Secrets of being productive while working remotely

So it’s been a while since I wrote my last blog post, but I guess it’s time to start writing again. I was busy speaking at conferences and consulting various clients. Speaking of which I want to share my experience of working remotely and why I absolutely love it. Especially working with Infinite.Red.

With that if you want to start working remotely there are various things you have to consider before doing this move.

Romanticising remote work

Lots of people, especially those who never worked remotely, hear about the concept of remote work and romanticise it as a perfect way to work. You usually see this kinda of pictures in social media or in blog posts saying remote work is the perfect solution for anyone

While it looks tempting, actually if your remote workplace looks like in the picture above you will probably get burnt by the sun and you will have to switch your computer every month because of the sand, sun and water ruining your electronics. So let’s get real.

Things that you will need

You need your home office so this means that you have to consider a separate room in your home with a proper desk, pair of monitors and everything else you need for your daily job. I for example need anti static mat for electronics, solder iron, storage space for all electronic parts i have, bunch of VR headsets, monitors, proper mic, bunch of phones and so on. Well that’s because I develop for web, mobile, internet of things and VR so this makes my home office setup a bit more complex than if you develop for web or mobile. But still you need that space.

I know there are lots of people working in Internet Cafe’s living digital nomad life and while it probably fine for them, I think it’s not a great way of working remotely.

Security wise working in Internet Cafe’s is not the best option if you want to keep your client company secrets and confidential information out of the eyes of hackers or just people sitting on the table next to you. You can for sure disagree with me. There are various tools and gadgets that makes your public working more secure, but hey, they are not perfect either and the risk is much greater.

Internet connection at public places is usually unstable especially you need high bandwidth connection for video conferencing and for good working experience. And this is absolutely must for remote working.

What you will be missing

There are lots of things you will be missing while working remotely. Social is the most important aspect of it. While working in the office there is huge social aspect to it. Office parties, food, equipment like coffee machines or ping pong tables where you can play with your co-workers. Just hanging out with your fellow co-workers at the kitchen and talking about various technologies.

Let me tell you a secret 😉. It’s not really working. While it’s important social aspect, but productivity wise it’s not so great to say at least.

When working remotely you are still a human and as a human you want to interact with people, so you want to have these types of interactions. So sometimes you can feel alone and have no one to talk to about certain tech or idea. A little disclaimer — all these problems can be solved. And in a a bit I will explain how.

Why companies adopt remote working

Recently we see more and more companies adopt remote working. But you may ask why? Well if managed correctly remote working can be beneficial for both company and an employee, but in my opinion remote work is based on several important principles:

1. Trust — as a manager or a founder you have to trust your employees. It’s one of the basic aspects of managing a remote team. And lots of companies that still consider going remotely fail at this aspect. That is the major thing. Think about it. If you are in office environment and your manager always supervise on what you are doing it builds up your frustration that company doesn’t trust you. And no one wants to work at the company that doesn’t trust you. Same for remote work. If the company you work for doesn’t trust you, well it’s the same idea.
2. Over-communication — this is also one of the basic principles of remote working and it’s important for both manager and employee. In office environment you physically see people right? And you see them working on one feature and another. Psychologically person is perceived as working even though he can be less productive as remote worker because of well, Office parties, ping pong tables and all office distractions. So when working remotely you have to communicate with your fellow co-workers or managers telling how you progress on one task or on another
3. Face to face interaction. I worked for various clients remotely and the best experience is when you do a lot of video conferencing. You feel more connected to the people. It’s much more than just an email or Slack chat. It’s about discussing things, brainstorming. Well all of this social aspect I said before you will be missing. Actually you don’t have to miss that. It can be still there. It’s just a company you work for need to manage it correctly.
4. Correct set of tools — as a company you have to use correct set of tools to allow your employers to communicate easily both by text or via video chat. So while I personally prefer Slack and Zoom as best tools for that, as a company you need to decide which tools are best for your employers. Just ask them. They have their opinion too

What can go wrong with working remotely

Lots of things can go wrong, from simple things like incorrect managing of time zones, which will leave people in different time zones out of loop, to not being able to communicate with the rest of the team due to poor internet connection in those Internet Cafe’s i talked about before.

You also need to educate your family and friends to treat your remote work time as actual work. Unfortunately in society we are educated that work means 2h ride in traffic to the office, 2h ride back and 9 hours at the office. At least it was like that for me until i started working remotely.

When you work from home, people often think that you are not working even if you tell them that explicitly, so you have to educate your family and friends that when you at your home office — you are at work.

It’s true that you can go in the middle of the day bring kids from school or kindergarten, but you can’t help half a day to fellow friend that is moving unless you are taking day off or something. Some people can understand that, but some won’t. I am blessed with amazing wife and 3 kids which understand that when I’m in my home office, I’m working. And yeah, my kids sometimes can come into video chat and say hi. 😆

But usually it stops there. A small tip: Let kids talk to the person you talk to. Trust me they will understand better that you are at work. At least that worked very well for me.

And as stated before there is a psychological aspect of working remotely. Some people are more dependent on social communication in office environments and working remotely stress them in really extreme way.

What I can do to be more productive

1. Work schedule. Define your work schedule and stick to it. If you work during the day, that’s fine, but don’t plan anything during your work time. If you work in the evenings — don’t plan to go out and hang with friends. Of course you can be flexible with that if it’s ok with the company you work for, but you have to communicate that in advance. Remember that company you work for trusts you so don’t use their trust to do things not related to work — not good for karma 😉
2. Internet connection. Remember that face-to-face interaction aspect. For proper video conferencing you have to be on at least 25mbps internet speed and better on 50 to ensure smooth experience. Conference calls can include lots of people so internet connection is really important.
3. Socialize. This is highly dependent on the company and people you work for. Propose video sync meetings, hang out with people in video chat rooms to talk about tech. And generally be there. Participate in conversations, propose your ideas and solutions to one problem or another. Communicate.
4. Educate your family and friends. Your family and friends have to understand where the line is. When you are working you are working. That’s really important.

Takeovers

While remote work is really great for some people and especially for companies that want to employ talented people across the globe, it’s important to understand that to work remotely successfully you need to work on your self discipline, ability to communicate to people, ability to be flexible to your company needs and work across different timezone. I for example work usually in the evenings because recently I work with amazing folks at Infinite.Red and our timezones differ by 7–9 hours. While that works great for me for some people that kind of flexibility can be an issue. So you need to think what works for you.

Speaking about Infinite.Red, a friend Gant Laborde wrote an amazing post about how Infinite.Red propose various solutions to the same problems i described in an article, so I think it’s a must read for everyone interested in remote work.