8 ms·

Remote work has been a boon for night owls

142 points by goldenkey 4y ago

stonecharioteer 4y ago
It's also a boom for people like me who love to wake up early in the day. I do not want to spend my most productive hours in a hellish commute. I moved out of the city and into a large house. I am not going back to a physical office.
anm89 4y ago
I find that unfortunately I need to wake up a full 3 minutes before stand-up to make it in time
- seba_dos1 4y ago
  It's 10 minutes minimum for me, and it's still painful. 20-30 minutes works best. How can one even open their eyes clearly after just a few minutes, let alone think?
  - HWR_14 4y ago
    I assume some people don't think in their stand ups. Or even necessarily get out of bed.
    - seba_dos1 4y ago
      If I'd get asked what I've done yesterday and what I'm about to do today merely minutes after waking up, you wouldn't get a coherent reply from me. Preparing notes the day before may work, but only if I don't get any random question or have to actually listen to anyone else during the meeting (which would be kinda missing the point of those meetings, right?). The only exception would be an adrenaline-powered "oh shit I'm late / in danger" moment, I guess.
post_break 4y ago
I miss this about working from home. Wake up, put laptop on my legs, I'm at the office. Now I gotta burn gas, wake up earlier, get dressed. Just to do the same exact thing only in a different box. Maddening.
- Bilal_io 4y ago
  I left a job a year ago because they were forcing us back to the office. I am happily working remotely with a company that coincidentally decided to go fully remote right before COVID, so there is no going back since the teams are now distributed. Oh and I got a salary bump with it.
  - elforce002 4y ago
    Congrats! WFH is here to stay. And this newly found benefit is threatening managers and companies in general since this gives us bargaining power now that even SMBs and startups can offer you WFH as a benefit. Thank God we're learning that quality of life >>> more money but in a cubicle.
- systemvoltage 4y ago
  - ycombinete 4y ago
    I understand what you are saying. Especially as someone with ADHD, the level of self control required, and lack of routine, in WFH make each day feel like a tiny battle that I’m always almost losing. The aesthetic of that strictly ordered salary man lifestyle is quite beautiful from here.
    - systemvoltage 4y ago
      I was making a caricature out of it but honestly, I would like 1) A quiet place at work (not at home) 2) Formal meetings with agenda and strict meeting notes 3) Telephones, yes real clunking telephones that you can pick up and call your coworkers. No slack, no non-sense. 3) Great email system that isn't tied to Google Suite 4) Excellent stationery 5) No HR department. None. Zero.
smithcoin 4y ago
I respect the point in the articles regarding remote work leveling the playing field for people who are more productive later in the day. I myself find my best work is done between 8-11 pm. > There are thousands like me and we don’t care what you think If the author truly didn't care what others thought they wouldn't publish this article using such a humble-brag tone in Fortune IMHO. The same article could have been published without the egocentric narrative in the beginning and end and had the same effect.
- iinnPP 4y ago
  I think the intent is to offend the side that would consider this problematic so that they click it too. Double eyeballs for the ads.
- maxbond 4y ago
  I didn't find the introduction to be at all egocentric. You're reading a turn of phrase literally. "I don't care what you think" means "I will live this way regardless of your disapproval." Given that its a common phrase, I'm pretty sure you already knew that, so I don't know what the purpose of your comment is.
senectus1 4y ago
I lost 8kg during the lock down... because every morning i had time to go for a bike ride before "start time". The lack of commute was amazing for my health lifestyle. Now that I'm back in the office.. I'm still down 4kg but its going back on.
- lgleason 4y ago
  Why not change jobs to find one that is remote?
  - senectus1 4y ago
    I am risk averse. I also like and believe in the company I work for. Also, The culture of chop and changing jobs in Australia is nowhere near like it is in the US. for instance.. I've been here for 17 years :-P
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
irrational 4y ago
I love that our stand up is not until 10:30.
- cube00 4y ago
  I'd love our daily stand up to be an message in Slack
  - irrational 4y ago
    Ours is on Fridays.
    - maxbond 4y ago
      https://youtu.be/hePJ1YPMxEw https://youtu.be/hePJ1YPMxEw Relevant
  - anotherrandom 4y ago
    This is how it should be. "Daily status updates" regarding what you're working on are useless. It should be a short message or email containing roadblocks or small updates to let others know you unblocked them that is sent to people on a need-to-know basis, which does not include your manager (it may include your project manager) unless they are also a developer. The whole team does not need to know what you're up to
stevage 4y ago
Living in Australia, I had a phase of working for US clients that often required early morning meetings (7am), but then the rest of the day was up to me. I'd often do something a bit similar: Alarm for 6.50, slam down a bowl of cereal, and on the call at 7. Finish the call at 8, a bit of follow up stuff, then wander around in a daze until 11am, when I'd do a couple of hours work. Then I'd take the afternoon off, and settle back down to work around 5, and do my most productive work from around 7 to 11pm, then bed. I didn't love the early meetings, but I did like the bit where no one would bother me during my work day because they were all asleep. The trickiest times were when I had to catch both a 7am US west coast meeting, and an 11pm US east coast meeting on the same day. Hard to go straight to sleep after an intense meeting.
- LilBytes 4y ago
  Same experience as me, I'm living in Australia but my own clients (as well as my employers) are mostly in the US. Most of them are Mountain Time but there's clients on both east and west coast. I've told both sets of clients there's a pretty good chance I'm going to be still awake at 2AM AEST so book meetings for their morning time and I'll likely be able to attend, even without much notice. It probably seems a little odd to most but it's working well for me, I like 2AM AEST meetings. I don't like 7AM AEST meetings.
  - texaslonghorn5 4y ago
    I've always thought it had something to do with the cyclic nature of my daily routine. At 7am I am preparing for a day of getting ready and working and cooking and driving and cleaning, so having to be fresh and ready for a meeting is another thing to do. But at 2am I have no other impending obligations; all I need to do is take the meeting and I already fulfilled all of those other things earlier in the day.
- deviation 4y ago
