Why I Like Working Remotely

The post was originally written for the Telegram channel.

A couple of months ago, Ayrat and I had a discussion about the efficiency of working in the office and remotely.

With the beginning of the pandemic, we left offices for home offices and I remember conversations in the office, in mid-March 2020, about how "this remote work is only for a couple of weeks," but for me personally, remote work continues to this day * and I experience almost maximum pleasure from it.

True, as soon as the pandemic subsided a little, many companies decided to return employees to the offices. This happened with my team at Alpha, we went back to a hybrid schedule until the next outbreak (i.e. for about a month) and never went back.

I want to share my thoughts about remote work and why I like it:

1 - Organizing remote work

In case you haven't read the book by Jason Fried and DHH "Remote. An office is not required" (Remote: Office Not Required), then there is a very important idea about the fact that it is impossible to go to remote work if the employer himself does not create conditions for this remote work.

In the first weeks of remote work, I had to connect via RDP to my work iMac, suffer from various lags and enjoy watching slideshows when the office Internet began to slow down and many other inconveniences.

When we set up normal access without RDP, the productivity of our team increased significantly, and during the time we were in lockdown (which was more than a month), we launched several credit products at once and carried out a good refactoring.

2 - Proper organization of working time

At first, many remote developers are faced with the fact that the boundaries of the working day are greatly blurred and it is very difficult to notice that it is time to rest. In the office, it's easier to notice the different stages of the working day: when people start leaving the office in organized groups, it means it's lunch time and the end of the working day.

Remotely, everything can be the same as when you are in a casino - until you deliberately look at the clock, you don't know what time it is and whether it's time to rest/finish work.

For me, the most effective technique for making sure you don't overwork is the Pomodoro Technique.

3 - The right workplace

A workspace and work setup (WFH setup) is probably one of my biggest investments in productivity and efficiency while working remotely. Many companies provide a budget for equipping a home office and I recommend making the most of it: a good desk, chair, ergonomic keyboard and good lighting. Until recently, my workplace looked like this (https://twitter.com/drugoi_dev/status/1509524314520899588) and I don't know a single office in Almaty that would be prepared for the work of such big people as me.

According to my observations, working in an office is a constant struggle with external stimuli: deciding where to go to eat with the team, going for coffee, going for a smoke break, stress from traveling to/from the office, etc.

Yes, the social part of work is very important and this is precisely why a hybrid work mode comes to our aid, when you decide for yourself when you can and should come to the office and when to sit in a cozy home office. The survey that I conducted earlier also confirms that people want to sometimes go to offices, but forcing them to go to the office in 2023 is bad form.