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I have been working remotely for decades. Most people can't work remotely and productively because they are not trained to do so. E.g. You are in your office (

I have been working remotely for decades. Most people can't work remotely and productively because they are not trained to do so. E.g. You are in your office (inside your home) and your wife, your dog or child enters it demanding you do some kind of non important issue right now, distracting you from your work.You need to be trained to not them let them distract you. The people living in your house need to be trained as well on what to do. The training for working in the(external) Office started at school, from a time fiber optics telecommunications were unheard for common mortals. Most people feel alone because they lack the social skills to make friends outside work, or just lack the initiative, knowledge and internal motivation to work without external pressure and supervision. The companies that will solve this issue at big scale in the future are those that solve it because the they have to in order to survive(against established companies). It will be a startup that faces all the risks involved, not an established company like Google or Facebook. It will not be companies that could pay millions for people living in ultra expensive places and are already making big bucks doing that. They don't need to change because the system already works for them.

DoingIsLearning 6y ago
> or just lack the initiative, knowledge and internal motivation to work without external pressure and supervision I will humbly raise my hand and admit to this. As someone who has so far really enjoyed the lifestyle benefits of WFH but has struggled with this, what advice/tips/strategies/recommendations can you or other senior remote engineers provide on how to improve this specific aspect?
- lentil_soup 6y ago
  I cannot recommend a co-working space enough. My life improved so much since working from a co-working. I looked for a place that shared my work/life style and I've made friends, we share lunch, we've gone on trips, we usually share a friday drink, etc. And since everyone works on different things and/or companies it's quite interesting as well to get some other input that's not just work colleagues. I also looked for a place 2min from my house so I still have most of the benefits of WFH
  - dgellow 6y ago
    Reading this thread makes me realize that not everybody is currently in a lockdown. Co-working spaces where I am are closed (due to the virus) since ~October and won't reopen before a while :(
    - lentil_soup 6y ago
      Ah, I started working at a co-working before the pandemic. Where I am currently (Spain) there's been different levels of lockdown. The co-working is open, but with a lot of the usual activities heavily restricted.
    - o-__-o 6y ago
      Coffee shop patios are open here. Lots of folks working without masks there (socially distanced of course). Indoor spaces are still limited. I was going to go work at a coffee shop today but it’s a bit too cold
      - ttfxxcc 6y ago
        How can you actually be productive working on a laptop at a coffee shop? A tiny screen, an awful keyboard and mouse, constant noise and distractions in the background. I don't get it.
    - ghaff 6y ago
      "Lockdown" is essentially a meaningless term. There may have been exceptions at one point but in the US, there were mostly never meaningful restrictions on leaving your home and certainly not enforced ones.
  - biztos 6y ago
    One potentially tricky thing is that larger companies may have rules against co-working. My last BigCo employer had a lot of WFH (as exceptions and due to acquisitions or site closures, the overall policy was butts in seats, but still). If you actually read the security policies, you saw lots of things that would make co-working de facto a fireable offense. But I doubt it was ever enforced, and I bet a lot of people did it. I had a proper home office instead. It’s best to know what the co-working rules are at your employer. O/T: Apple autocorrect thinks “coworking” should be “cowering” which is probably a worst-case version of my point...
- mingusrude 6y ago
  So first of all, there are (or should be) a lot less interruptions when working from home. People tend to disturb folks that they see, it's a lot easier to give address someone at the other end of the room or across the corridor than it is to call, email or chat with someone. With these disturbances gone, you are more likely to be more productive from the start when working from home and so a little slacking off here and there probably does not make you less productive than what you were at work. That said, self motivation and lack of external pressure can be a problem. When I feel I have a hard time to focus on something my last resort is the pomodoro timer. I sit down, set a timer at 25 minutes and force myself to no break focus during that time. Once the first period is over it's usually no problem to keep going since I've gotten into something by then.
- JamesSwift 6y ago
  Routine is paramount. The old routine of commute to work, chat a bit, get a coffee, and log into your computer needs to be replicated. Wake up, shower, put on normal clothes, get coffee, talk a bit, then log on and do work. Then its a matter of not breaking the illusion by having random family members barging in and talking to you about non-work stuff.