  Also an Australian here. Scheduling meetings to be respectful of both timezones is the bane of my existence... The # of times I've woken up at 6/7am or 10/11pm to cater for a director who's based in Austin or Seattle... I'm stressed even thinking back on it now. I love the freedom it gives me during my day (like you explained very well) but looking back, I'm not sure if it's even worth it at the end of the day.
reitanqild 4y ago
Personally I really appreciate that work from home has been normalized, but I also have started to go to the office as often as possible. I'm currently on a half empty commuter train and have just finished the worst task I can think of for the week (time sheets) and now I'll continue working on something else. But if I was at home I'd probably have accomplished nothing yet, and even if I tried to do something, I'd expect to be repeatedly interrupted for the next 1.5h, by people that I love and can't turn away. My brain is funny that way. Just the expectation that I might get interrupted prevents it from even starting on anything. Edit: this is for me. I personally encouraged someone else to use the opportunity to work from somewhere else so they could be with their child last week. I love that remote work is now both technologically possible and socially acceptable.
- mattlondon 4y ago
  Agreed. When working from home I have to keep half a brain dedicated to what is happening around me at home. I typically get at most 90-120 seconds between interruptions of some kind from my family. You can't easily shut that out. I guess having really small kids (babies and toddlers really) is the "issue" here, but I can't imagine it being much better until they are physically at school... but at that point you may as well just go to the office
  - tspike 4y ago
    I’ve been remote since pre-Covid and a detached office space has become a must for me. At my last house, I had a finished shed in the yard. Now I have a space above the garage. Having the option of physical separation is key.
    - reitanqild 4y ago
      For me that only helped some degree: they'd still pop their heads out to have me resolve their quarrels :-)
      - yao420 4y ago
Semaphor 4y ago
I’ve been working from home for a long time (originally since 2008 while it was still a college side job that I started in 2006), when I was younger, I would only start working at 10 or even 12 (10 is roughly when my boss starts working). This was also the time when I used an alarm that required solving math questions to turn it off. Now? I wake up between 4 and 5 (30-60 seconds after I wake up I’m fully dressed) and spend the time until 6 to read the news, play games etc. Then I start working at 6 and stop working around 14:00 when I start preparing dinner. I have some time for myself in the very early morning, later the afternoon and evening are work-free.
- fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago
  How did you get better at waking up? I’m still in the category of requiring many alarms that take hours to wake me. Have done a lot of stuff like move to a room where sun shines on me in the morning, additional automated lights, an alarm playing talk radio. Considering buying a machine for thousands of dollars that will make my bed uncomfortably cold and vibrate my chest.
  - cercatrova 4y ago
    The one thing that worked for me is to go to sleep earlier and wake up naturally. If you're still tired however, see a sleep doctor, many have undiagnosed sleep apnea.
  - Semaphor 4y ago
    Reading an article about 1.5-hour sleep cycles and going to bed earlier. The article said, that your circadian rhythm works roughly in 90 minute increments, since then I set my alarm for 6 or 7.5 hours (9 if I’m extremely exhausted for some reason). I don’t know if that’s placebo, and I don’t care, but it worked for me in a way 8h of sleep never did. While I was getting used to it, I was also getting tired earlier. So everything moved a bit towards earlier times, and I’ve stayed with that. That change happened around 4-6 years ago.
  - ihateolives 4y ago
    I think you're not committed, you're not feeling that waking at that time is important. You keep giving yourself second chances with snoozes and multiple alarms. Try not to. What do you do when you need to catch early flight and be in the airport at 5.30? Do you manage to get up in time? Most people do because the cost of missing the flight is just too much. Make waking up for work as important. I went from sleeping in person to wake at first chime person after sleeping in for several important occasions which put other people in bad light. That really made me revaluate my priorities. After a while it become second nature.
keiferski 4y ago
I have mixed feelings on remote work as a whole. I have worked remotely for nearly a decade, but before that, I worked at a sort of artisanal bakery/ice cream shop for 4 years. It was small enough that one person could prepare the ingredients and run the place on their own. We opened at 10:00, which meant that I needed to arrive around 6:00 or 6:30 to get the dough prepared, chop the fruit, make toppings, etc. The messiness of the work prevented you from using your phone too much, and as it was super early, no one wanted to text with you either. Even the early morning walk there (I lived nearby) was pretty peaceful. So, from about 6:30 to 10:00 everyday, I was disconnected from society and the Internet and working with my hands. While remote work has paid 10x the salary and provided infinitely more flexibility, I still miss that experience of waking up early and working physically on real objects instead of popping open my laptop at the last minute. In the future, I hope that we rethink computer work and make it less cut off from our nature as physical beings.
- pelasaco 4y ago
  I work remotely, core time starts 11:00 but I wake up at 5:30 to study, do sports, and when I start to work around 9:30-10:00, I'm really productive. For sure I have to go early to bed, to get at least 7 hours sleep, but thats a nice trade-off.
- mutatio 4y ago
  What's stopping you from getting up at 0530 now and doing some hobby? This is exactly what I do - I absolutely love that first hour, it's like you're the only person on earth. I'm a natural early bird so your mileage may vary.
  - keiferski 4y ago
    Nothing is stopping me and indeed that is usually what I do. But there is a difference between “getting up early and going to work” and just getting up early to sit at your desk or go to the gym. You miss the rhythm of the working world, of early morning delivery drivers and quiet city streets.
sooyoo 4y ago
> Nope! I want every last millisecond of sleep I can get Here is a radical thought: Value the first minutes of your night sleep just as much as the last ones and just go to bed a little earlier. All this "but it's in my genes" may not be entirely false but its significance is dramatically overemphasized and mostly serves as a covenient excuse for people to not get their act together.
- seba_dos1 4y ago
