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Working Hints for a New Telecommuter?
McPierce asks: "This week I accepted an offer to work for a company in a different state (I'm located in NC, USA, and the company's located in NY,USA). As part of my employment, the company's going to give me a laptop, a PDA (Blackberry 6510) for email/development and will fly me to NY every 6-8 weeks for meetings. My question is to those who telecommute for a living and who have families at home. How do you do your work at home? Do you go out (bookstore/library/coffee shop) to get things done, or do you have a home office and boundaries setup with your family to keep them from distracting your during working hours? How about accepting phone calls from your employer? In my case, I'm concerned about getting calls outside of the normal business hours (8am-6pm) since the philosophy might be 'we'll call when we need to since you're working remotely'? Any ideas or suggestions?"
I don't have a family but I work from home. I have a definite line between "work" and "non-work", including a different computer in a different room. This is good for tax purposes (I'm also self-employed). If you're like most computer folks you *need* to keep the "mind spaces" separate.
I also NEVER answer the phone. My clients quickly get the point and use email which I much prefer. I also don't own a cell but I do carry a wireless PDA. So email is more accessible than phone and I usually answer right away.
You'll figure out a routine after a while. If you feel disoriented at first, just set off one room in the house as your "office" and pretend that you have to show up at a certain time, and once you cross the door you are in a workplace and can't just get up and fix yourself a sandwich whenever you feel like, etc. I.e. impose some discipline on yourself.
Just a couple tips:
Don't watch TV, and don't multitask. When you get up and start working, close the door. That's the commute to work and back. That means that you can't open the door until you go out to get some lunch. Then you've got to close the door until it's time to commute through the door to your home.
And you've got to get a second phone line to your office. When you leave the office for the day, turn the ringer off, and turn the answering machine on. You'll get the messages in the morning. If you train your colleagues right, they'll know that you're not available after you've commuted through the door to your home.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
I've tried this before, and the only way to get it to work is to start off by killing every single member of your family.
Do not read slashdot.
If you have a significant other or not, results may vary but:
1. Seperate Everything - Seperate Room for the "home office" (don't chill the leather couch in the middle of your den)Seperate computers, DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT use the same computers for work/play/home and all that jazz. (UT2003 is probably one of those apps that someone at a real workplace wouldn't let you have.) Seperate Phone Line / Cell Phone / Paging / Wireless Devices. Don't use your home phone for business calls and vice-versa don't use your business phone for home calls. Do not answer business calls after hours or answer home calls when you are working your local phone service has this dope-ass feature called Voice Messaging, use it in both instances. Establish some ground rules so your colleauges/customers aren't calling you at 2 A.M.
2. Don't alienate your family (some people say "when this door is shut I am at work"). Don't pull that kind of crap, you have been given an opportunity to stay at home and accomplish your day job. Its not solitary. On the other hand: Don't have the kids on your lap during the 9:00am conference call while they are watching "Transformers - Armada". Give them the chance to have some lives too: take them to day care if you can afford it.
3.Take breaks, actually do what those instructional videos told you to do, stand up - take a breather, wander around a bit, say hi to the wife and kids. Get out of the house! If you can take a trip to your local Chevron/Texaco/7-11/Shell/whathaveyou. Drink some Mnt. Dew and have a snack, or if its time - take a lunch. This is the tip: Take lunch outside your house, if you can't go down to the local subway or mcdonalds then eat at your house and go for a drive or a walk or something.
4. Make sure to maintain good contact with your colleagues and your superiors. Ask for more reviews, or more office time if that is what you need. I know that I am always accused of "beating off" while I should be coding. Its probably because no one can actually verify that because I'm not at the local coffee pot talking about who you showed your "oh face" to that weekend. Make sure to set goals with your supervisors. Make sure that those goals are met and are visible to your colleagues.
5. Attend functions if you can. If you are close enough, or can work a deal in - go to the damn barbeque. Don't be a recluse. Definitely attend meetings if it is at all possible. Conference calls are great, but since you are working from home, a little "office time" can work wonders for people.
6. Don't forget that you are a living breathing person in the workforce. Just because you are currently banging away on the keys trying to get that new webapp up, doesn't mean that you can ignore the fact that you sure as f#ck better be looking for some upward movement in your company. Don't let yourself be labeled as worker ID# 100101, you should have some movement in your job functions / job titles every once in a while.
7. The most important tip I can give: Use your head, somehow you got a telecommuting job in this day and age, you probably aren't an idiot. Make sure you make some good decisions. Also give yourself some discipline (no UT2003) or Learning channel while you are on the job.