intricatedetail 6y ago
Worst thing is that my partner thinks sitting by a computer is not work and she feels entitled to interrupt any time she pleases. I didn't know that side when I worked in office. The first few months were difficult and she only came to terms with that when I started packing my things and said I will be moving out. I learned that this is probably wrong relationship but it is hard to throw away those years, but I can't live with someone who doesn't respect what I do. I am not sure how I missed this? How do you set those boundaries in a healthy way?
- bsagdiyev 6y ago
  I can help with this a bit, we suffered this really badly when COVID started which was exacerbated by our first child only being 9 months old or so at the time. Aside from the obvious (wear headphones, keep work area away from common areas) something else we did was set a boundary limit. If I was in the bedroom, that was now the “office” and was to be treated as such. This one is more personal but I tended to get too annoyed at the interruptions at first without realizing that I needed to make more effort to help and not be (to put it bluntly) a dick about it. My girlfriend started getting in the habit of tidying up or doing crafts during her downtime instead of coming to me after we discussed the huge amount of distraction it caused. Ultimately though the living situation is what made it hard. We were in San Diego, in a cramped two bedroom apartment that had no privacy. We moved and bought a house where I now have a large upstairs loft area as my office. That is absolutely not the answer to everything but I think some of the issue is just most people not being prepared or having the right accommodations. My advice sucks but if you have any specifics I can try to help out and answer more. It’s hard but hang in there if you feel it’s just a rough spot.
  - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
    "I think some of the issue is just most people not being prepared or having the right accommodations." This is definately a significant factor, many of us literally dont have a door to lock
    - rorykoehler 6y ago
gfxgirl 6y ago
> Most people feel alone because they lack the social skills to make friends outside work, or just lack the initiative I'm not sure that's how I'd put it but the alone-ness is a real problem for many people but I don't see how some new startup is going to solve that problem.
- wayoutthere 6y ago
  I think many of us have been so conditioned by social media, dating apps and group chats that we’ve forgotten how to make friends. Meeting new people was super tough during covid, but we’re not going back to the same world. I’ve been putting real effort into this: I dumped social media years ago, so now I just message someone individually if I want to talk to them. I’ve really focused on 1-on-1 friendships versus “group friends”. I don’t have the same friends as all my friends, and that’s ok (and makes for more interesting parties). The problem is that this type of engagement detracts from your available attention share, so social media actively discourages it. Instead they want you to be a lonely voice shouting into the void hoping someone will notice you. That’s not a great life.
JoeAltmaier 6y ago
This chestnut 'home has too many distractions' line is getting old. Work has equivalent distractions, and those people actually get paid to distract you. It takes time management wherever you sit your butt.
- rwnspace 6y ago
  > and those people actually get paid to distract you And thus a veneer of legitimacy curtails the otherwise dragging distraction of guilt.
- UI_at_80x24 6y ago
  >This chestnut 'home has too many distractions' line is getting old. And yet in my home it's accurate. Of course, your mileage may vary. Where I work, it's like a library. Quiet, serene, productive, but tense. At home it's noisy, disjointed, non-productive [hey look, I'm on HN!], and full of disruptions [slack, 5+ zoom meetings per day, kids screaming [Brother keeps hitting me!!!], and wife trying to live her life [TV, music, etc...]. But it's relaxed. I prefer working from home, I feel like it's better, but there is a lot that can be improved.
  - dkrich 6y ago
    I think you’re lucky, then. I’ve worked at multiple places and they are almost always nothing but distractions. In fact I think most employees need training on how to behave in an office environment. For many, when they have a question or an item to discuss, that moves to top of mind and the first impulse is to go interrupt whatever the person is doing to satisfy it. This is made even worse when these types of employees are in management positions because saying “not now” isn’t an option. I used to work with a guy who would regularly have unimportant questions come up and if we didn’t have an immediate answer he would say “let’s go ask X.” I’d usually say, “let’s bring it up in our next meeting or ask in an email, I don’t want to interrupt what he’s doing.” He’d say “who cares, let’s go bother him!” Zero consideration for other people’s time. That experience permanently scarred me I think. To this day I pretty much never call anyone at work without an appointment or at least pinging them asking when they have a few minutes to chat. I realize most here probably get that but I think the average workplace has a few people like that and it only takes one or two on a team to make a massive impact on productivity.