  I value my sleep time, which is why I'm not going to bed earlier than when I actually feel like it, as it usually results in hours spent on useless disorganized thinking about everything and not sleeping much.
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    That “useless disorganised thinking” is very important. It’s the first time all day your brain has had a chance to ponder things and not being bombarded with constant stimulus.
    - seba_dos1 4y ago
      No, this is not the welcome kind of "disorganized thinking" you get under a long shower. This is the useless kind that prevents you from sleeping and seems to always have some terrible faux pas from 15 years ago prepared to randomly remind you about.
- HWR_14 4y ago
  > Value the first minutes of your night sleep just as much as the last ones and just go to bed a little earlier. What a weird suggestion. That person clearly prefers nighttime to morning time. Why would they trade being awake in the night for being awake at morning?
- stemlord 4y ago
  >its significance is dramatically overemphasized and mostly serves as a covenient excuse for people to not get their act together. Jury's still out on that for the rest of us but glad you have the comfort of such certainty on the matter
G3rn0ti 4y ago
Working from your bed or your couch is not ideal for your back. If you exclusively do remote work, make sure you get an ergonomic chair and table and start a workout routine to strengthen your back muscle. I know several people who developed severe back pain during Covid lockdown. Disc prolapse is a real risk for us office workers and is even worse if you stay at home all day having removed all physical routine from your life. I like to commute with my bicycle to the office every day (16km round trip) which gives me physical exercise w/o me forcing myself to go to the gym.
remote_phone 4y ago
Why was this written like I should care what a grown adult does with their life? If I could sleep in until 8:59am every day I would. All the more power to them!
- pie_flavor 4y ago
  The point being made isn't about sleeping in, it's about not functionally having a morning between waking up and starting work.
  - wink 4y ago
    Aren't those just nitpicky details, though? When I was going to the office I'd usually get up, bathroom, clothes, out the door (I'm a shower-at-night person). Alarm clock at 7:30 when I need to leave at 7:40 wasn't uncommon. Sure, there's the commute but I don't think it's THAT different from what the author described, because I still take these 10 minutes before work now. I mean, I contrast this with people who like/have to get up way before they strictly need to, to go for a walk, or running, or reading, or whatever. I hate that, I don't even drink coffee at home before leaving.
    - chadcmulligan 4y ago
      I think the point is he doesn't have to get up at 7:30 any more, a point I'm in agreement with. If you're a person who's comfortable getting up at 7:30 then it probably is meaningless. My way of explaining it is how would you like to work through till 2 in the morning, for me its no drama, but getting up in the morning is work. I've always thought that it probably harkens back to our early days, it would have been useful to have people awake most of the day, keeping an eye on things, watching out for predators and so on.
pelasaco 4y ago
I hate that. In the company where I work, the meetings are 11 AM, and you can clearly see that people wake up 10:59 and have no clue where they are, what they did yesterday and what they have to do today. It is such a waste of energy and time to have to go through all "hmm, yesterday.. I.. hmm"
Simon_O_Rourke 4y ago
I envy that sort of a remote late-to-rise ethos (or circumstance). I've a couple of kids and the youngest dictates the sleep/wake cycle of the rest of us - usually he's up around 5:15am and full of restless energy. On the plus side, any calls I have with the West Coast or Asia usually happen with the kids are asleep, so the house is nice and quiet. However, without remote work I'm not sure I could function, a commute and physically being in an office from 9 to 5 would mean all the family schedules would be seriously re-worked. Plus, I'd see the kids only at the weekends since they'd be in bed by the time I got home.
vertis 4y ago
I currently wake up at 4:55 am, 5 minutes before my daily standup -- this is self-inflicted. I was in Greece when I took the job (contract) and I'm now in the UK. Daylight savings has also gone against me. Client is in Australia where I grew up (and have a strong network).
- ryzvonusef 4y ago
  is it possible to go back to warmer climes? if it is fully remote, surely a laptop and internet are all you need.
- pelasaco 4y ago
  that's not the main topic from the article, but people with their f*ck off attitude. In your case is pretty much understandable.
  - vertis 4y ago
    No, I know. I should have just not qualified it as much. Would have been funnier. "I wake up at 4:59 am, 1 minute before my standup". Instead I felt the need to explain exactly what was going on (and that it was self-inflicted).
zxcvbn4038 4y ago
The first job I ever had required me to be someplace at 4am to start loading meat into a -30 degree freezer, and I’d do that until I lost all feeling in my hands, take a fifteen minute break, go back into the freezer until I couldn’t feel my hands again, take another fifteen minute break, then go back into the freezer a third time, then drive as home as soon as I got back enough feeling to get my car key into the door. Decades later I get to sleep until 9, stay warm, do tech stuff all day, DoorDash brings lunch and dinner, take a shower and go to bed. No more commute. No more trying to drive in downpours and snow storms. If my stomach feels bad or I stayed up too late watching movies I can shut my eyes for a while. If I’m in the middle of a tough problem I can power through without worrying about having a parking space, or missing the last train, or having to shell out $300 for an unexpected hotel stay. A world of difference from where I started, remote work is the best thing that ever happened.
ehnto 4y ago
It's interesting that we consider people waking up later in the day to be the lazy ones, and not the people going to sleep early to be the lazy ones. I've still got heaps I can get done, and you're in bed? Lazy sod! I think we should all get up after a healthy amount of sleep, and leave some wiggle room in there for nights where sleep didn't go to plan.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  It doesn’t really matter what time you get up, the most important thing is that it’s consistent every day. What I have observed is that people who wake up later tend to be all over the place for schedule.
  - ehnto 4y ago
