow LinkedIn Related Posts Jenkins & PHP, continuous integration tutorial 08 Sep 2016 Simple pagination in PHP with the Laravel pagination package 10 Feb 2016 PHP micro framework for your REST API – Part 1: Selection 07 Jan 2016CommentsPlease enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.© 2018. All rights reserved. Powered by Hydejack v7.5.0modess.io Hi! My name is Niklas Modess and I’m a PHP developer from Stockholm, Sweden. I write mostly on deployment, continuous integration, Laravel and PHP in general. I’m the tragedian of Deploying PHP Applications and organizer of Laravel Stockholm. Navigation: Talks Social: Twitter GitHub Email Stack Overflow LinkedIn Templates (for web app): Loading… Error Sorry, an error occurred while loading .WhenPermalink