jbluepolarbear 6y ago
I’ve been working remotely on and off over my career and full time for the last 2 years. I get distracted all day (have 2 kids) and I’m highly productive. I think the biggest adjustment people don’t understand is how to be more asynchronous. Working remotely requires the whole team to understand that reply’s and answers won’t be instant and jumping into calls should be the norm. Being used to impromptu calls was the hardest adjustment for me, but I’ve been doing it for a long time so I was already adjust before everyone became remote.
- ErrantX 6y ago
  For me it's about picking and choosing. The value of being able to do the school run, or do some DIY at lunch for 2 hours, and then do a bit of deep work in the quiet of the evening is incredibly valuable.
blaser-waffle 6y ago
> Most people feel alone because they lack the social skills to make friends outside work, or just lack the initiative, knowledge and internal motivation to work without external pressure and supervision. I've been remote for ~5 years now, and making friends as an adult, esp. in a new city or location, isn't easy. But you're right, when you're remote you have to make an effort to build social bridges yourself. That's impossible, or at least greatly strained, during COVID.
- koide 6y ago
  I believe I've made friends of some of my remote coworkers... That's also a thing.
  - tharne 6y ago
    Kudos to you, I and most people I know haven't cracked that particular nut in a meaningful way. It may be an unpopular opinion on this site, but I don't think the human mind is especially well-suited to remote work. We're social creatures by nature and our brains evolved to interact in the meatspace, rather than via a zoom call.
    - blaser-waffle 6y ago
      Aye, same. I'm friendly-ish with my coworkers, have played a couple of coworker-only rounds of Among Us, but honestly we're not especially tight and I'll probably never interact with them again once I leave. At least in an office there is the geographic similarity and discussions that can come out of that, e.g. weather, housing market, sports teams, etc. But half my staff is in Mexico City, India, or the UK. We're swamped with work -- this post is me procrastinating -- and a huge number of them are contractors, vendors, and customers, who we're explicitly told not to get too close to. And if I'm making friends online, there are far, far better forums for that, e.g. Discord, Reddit, etc.
mschuster91 6y ago
> or just lack the initiative, knowledge and internal motivation to work without external pressure and supervision Most people who lack the motivation to work without external pressure are in it only because they need to do even the most menial "bullshit job" to survive: "a form of paid employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence even though, as part of the conditions of employment, the employee feels obliged to pretend that this is not the case." > Most people feel alone because they lack the social skills to make friends outside work It's hard to have time for making friends when you waste 8 hours of your day on work, another half to whole hour on lunch break, another one and a half on commuting and eight hours on sleep - that leaves only six "free" hours a day of which then go one hour for eating (breakfast+dinner), one hour for personal hygiene (shower, toilet visits), half an hour to an hour for house work (cleaning, maintenance)... suddenly you're left with only three "leisure" hours, and that assumes a decent work commute in the first place. Weekends are often enough used for recovering from a stressful work week and shopping groceries. Add in kids to the mix and it's no surprise that for many people, work is the only place they can reasonably form social connections during the week. We need to get rid of excessive commutes, we need to get rid of the 8 hour work day in favor of a 5-6 hour work day, and especially we need to get rid of "bullshit jobs" that add additional mental stress.
deathanatos 6y ago
> Most people feel alone because they lack the social skills to make friends outside work, or just lack the initiative, knowledge and internal motivation to work without external pressure and supervision. Or perhaps because I've spent a month over the last quarter effectively under house arrest to comply with local quarantine laws? It is hardly as clear to me as your post makes it out to be that the din of an office, packed with people sitting at the now industry standard four foot desk with no separation of any kind between them, is quieter than my home.
helij 6y ago
I will not 'train' anybody. If my wife or my child comes to me with something it's important. I'll put work down and continue when I speak to them and make sure all is ok. Of course they do understand that 'daddy' is working and don't call out for me when on meetings but no special training needed in my opinion.
jbjbjbjb 6y ago
I can’t understand the 14 days work from home limit. These are supposedly hard working, intelligent, highly motivated and highly educated and highly paid staff. Yet they can’t even give them a few days a month to work from home. 14 days a year is totally incongruous.