    It's very difficult for me to sleep well, so I naturally end up with a marching sleep schedule. To compound that issue, if I get 8 hours of sleep I am usually wide awake even after 16 hours. So your observation rings true here, but having a routine doesn't help unfortunately. I've had 9-5s for years at a time, so I can pretty fairly say that getting up at the same time every day and trying to fall asleep at the same time every day just doesn't work for me. I end up laying in bed for hours awake, wasted time. A 9-5 for me looks like 8hrs sleep, 6hrs, 5hrs, 4hrs, 8hrs, 6hrs, 5hrs, 4hrs... etc. For what it's worth, I have a good diet, I go to the gym 4-5 times a week, and I spend hours outdoors and walking during the week. If anything, it just gives me even more energy and focus.
    - 411111111111111 4y ago
      I know the feeling, nonetheless it's good to keep in mind that falling asleep is ultimately something that can be trained as proven by people in the military since forever. You're not so much a nightowl as you're a person that cba to change what you've naturally gravitated towards because of your lifestyle. Which is fine as far as I'm concerned, i just dislike this victims perspective wrt sleeping patterns immensely. And just to be even more clear: I'm aware that there are biological sleeping disorders that actually makes sleep challenging. they're generally not what people have if they're self identifying as night owls however.
thefz 4y ago
Always the same point: if I am providing the work I am accountable for, does it matter how I did it or where I was...?
surfsvammel 4y ago
Oh how I wish that I could sleep until 08:59 A.M. During the pandemic, when part of India was on lockdown, I had to go up very early to cover for our Indian team not being available. I started work at 05:00 A.M. and got up half an hour before that. It was tough in the beginning, but after some time I started to really enjoy it. I have my home office window towards the woods, and waking up when the forrest was most active, was inspiring. Every day I would share the morning with different animals.
INTPenis 4y ago
Tell me about it. But not just that I'm a night owl, I mean to lead a normal adult life you pretty much need some sort of rhythm unless your partner is also a night owl. But I've already worked remotely for 6 years and I find that with our nordic winter darkness I can be outdoors and enjoy the sun during the day and put in my hours when the sun sets. This I feel should be the norm up here in the nordic lats, when the sun starts setting at 3pm. Be outdoors during the day, work later during the afternoon.
sublinear 4y ago
I stay up late about as often as I wake up early. I think this is far more common than being an "early bird" or a "night owl". Working from home has taken away most of the pressure of an 8 hour schedule. What's actually important is just getting things done by a due date and being available for meetings. I very strongly prefer it this way. Results and hours are very loosely correlated. There are times where my mind is so fresh I can do more than a day of work in just a few hours. There are other times where I am so mentally foggy I must work 10 hours straight only to still be behind. In both cases I am just as engaged with my work. Neither should be the expectation. It all evens out by the deadline, as it should.
mustafabisic1 4y ago
It seems this article pushes for more asynchronous communication and it seems to be the healthiest way. Something todoist's CEO has been pushing for a long time (no affiliation other than I like his work) - https://twitter.com/amix3k https://twitter.com/amix3k It does have a potential to be a night-mare for the middle managers tho. But I'm betting on human ingenuity to solve that as well. P.S. If you’re a remote-working parent check out my weekly newsletter for remote-working parents https://thursdaydigest.com/ https://thursdaydigest.com/ I know it’s a weird place to find a newsletter exactly for you. The transition is off, but I'm working on putting myself out there more ruthlessly. I guess it’s true what Seinfeld said, like when we can make our own people we just care less lol
therusskiy 4y ago
I remember when I was younger I would often work until 7am because due to startups nature the work includes a lot of communication with founders, and I myself used to live in Russia, while the startups were in San Francisco / Los Angeles. Today, If I stay until 6am the next day I am almost guaranteed to have a headache and be worthless, but working in the evenings is still my prime time. My colleagues often tell me "dude, it's 11pm where you are at, go to sleep", but at this point that's my 2nd nature. Still, many people in the same company manage to work the "normal" 8am-6pm days, so I guess to each their own.
pimpampum 4y ago
There are several chronotypes, not everyone is wired to wake up early in the morning but society is organized that way and hurts those who don't conform. Remoting allows each to better adjust, even if it's just a couple of hours.
- BlargMcLarg 4y ago
  Not just those people either. The people who can conform tend to get stuck in traffic jams as reward.
AntiRemoteWork 4y ago
elforce002 4y ago
Time is scarce. The blessing of WFH is that you start working with energy since you don't have to wake up 2 or 3 hours early (my case) and start investing your time to prepare yourself for work (both physically and mentally). This is why the "9-5" is a false narrative: the moment you wake up, you're thinking and preparing yourself to go to work. This means that if I commute, the pressure of being on time + the time you take to prepare yourself to go to work becomes part of your work. Same goes when you finish working (detach yourself from work, commuting, etc...). WFH gave us the opportunity to login 1, 2,...5 minutes before work, and logout instantly and be at home or wherever you are, giving us our time back. You can't put a price on that. We're talking 1, 2... good hours of sleep, workouts, etc... And peace of mind when you get out of work (zero commuting stress, more time to be with your family, etc...). The "WFH is killing X thing..." Is straight evil. Simple as that. More free time, productivity goes up because we're rested, quality of life improves, and somehow this is killing whatever? ... The heck with that...(excuse my french). I sincerely hope SWEs, Devs, don't fall for "back to office" narrative and relenquish this newly found benefit in an economy that's moving towards less benefits. We could go out of a limb and arguably say this is one of the best unplanned benefits for workers since working rights.
- unity1001 4y ago
  > you don't have to wake up 2 or 3 hours early (my case) and start investing your time to prepare yourself for work (both physically and mentally). You forgot having to navigate traffic/subway and the people to get to work. And then settle down at your desk after the daily formalities. The former one causes a lot of cognitive tiredom.
  - elforce002 4y ago
    Office space all over, hehe.
Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
True. Sadly school doesn't cooperate, so I'm back to waking up early. Loved going to bed at 4 am most of my late teen-early twenties. My wife is the same
nisegami 4y ago
I do my best work at 1-5 AM. I work 7 AM to 3 PM. My company is not getting the most they can out of me, but at this point I see that as their problem and not mine.

