For about a year now, I’ve been working from my house — working on stuff for entp and the occasional contract here and there. Overall, I think it’s been an immensely positive move.
The good things
Let’s start off with what’s been working out great. First off: I get to focus when I want. Previously, I was one of those “9 to 5″ workers, meaning I got into work at 8:30am and left around 6:30pm or later. My problem is that my greatest focus time is generally around 7-9pm and 11-2am. The time I was at home. So now I get to work when I want, which means I get far more done in less time.
This whole focus thing can’t be exaggerated enough. I do not function in the mornings. Sure, I can force myself to wake up, get dressed, get to work, pound some coffee, but I just don’t get the work done I do later on in the day. Don’t give me the “you’ll get used to it” speech, because I did this 8-6 thing for 5 straight years. My body just doesn’t function in the mornings.
The second best part of working from home is controlling my nutrition. When I worked at an office, my diet was pretty horrid. I was constantly grabbing quick food from various places, for lunch, for dinner, for a breakfast snack. But now I get to wake up, make some coffee and enjoy a bowl of fruit or oatmeal as I catch up on the day. It’s also a lot easier to make several smaller meals throughout the day. I’ve also been able to exercise a lot more — I don’t have to wait until getting off work, or worry about bringing my gym bag, etc — I just go for a run when I have some spare time.
Lastly, I tend to waste a lot less time when I set down to work. I spend much less time in meetings (meetings used to consume an ungodly amount of my time at an office). I can close myself off in my room, put on some headphones and just get things done. Nobody to come by my desk and annoy me, or useless meetings to attend. Less talking, more doing.
The not so good things
My biggest problem right now is separation of work from home life. My desk sits opposite my bed right now, which means my computer’s always there in my bedroom. My next place I’d like to try and get a loft or something where there’s a really clear separation between sleeping space and working space. (Let me know if you know of an awesome loft opening up in San Francisco around July)
The second problem for me has been not working human hours. I have a few friends downtown who try and get me to go have beers with them at 5 when they get off. Unfortunately by then sometimes I’ve only clocked in a couple of hours for work — so I have to stay home and work through. This is of course directly in battle with my productive times, so it’s hard to find a clear winner here.
The future, perhaps?
Back in the late nineties, it seemed as though everyone thought telecommuting was going to be the future. I wonder if maybe we’re swinging back towards that now. Traffic of course only gets worse — while people’s homes are getting larger and further from city centers. About half of entp works from remote (from Tennessee to Uruguay) right now and we seem to get things done alright.
There’s no denying having an office is awesome, but I have a feeling it’s going to move from the “necessity” column over to the “nice to have” column in the next decade or two. Especially for professions like design & programming which take a certain amount of closed-off concentration to get things done. The problem is that people in our profession work well in small groups — and much worse in large groups. A small group breeds healthy debate and conversation, while a large group breeds endless arguments and criticism.
In any case, I wish more companies would try out having less strict hours for working in offices. It’s crystal clear to me that forcing people to work 9-5 only breeds a culture where your effort is measured in hours spent, and not work produced. It’s easy for someone to put in 8 hours of programming and get less done than another person who puts in 1 hour of work. It all has to do with breeding work conditions that work towards their advantage.