DoingIsLearning 6y ago

> or just lack the initiative, knowledge and internal motivation to work without external pressure and supervision I will humbly raise my hand and admit to this. As someone who has so far really enjoyed the lifestyle benefits of WFH but has struggled with this, what advice/tips/strategies/recommendations can you or other senior remote engineers provide on how to improve this specific aspect?

lentil_soup 6y ago
I cannot recommend a co-working space enough. My life improved so much since working from a co-working. I looked for a place that shared my work/life style and I've made friends, we share lunch, we've gone on trips, we usually share a friday drink, etc. And since everyone works on different things and/or companies it's quite interesting as well to get some other input that's not just work colleagues. I also looked for a place 2min from my house so I still have most of the benefits of WFH
- dgellow 6y ago
  Reading this thread makes me realize that not everybody is currently in a lockdown. Co-working spaces where I am are closed (due to the virus) since ~October and won't reopen before a while :(
  - lentil_soup 6y ago
    Ah, I started working at a co-working before the pandemic. Where I am currently (Spain) there's been different levels of lockdown. The co-working is open, but with a lot of the usual activities heavily restricted.
  - o-__-o 6y ago
    Coffee shop patios are open here. Lots of folks working without masks there (socially distanced of course). Indoor spaces are still limited. I was going to go work at a coffee shop today but it’s a bit too cold
    - ttfxxcc 6y ago
      How can you actually be productive working on a laptop at a coffee shop? A tiny screen, an awful keyboard and mouse, constant noise and distractions in the background. I don't get it.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    "Lockdown" is essentially a meaningless term. There may have been exceptions at one point but in the US, there were mostly never meaningful restrictions on leaving your home and certainly not enforced ones.
- biztos 6y ago
  One potentially tricky thing is that larger companies may have rules against co-working. My last BigCo employer had a lot of WFH (as exceptions and due to acquisitions or site closures, the overall policy was butts in seats, but still). If you actually read the security policies, you saw lots of things that would make co-working de facto a fireable offense. But I doubt it was ever enforced, and I bet a lot of people did it. I had a proper home office instead. It’s best to know what the co-working rules are at your employer. O/T: Apple autocorrect thinks “coworking” should be “cowering” which is probably a worst-case version of my point...
mingusrude 6y ago
So first of all, there are (or should be) a lot less interruptions when working from home. People tend to disturb folks that they see, it's a lot easier to give address someone at the other end of the room or across the corridor than it is to call, email or chat with someone. With these disturbances gone, you are more likely to be more productive from the start when working from home and so a little slacking off here and there probably does not make you less productive than what you were at work. That said, self motivation and lack of external pressure can be a problem. When I feel I have a hard time to focus on something my last resort is the pomodoro timer. I sit down, set a timer at 25 minutes and force myself to no break focus during that time. Once the first period is over it's usually no problem to keep going since I've gotten into something by then.
JamesSwift 6y ago
Routine is paramount. The old routine of commute to work, chat a bit, get a coffee, and log into your computer needs to be replicated. Wake up, shower, put on normal clothes, get coffee, talk a bit, then log on and do work. Then its a matter of not breaking the illusion by having random family members barging in and talking to you about non-work stuff.

intricatedetail 6y ago

Worst thing is that my partner thinks sitting by a computer is not work and she feels entitled to interrupt any time she pleases. I didn't know that side when I worked in office. The first few months were difficult and she only came to terms with that when I started packing my things and said I will be moving out. I learned that this is probably wrong relationship but it is hard to throw away those years, but I can't live with someone who doesn't respect what I do. I am not sure how I missed this? How do you set those boundaries in a healthy way?