142 points by goldenkey 4y ago

It's also a boom for people like me who love to wake up early in the day. I do not want to spend my most productive hours in a hellish commute. I moved out of the city and into a large house. I am not going back to a physical office.

anm89 4y ago

I find that unfortunately I need to wake up a full 3 minutes before stand-up to make it in time

seba_dos1 4y ago
It's 10 minutes minimum for me, and it's still painful. 20-30 minutes works best. How can one even open their eyes clearly after just a few minutes, let alone think?
- HWR_14 4y ago
  I assume some people don't think in their stand ups. Or even necessarily get out of bed.
  - seba_dos1 4y ago
    If I'd get asked what I've done yesterday and what I'm about to do today merely minutes after waking up, you wouldn't get a coherent reply from me. Preparing notes the day before may work, but only if I don't get any random question or have to actually listen to anyone else during the meeting (which would be kinda missing the point of those meetings, right?). The only exception would be an adrenaline-powered "oh shit I'm late / in danger" moment, I guess.

post_break 4y ago

I miss this about working from home. Wake up, put laptop on my legs, I'm at the office. Now I gotta burn gas, wake up earlier, get dressed. Just to do the same exact thing only in a different box. Maddening.

Bilal_io 4y ago
I left a job a year ago because they were forcing us back to the office. I am happily working remotely with a company that coincidentally decided to go fully remote right before COVID, so there is no going back since the teams are now distributed. Oh and I got a salary bump with it.
- elforce002 4y ago
  Congrats! WFH is here to stay. And this newly found benefit is threatening managers and companies in general since this gives us bargaining power now that even SMBs and startups can offer you WFH as a benefit. Thank God we're learning that quality of life >>> more money but in a cubicle.
systemvoltage 4y ago
- ycombinete 4y ago
  I understand what you are saying. Especially as someone with ADHD, the level of self control required, and lack of routine, in WFH make each day feel like a tiny battle that I’m always almost losing. The aesthetic of that strictly ordered salary man lifestyle is quite beautiful from here.
  - systemvoltage 4y ago
    I was making a caricature out of it but honestly, I would like 1) A quiet place at work (not at home) 2) Formal meetings with agenda and strict meeting notes 3) Telephones, yes real clunking telephones that you can pick up and call your coworkers. No slack, no non-sense. 3) Great email system that isn't tied to Google Suite 4) Excellent stationery 5) No HR department. None. Zero.

smithcoin 4y ago

I respect the point in the articles regarding remote work leveling the playing field for people who are more productive later in the day. I myself find my best work is done between 8-11 pm. > There are thousands like me and we don’t care what you think If the author truly didn't care what others thought they wouldn't publish this article using such a humble-brag tone in Fortune IMHO. The same article could have been published without the egocentric narrative in the beginning and end and had the same effect.

iinnPP 4y ago
I think the intent is to offend the side that would consider this problematic so that they click it too. Double eyeballs for the ads.
maxbond 4y ago
I didn't find the introduction to be at all egocentric. You're reading a turn of phrase literally. "I don't care what you think" means "I will live this way regardless of your disapproval." Given that its a common phrase, I'm pretty sure you already knew that, so I don't know what the purpose of your comment is.

senectus1 4y ago

I lost 8kg during the lock down... because every morning i had time to go for a bike ride before "start time". The lack of commute was amazing for my health lifestyle. Now that I'm back in the office.. I'm still down 4kg but its going back on.

lgleason 4y ago
Why not change jobs to find one that is remote?
- senectus1 4y ago
  I am risk averse. I also like and believe in the company I work for. Also, The culture of chop and changing jobs in Australia is nowhere near like it is in the US. for instance.. I've been here for 17 years :-P

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

irrational 4y ago

I love that our stand up is not until 10:30.

cube00 4y ago
I'd love our daily stand up to be an message in Slack
- irrational 4y ago
  Ours is on Fridays.
  - maxbond 4y ago
    https://youtu.be/hePJ1YPMxEw https://youtu.be/hePJ1YPMxEw Relevant
- anotherrandom 4y ago
  This is how it should be. "Daily status updates" regarding what you're working on are useless. It should be a short message or email containing roadblocks or small updates to let others know you unblocked them that is sent to people on a need-to-know basis, which does not include your manager (it may include your project manager) unless they are also a developer. The whole team does not need to know what you're up to

stevage 4y ago

Living in Australia, I had a phase of working for US clients that often required early morning meetings (7am), but then the rest of the day was up to me. I'd often do something a bit similar: Alarm for 6.50, slam down a bowl of cereal, and on the call at 7. Finish the call at 8, a bit of follow up stuff, then wander around in a daze until 11am, when I'd do a couple of hours work. Then I'd take the afternoon off, and settle back down to work around 5, and do my most productive work from around 7 to 11pm, then bed. I didn't love the early meetings, but I did like the bit where no one would bother me during my work day because they were all asleep. The trickiest times were when I had to catch both a 7am US west coast meeting, and an 11pm US east coast meeting on the same day. Hard to go straight to sleep after an intense meeting.

