I’ve been a remote worker for the last 15 years of my career, and I’ve often bragged about how efficient it was to work from home. I could do all sorts of household chores, as well as manage my business needs. Didn’t need to spend three hours commuting round trip each day, and was always available as needed. It’s a great time to work remote, and my company has a good culture for us.
Unfortunately, working from home also led to two major issues for me: distractions during the day, and the never ending day. Distractions were subtle; sometimes it was easier to just zone out rather than dealing with the mountain of paperwork and conference calls awaiting me. The never ending day often resulted from those distractions; because my work is at my house, it was easy just to put off family time and just keep working.
I’m trying something radical; I’ve started coworking. I didn’t want to drive three hours to the corporate office, so I’ve found a space that was 20 minutes from my house. I rent a table, have faster internet, and I pack in and out each day. It gives me the opportunity to be around people (so I feel guilty hauling a TV screen in) as well as a definitive end to my day.
It’s been an interesting experiment so far; listening to other people’s conference calls and meetings has been the biggest change\challenge, but in general, I’m getting used to it. I’ll talk more about my gear in a future post, but for the most part, I’ve minimized my work footprint.