bsagdiyev 6y ago
I can help with this a bit, we suffered this really badly when COVID started which was exacerbated by our first child only being 9 months old or so at the time. Aside from the obvious (wear headphones, keep work area away from common areas) something else we did was set a boundary limit. If I was in the bedroom, that was now the “office” and was to be treated as such. This one is more personal but I tended to get too annoyed at the interruptions at first without realizing that I needed to make more effort to help and not be (to put it bluntly) a dick about it. My girlfriend started getting in the habit of tidying up or doing crafts during her downtime instead of coming to me after we discussed the huge amount of distraction it caused. Ultimately though the living situation is what made it hard. We were in San Diego, in a cramped two bedroom apartment that had no privacy. We moved and bought a house where I now have a large upstairs loft area as my office. That is absolutely not the answer to everything but I think some of the issue is just most people not being prepared or having the right accommodations. My advice sucks but if you have any specifics I can try to help out and answer more. It’s hard but hang in there if you feel it’s just a rough spot.
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  "I think some of the issue is just most people not being prepared or having the right accommodations." This is definately a significant factor, many of us literally dont have a door to lock
  - rorykoehler 6y ago

gfxgirl 6y ago

> Most people feel alone because they lack the social skills to make friends outside work, or just lack the initiative I'm not sure that's how I'd put it but the alone-ness is a real problem for many people but I don't see how some new startup is going to solve that problem.

wayoutthere 6y ago
I think many of us have been so conditioned by social media, dating apps and group chats that we’ve forgotten how to make friends. Meeting new people was super tough during covid, but we’re not going back to the same world. I’ve been putting real effort into this: I dumped social media years ago, so now I just message someone individually if I want to talk to them. I’ve really focused on 1-on-1 friendships versus “group friends”. I don’t have the same friends as all my friends, and that’s ok (and makes for more interesting parties). The problem is that this type of engagement detracts from your available attention share, so social media actively discourages it. Instead they want you to be a lonely voice shouting into the void hoping someone will notice you. That’s not a great life.

JoeAltmaier 6y ago

This chestnut 'home has too many distractions' line is getting old. Work has equivalent distractions, and those people actually get paid to distract you. It takes time management wherever you sit your butt.

rwnspace 6y ago
> and those people actually get paid to distract you And thus a veneer of legitimacy curtails the otherwise dragging distraction of guilt.
UI_at_80x24 6y ago
>This chestnut 'home has too many distractions' line is getting old. And yet in my home it's accurate. Of course, your mileage may vary. Where I work, it's like a library. Quiet, serene, productive, but tense. At home it's noisy, disjointed, non-productive [hey look, I'm on HN!], and full of disruptions [slack, 5+ zoom meetings per day, kids screaming [Brother keeps hitting me!!!], and wife trying to live her life [TV, music, etc...]. But it's relaxed. I prefer working from home, I feel like it's better, but there is a lot that can be improved.
- dkrich 6y ago
  I think you’re lucky, then. I’ve worked at multiple places and they are almost always nothing but distractions. In fact I think most employees need training on how to behave in an office environment. For many, when they have a question or an item to discuss, that moves to top of mind and the first impulse is to go interrupt whatever the person is doing to satisfy it. This is made even worse when these types of employees are in management positions because saying “not now” isn’t an option. I used to work with a guy who would regularly have unimportant questions come up and if we didn’t have an immediate answer he would say “let’s go ask X.” I’d usually say, “let’s bring it up in our next meeting or ask in an email, I don’t want to interrupt what he’s doing.” He’d say “who cares, let’s go bother him!” Zero consideration for other people’s time. That experience permanently scarred me I think. To this day I pretty much never call anyone at work without an appointment or at least pinging them asking when they have a few minutes to chat. I realize most here probably get that but I think the average workplace has a few people like that and it only takes one or two on a team to make a massive impact on productivity.

jbluepolarbear 6y ago

I’ve been working remotely on and off over my career and full time for the last 2 years. I get distracted all day (have 2 kids) and I’m highly productive. I think the biggest adjustment people don’t understand is how to be more asynchronous. Working remotely requires the whole team to understand that reply’s and answers won’t be instant and jumping into calls should be the norm. Being used to impromptu calls was the hardest adjustment for me, but I’ve been doing it for a long time so I was already adjust before everyone became remote.