LilBytes 4y ago
Same experience as me, I'm living in Australia but my own clients (as well as my employers) are mostly in the US. Most of them are Mountain Time but there's clients on both east and west coast. I've told both sets of clients there's a pretty good chance I'm going to be still awake at 2AM AEST so book meetings for their morning time and I'll likely be able to attend, even without much notice. It probably seems a little odd to most but it's working well for me, I like 2AM AEST meetings. I don't like 7AM AEST meetings.
- texaslonghorn5 4y ago
  I've always thought it had something to do with the cyclic nature of my daily routine. At 7am I am preparing for a day of getting ready and working and cooking and driving and cleaning, so having to be fresh and ready for a meeting is another thing to do. But at 2am I have no other impending obligations; all I need to do is take the meeting and I already fulfilled all of those other things earlier in the day.
deviation 4y ago
Also an Australian here. Scheduling meetings to be respectful of both timezones is the bane of my existence... The # of times I've woken up at 6/7am or 10/11pm to cater for a director who's based in Austin or Seattle... I'm stressed even thinking back on it now. I love the freedom it gives me during my day (like you explained very well) but looking back, I'm not sure if it's even worth it at the end of the day.

reitanqild 4y ago

Personally I really appreciate that work from home has been normalized, but I also have started to go to the office as often as possible. I'm currently on a half empty commuter train and have just finished the worst task I can think of for the week (time sheets) and now I'll continue working on something else. But if I was at home I'd probably have accomplished nothing yet, and even if I tried to do something, I'd expect to be repeatedly interrupted for the next 1.5h, by people that I love and can't turn away. My brain is funny that way. Just the expectation that I might get interrupted prevents it from even starting on anything. Edit: this is for me. I personally encouraged someone else to use the opportunity to work from somewhere else so they could be with their child last week. I love that remote work is now both technologically possible and socially acceptable.

mattlondon 4y ago
Agreed. When working from home I have to keep half a brain dedicated to what is happening around me at home. I typically get at most 90-120 seconds between interruptions of some kind from my family. You can't easily shut that out. I guess having really small kids (babies and toddlers really) is the "issue" here, but I can't imagine it being much better until they are physically at school... but at that point you may as well just go to the office
- tspike 4y ago
  I’ve been remote since pre-Covid and a detached office space has become a must for me. At my last house, I had a finished shed in the yard. Now I have a space above the garage. Having the option of physical separation is key.
  - reitanqild 4y ago
    For me that only helped some degree: they'd still pop their heads out to have me resolve their quarrels :-)
    - yao420 4y ago

Semaphor 4y ago

I’ve been working from home for a long time (originally since 2008 while it was still a college side job that I started in 2006), when I was younger, I would only start working at 10 or even 12 (10 is roughly when my boss starts working). This was also the time when I used an alarm that required solving math questions to turn it off. Now? I wake up between 4 and 5 (30-60 seconds after I wake up I’m fully dressed) and spend the time until 6 to read the news, play games etc. Then I start working at 6 and stop working around 14:00 when I start preparing dinner. I have some time for myself in the very early morning, later the afternoon and evening are work-free.

fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago
How did you get better at waking up? I’m still in the category of requiring many alarms that take hours to wake me. Have done a lot of stuff like move to a room where sun shines on me in the morning, additional automated lights, an alarm playing talk radio. Considering buying a machine for thousands of dollars that will make my bed uncomfortably cold and vibrate my chest.
- cercatrova 4y ago
  The one thing that worked for me is to go to sleep earlier and wake up naturally. If you're still tired however, see a sleep doctor, many have undiagnosed sleep apnea.
- Semaphor 4y ago
  Reading an article about 1.5-hour sleep cycles and going to bed earlier. The article said, that your circadian rhythm works roughly in 90 minute increments, since then I set my alarm for 6 or 7.5 hours (9 if I’m extremely exhausted for some reason). I don’t know if that’s placebo, and I don’t care, but it worked for me in a way 8h of sleep never did. While I was getting used to it, I was also getting tired earlier. So everything moved a bit towards earlier times, and I’ve stayed with that. That change happened around 4-6 years ago.
- ihateolives 4y ago
  I think you're not committed, you're not feeling that waking at that time is important. You keep giving yourself second chances with snoozes and multiple alarms. Try not to. What do you do when you need to catch early flight and be in the airport at 5.30? Do you manage to get up in time? Most people do because the cost of missing the flight is just too much. Make waking up for work as important. I went from sleeping in person to wake at first chime person after sleeping in for several important occasions which put other people in bad light. That really made me revaluate my priorities. After a while it become second nature.

keiferski 4y ago

I have mixed feelings on remote work as a whole. I have worked remotely for nearly a decade, but before that, I worked at a sort of artisanal bakery/ice cream shop for 4 years. It was small enough that one person could prepare the ingredients and run the place on their own. We opened at 10:00, which meant that I needed to arrive around 6:00 or 6:30 to get the dough prepared, chop the fruit, make toppings, etc. The messiness of the work prevented you from using your phone too much, and as it was super early, no one wanted to text with you either. Even the early morning walk there (I lived nearby) was pretty peaceful. So, from about 6:30 to 10:00 everyday, I was disconnected from society and the Internet and working with my hands. While remote work has paid 10x the salary and provided infinitely more flexibility, I still miss that experience of waking up early and working physically on real objects instead of popping open my laptop at the last minute. In the future, I hope that we rethink computer work and make it less cut off from our nature as physical beings.

pelasaco 4y ago
I work remotely, core time starts 11:00 but I wake up at 5:30 to study, do sports, and when I start to work around 9:30-10:00, I'm really productive. For sure I have to go early to bed, to get at least 7 hours sleep, but thats a nice trade-off.
mutatio 4y ago
What's stopping you from getting up at 0530 now and doing some hobby? This is exactly what I do - I absolutely love that first hour, it's like you're the only person on earth. I'm a natural early bird so your mileage may vary.
- keiferski 4y ago
  Nothing is stopping me and indeed that is usually what I do. But there is a difference between “getting up early and going to work” and just getting up early to sit at your desk or go to the gym. You miss the rhythm of the working world, of early morning delivery drivers and quiet city streets.

sooyoo 4y ago

> Nope! I want every last millisecond of sleep I can get Here is a radical thought: Value the first minutes of your night sleep just as much as the last ones and just go to bed a little earlier. All this "but it's in my genes" may not be entirely false but its significance is dramatically overemphasized and mostly serves as a covenient excuse for people to not get their act together.

