How I Work From Home Happily

(Originally written in August 2014)

I’ve been telecommuting for just over two years now. Whatever you call it — telecommuting, working from home, working remotely — getting the job done in this environment has become normal for me. There are plenty of articles out there with the same tips like “remove distractions!” and “wear business clothes!” but these are some of the things that make a difference to me:

Get dressed. In pretty much everything I’ve ever read about working from home, it’s recommended that you dress as if you were going in to the office. To which I say: nope. One of the best things about working from home is that I don’t have to get dressed as I would if I went to the office. But I have learned that it’s crucial for me to actually get dressed. Since I don’t have to actually see anyone for most of the day, it’s way too easy to just stay in my pajamas, as lazy as that makes me sound. I make the very small effort to get dressed, even if it’s just jeans and a t-shirt, or exercise clothes, and it makes a difference in my mindset. (If I get dressed in business clothes, it mostly just makes me uncomfortable.)

Make your workspace work for you. Of course, it’s important to ensure you have an organized, comfortable place to work, no matter where your desk (or non-desk) is. Another perk of working from home is having some flexibility with your actual workspace that you may not get in a traditional office setting. While I don’t usually get to work at the beach, I do bounce around a little bit because a fresh view helps keep my attention span going. I go through phases with this, too. After I moved into my current apartment, I spent a few months working a lot from a stool at our kitchen counter downstairs. These days, I mostly sit at my desk in my bedroom next to the air conditioner. Of course, I like to leave home to work sometimes too, which leads me to my next point.

Get out of the house. I am a homebody, but I actually don’t like being home alllll day, everyyyy day while I work because it means I enjoy my outside-of-work home hours less! One of the biggest things I miss about working in a traditional office is the feeling of coming home, kicking shoes off, changing into sweats, and relaxing on the couch. If you’re home all day, that sort of loses its luster. I intentionally work outside the house on a regular basis, usually from a coffee shop or a coworking space. I’ve worked from libraries, bars/restaurants, friends’ homes, and so on. Changes of scenery = better for my mental health = better for my work productivity.

Eat well. Working from home has been both a blessing and a curse for my health and fitness. One of the biggest benefits is that I can work in proximity to my kitchen as often as I want, which means I don’t really have an excuse for not preparing fresh, healthy food for myself. Of course, this also means I have to be careful about keeping snacks around, because of that proximity and also the fact that no one’s around to notice if I eat an entire box of cereal or something. But I’ve never been great at preparing food ahead of time, packing my lunch, etc., and so being able to run into the kitchen and make my lunch is a big plus and one I try not to take for granted. (This was also invaluable when I was doing a Whole 30 last summer.)

Enjoy the perks. I’ve also read advice about working from home that cautions against getting distracted by, say, doing your laundry during your workday. I don’t follow this advice. Of course you have to focus on work for large blocks of time, and ensure you schedule yourself well, but I try to take advantage of the flexibility of telecommuting as much as I can, because I know it may not last forever. I just did a load of laundry during my workday today. It’s easy for me to pop over to the gym for a mid-day class and come home and shower and get back to work. When I was in a long-distance relationship, I was able to visit my boyfriend and work at the same time, so we saw each other a lot more often than if I’d had to take full days off. I save a lot of time by not having to commute, and I’ve saved money on clothes and makeup since I don’t have to be “office ready” each day. For my coworkers with children, working remotely is essential for their childcare schedules. Work-life balance, indeed!

Tools of the Trade

Some days, working from home is as simple as pulling a chair up to any flat surface with my laptop and cranking out as much as possible over an eight-ish hour stretch. But usually it’s a bit more complicated than that, keeping my attention and productivity going as I encounter a variety of work challenges. Here are some necessary tools in my arsenal:

Ikea: Not the site itself, but the furniture — Ikea was indispensable in furnishing my workspace quickly and cheaply when I first moved to NYC and needed to be up and running with my work from home life very quickly. (I didn’t take ANY full days off when I moved! Crazy right?) I have a Micke workstation but at some point would like to upgrade.
Yelp: I can’t tell you how many times I’ve typed in “coffee wifi” and searched by current location. I almost always use Yelp to find coffee shops and such to work from, because fellow telecommuters and freelancers often leave reviews noting a space’s seating, wifi, and outlet situation.
Pandora: I have a radio station to fit nearly every mood, essential for drowning out the bad hipster music at the aforementioned coffee-and-wifi spots.
Style guide: Okay, this is a bit of a cheat because I generally use my company-specific style guide, but I like to have a few different reference materials at my fingertips.
Toggl: Timekeeping! As I wrote in my last entry, I take advantage of the flexibility that working from home allows me, and I’ll break up my day sometimes with errands and other stuff. Having a timer going allows me to be realistic about the amount of time I spend actually working, without having to think much about it (as long as I remember to stop and re-start the timer).
Bullet journaling: With all the time I spend looking at screens, I try to do some things the old fashioned way. I haven’t totally made bullet journaling work for me, but I’m trying. I use it mostly for my personal life, but I have my notebook next to me while I’m working.
Quora: When I need a break I’ll often head to Quora to get my brain on something else but still learn something. (Other times, it’s Buzzfeed or playing a game on my phone.)
Instapaper: When I’m taking a break and find a longform piece that I don’t have time to read and want to save for later, I send it to Instapaper on my phone. I like to have a nice queue built up for reading on the subway, and it helps keep me less distracted during the workday because if I see something interesting I know it’ll be waiting for me when I have free time.