ErrantX 6y ago
For me it's about picking and choosing. The value of being able to do the school run, or do some DIY at lunch for 2 hours, and then do a bit of deep work in the quiet of the evening is incredibly valuable.

blaser-waffle 6y ago

> Most people feel alone because they lack the social skills to make friends outside work, or just lack the initiative, knowledge and internal motivation to work without external pressure and supervision. I've been remote for ~5 years now, and making friends as an adult, esp. in a new city or location, isn't easy. But you're right, when you're remote you have to make an effort to build social bridges yourself. That's impossible, or at least greatly strained, during COVID.

koide 6y ago
I believe I've made friends of some of my remote coworkers... That's also a thing.
- tharne 6y ago
  Kudos to you, I and most people I know haven't cracked that particular nut in a meaningful way. It may be an unpopular opinion on this site, but I don't think the human mind is especially well-suited to remote work. We're social creatures by nature and our brains evolved to interact in the meatspace, rather than via a zoom call.
  - blaser-waffle 6y ago
    Aye, same. I'm friendly-ish with my coworkers, have played a couple of coworker-only rounds of Among Us, but honestly we're not especially tight and I'll probably never interact with them again once I leave. At least in an office there is the geographic similarity and discussions that can come out of that, e.g. weather, housing market, sports teams, etc. But half my staff is in Mexico City, India, or the UK. We're swamped with work -- this post is me procrastinating -- and a huge number of them are contractors, vendors, and customers, who we're explicitly told not to get too close to. And if I'm making friends online, there are far, far better forums for that, e.g. Discord, Reddit, etc.

mschuster91 6y ago

> or just lack the initiative, knowledge and internal motivation to work without external pressure and supervision Most people who lack the motivation to work without external pressure are in it only because they need to do even the most menial "bullshit job" to survive: "a form of paid employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence even though, as part of the conditions of employment, the employee feels obliged to pretend that this is not the case." > Most people feel alone because they lack the social skills to make friends outside work It's hard to have time for making friends when you waste 8 hours of your day on work, another half to whole hour on lunch break, another one and a half on commuting and eight hours on sleep - that leaves only six "free" hours a day of which then go one hour for eating (breakfast+dinner), one hour for personal hygiene (shower, toilet visits), half an hour to an hour for house work (cleaning, maintenance)... suddenly you're left with only three "leisure" hours, and that assumes a decent work commute in the first place. Weekends are often enough used for recovering from a stressful work week and shopping groceries. Add in kids to the mix and it's no surprise that for many people, work is the only place they can reasonably form social connections during the week. We need to get rid of excessive commutes, we need to get rid of the 8 hour work day in favor of a 5-6 hour work day, and especially we need to get rid of "bullshit jobs" that add additional mental stress.

deathanatos 6y ago

> Most people feel alone because they lack the social skills to make friends outside work, or just lack the initiative, knowledge and internal motivation to work without external pressure and supervision. Or perhaps because I've spent a month over the last quarter effectively under house arrest to comply with local quarantine laws? It is hardly as clear to me as your post makes it out to be that the din of an office, packed with people sitting at the now industry standard four foot desk with no separation of any kind between them, is quieter than my home.

helij 6y ago

I will not 'train' anybody. If my wife or my child comes to me with something it's important. I'll put work down and continue when I speak to them and make sure all is ok. Of course they do understand that 'daddy' is working and don't call out for me when on meetings but no special training needed in my opinion.

jbjbjbjb 6y ago

I can’t understand the 14 days work from home limit. These are supposedly hard working, intelligent, highly motivated and highly educated and highly paid staff. Yet they can’t even give them a few days a month to work from home. 14 days a year is totally incongruous.