seba_dos1 4y ago
I value my sleep time, which is why I'm not going to bed earlier than when I actually feel like it, as it usually results in hours spent on useless disorganized thinking about everything and not sleeping much.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  That “useless disorganised thinking” is very important. It’s the first time all day your brain has had a chance to ponder things and not being bombarded with constant stimulus.
  - seba_dos1 4y ago
    No, this is not the welcome kind of "disorganized thinking" you get under a long shower. This is the useless kind that prevents you from sleeping and seems to always have some terrible faux pas from 15 years ago prepared to randomly remind you about.
HWR_14 4y ago
> Value the first minutes of your night sleep just as much as the last ones and just go to bed a little earlier. What a weird suggestion. That person clearly prefers nighttime to morning time. Why would they trade being awake in the night for being awake at morning?
stemlord 4y ago
>its significance is dramatically overemphasized and mostly serves as a covenient excuse for people to not get their act together. Jury's still out on that for the rest of us but glad you have the comfort of such certainty on the matter

G3rn0ti 4y ago

Working from your bed or your couch is not ideal for your back. If you exclusively do remote work, make sure you get an ergonomic chair and table and start a workout routine to strengthen your back muscle. I know several people who developed severe back pain during Covid lockdown. Disc prolapse is a real risk for us office workers and is even worse if you stay at home all day having removed all physical routine from your life. I like to commute with my bicycle to the office every day (16km round trip) which gives me physical exercise w/o me forcing myself to go to the gym.

remote_phone 4y ago

Why was this written like I should care what a grown adult does with their life? If I could sleep in until 8:59am every day I would. All the more power to them!

pie_flavor 4y ago
The point being made isn't about sleeping in, it's about not functionally having a morning between waking up and starting work.
- wink 4y ago
  Aren't those just nitpicky details, though? When I was going to the office I'd usually get up, bathroom, clothes, out the door (I'm a shower-at-night person). Alarm clock at 7:30 when I need to leave at 7:40 wasn't uncommon. Sure, there's the commute but I don't think it's THAT different from what the author described, because I still take these 10 minutes before work now. I mean, I contrast this with people who like/have to get up way before they strictly need to, to go for a walk, or running, or reading, or whatever. I hate that, I don't even drink coffee at home before leaving.
  - chadcmulligan 4y ago
    I think the point is he doesn't have to get up at 7:30 any more, a point I'm in agreement with. If you're a person who's comfortable getting up at 7:30 then it probably is meaningless. My way of explaining it is how would you like to work through till 2 in the morning, for me its no drama, but getting up in the morning is work. I've always thought that it probably harkens back to our early days, it would have been useful to have people awake most of the day, keeping an eye on things, watching out for predators and so on.

pelasaco 4y ago

I hate that. In the company where I work, the meetings are 11 AM, and you can clearly see that people wake up 10:59 and have no clue where they are, what they did yesterday and what they have to do today. It is such a waste of energy and time to have to go through all "hmm, yesterday.. I.. hmm"

Simon_O_Rourke 4y ago

I envy that sort of a remote late-to-rise ethos (or circumstance). I've a couple of kids and the youngest dictates the sleep/wake cycle of the rest of us - usually he's up around 5:15am and full of restless energy. On the plus side, any calls I have with the West Coast or Asia usually happen with the kids are asleep, so the house is nice and quiet. However, without remote work I'm not sure I could function, a commute and physically being in an office from 9 to 5 would mean all the family schedules would be seriously re-worked. Plus, I'd see the kids only at the weekends since they'd be in bed by the time I got home.

vertis 4y ago

I currently wake up at 4:55 am, 5 minutes before my daily standup -- this is self-inflicted. I was in Greece when I took the job (contract) and I'm now in the UK. Daylight savings has also gone against me. Client is in Australia where I grew up (and have a strong network).

ryzvonusef 4y ago
is it possible to go back to warmer climes? if it is fully remote, surely a laptop and internet are all you need.
pelasaco 4y ago
that's not the main topic from the article, but people with their f*ck off attitude. In your case is pretty much understandable.
- vertis 4y ago
  No, I know. I should have just not qualified it as much. Would have been funnier. "I wake up at 4:59 am, 1 minute before my standup". Instead I felt the need to explain exactly what was going on (and that it was self-inflicted).

zxcvbn4038 4y ago

The first job I ever had required me to be someplace at 4am to start loading meat into a -30 degree freezer, and I’d do that until I lost all feeling in my hands, take a fifteen minute break, go back into the freezer until I couldn’t feel my hands again, take another fifteen minute break, then go back into the freezer a third time, then drive as home as soon as I got back enough feeling to get my car key into the door. Decades later I get to sleep until 9, stay warm, do tech stuff all day, DoorDash brings lunch and dinner, take a shower and go to bed. No more commute. No more trying to drive in downpours and snow storms. If my stomach feels bad or I stayed up too late watching movies I can shut my eyes for a while. If I’m in the middle of a tough problem I can power through without worrying about having a parking space, or missing the last train, or having to shell out $300 for an unexpected hotel stay. A world of difference from where I started, remote work is the best thing that ever happened.

ehnto 4y ago

It's interesting that we consider people waking up later in the day to be the lazy ones, and not the people going to sleep early to be the lazy ones. I've still got heaps I can get done, and you're in bed? Lazy sod! I think we should all get up after a healthy amount of sleep, and leave some wiggle room in there for nights where sleep didn't go to plan.

Gigachad 4y ago
It doesn’t really matter what time you get up, the most important thing is that it’s consistent every day. What I have observed is that people who wake up later tend to be all over the place for schedule.
- ehnto 4y ago
  It's very difficult for me to sleep well, so I naturally end up with a marching sleep schedule. To compound that issue, if I get 8 hours of sleep I am usually wide awake even after 16 hours. So your observation rings true here, but having a routine doesn't help unfortunately. I've had 9-5s for years at a time, so I can pretty fairly say that getting up at the same time every day and trying to fall asleep at the same time every day just doesn't work for me. I end up laying in bed for hours awake, wasted time. A 9-5 for me looks like 8hrs sleep, 6hrs, 5hrs, 4hrs, 8hrs, 6hrs, 5hrs, 4hrs... etc. For what it's worth, I have a good diet, I go to the gym 4-5 times a week, and I spend hours outdoors and walking during the week. If anything, it just gives me even more energy and focus.
  - 411111111111111 4y ago
    I know the feeling, nonetheless it's good to keep in mind that falling asleep is ultimately something that can be trained as proven by people in the military since forever. You're not so much a nightowl as you're a person that cba to change what you've naturally gravitated towards because of your lifestyle. Which is fine as far as I'm concerned, i just dislike this victims perspective wrt sleeping patterns immensely. And just to be even more clear: I'm aware that there are biological sleeping disorders that actually makes sleep challenging. they're generally not what people have if they're self identifying as night owls however.

thefz 4y ago

Always the same point: if I am providing the work I am accountable for, does it matter how I did it or where I was...?

surfsvammel 4y ago

Oh how I wish that I could sleep until 08:59 A.M. During the pandemic, when part of India was on lockdown, I had to go up very early to cover for our Indian team not being available. I started work at 05:00 A.M. and got up half an hour before that. It was tough in the beginning, but after some time I started to really enjoy it. I have my home office window towards the woods, and waking up when the forrest was most active, was inspiring. Every day I would share the morning with different animals.

INTPenis 4y ago

Tell me about it. But not just that I'm a night owl, I mean to lead a normal adult life you pretty much need some sort of rhythm unless your partner is also a night owl. But I've already worked remotely for 6 years and I find that with our nordic winter darkness I can be outdoors and enjoy the sun during the day and put in my hours when the sun sets. This I feel should be the norm up here in the nordic lats, when the sun starts setting at 3pm. Be outdoors during the day, work later during the afternoon.

sublinear 4y ago

I stay up late about as often as I wake up early. I think this is far more common than being an "early bird" or a "night owl". Working from home has taken away most of the pressure of an 8 hour schedule. What's actually important is just getting things done by a due date and being available for meetings. I very strongly prefer it this way. Results and hours are very loosely correlated. There are times where my mind is so fresh I can do more than a day of work in just a few hours. There are other times where I am so mentally foggy I must work 10 hours straight only to still be behind. In both cases I am just as engaged with my work. Neither should be the expectation. It all evens out by the deadline, as it should.

mustafabisic1 4y ago

It seems this article pushes for more asynchronous communication and it seems to be the healthiest way. Something todoist's CEO has been pushing for a long time (no affiliation other than I like his work) - https://twitter.com/amix3k https://twitter.com/amix3k It does have a potential to be a night-mare for the middle managers tho. But I'm betting on human ingenuity to solve that as well. P.S. If you’re a remote-working parent check out my weekly newsletter for remote-working parents https://thursdaydigest.com/ https://thursdaydigest.com/ I know it’s a weird place to find a newsletter exactly for you. The transition is off, but I'm working on putting myself out there more ruthlessly. I guess it’s true what Seinfeld said, like when we can make our own people we just care less lol

therusskiy 4y ago

I remember when I was younger I would often work until 7am because due to startups nature the work includes a lot of communication with founders, and I myself used to live in Russia, while the startups were in San Francisco / Los Angeles. Today, If I stay until 6am the next day I am almost guaranteed to have a headache and be worthless, but working in the evenings is still my prime time. My colleagues often tell me "dude, it's 11pm where you are at, go to sleep", but at this point that's my 2nd nature. Still, many people in the same company manage to work the "normal" 8am-6pm days, so I guess to each their own.

pimpampum 4y ago

There are several chronotypes, not everyone is wired to wake up early in the morning but society is organized that way and hurts those who don't conform. Remoting allows each to better adjust, even if it's just a couple of hours.

BlargMcLarg 4y ago
Not just those people either. The people who can conform tend to get stuck in traffic jams as reward.

AntiRemoteWork 4y ago

elforce002 4y ago

Time is scarce. The blessing of WFH is that you start working with energy since you don't have to wake up 2 or 3 hours early (my case) and start investing your time to prepare yourself for work (both physically and mentally). This is why the "9-5" is a false narrative: the moment you wake up, you're thinking and preparing yourself to go to work. This means that if I commute, the pressure of being on time + the time you take to prepare yourself to go to work becomes part of your work. Same goes when you finish working (detach yourself from work, commuting, etc...). WFH gave us the opportunity to login 1, 2,...5 minutes before work, and logout instantly and be at home or wherever you are, giving us our time back. You can't put a price on that. We're talking 1, 2... good hours of sleep, workouts, etc... And peace of mind when you get out of work (zero commuting stress, more time to be with your family, etc...). The "WFH is killing X thing..." Is straight evil. Simple as that. More free time, productivity goes up because we're rested, quality of life improves, and somehow this is killing whatever? ... The heck with that...(excuse my french). I sincerely hope SWEs, Devs, don't fall for "back to office" narrative and relenquish this newly found benefit in an economy that's moving towards less benefits. We could go out of a limb and arguably say this is one of the best unplanned benefits for workers since working rights.

unity1001 4y ago
> you don't have to wake up 2 or 3 hours early (my case) and start investing your time to prepare yourself for work (both physically and mentally). You forgot having to navigate traffic/subway and the people to get to work. And then settle down at your desk after the daily formalities. The former one causes a lot of cognitive tiredom.
- elforce002 4y ago
  Office space all over, hehe.

Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago

True. Sadly school doesn't cooperate, so I'm back to waking up early. Loved going to bed at 4 am most of my late teen-early twenties. My wife is the same

nisegami 4y ago

I do my best work at 1-5 AM. I work 7 AM to 3 PM. My company is not getting the most they can out of me, but at this point I see that as their problem and not mine.