The hardest thing for me about working at home is convincing everybody around me (and myself) that I'm "at the office" during the day and am therefore unavailable to do things you'd normally do if you were sitting around the house all day.
So, no, I can't take the car down to the DMV to get the emissions tested at 11. I can't run a bunch of little errands because it's not my day off. I need all 8 of these hours in an unbroken stretch, and if I do it right I won't even find time to stop for lunch. It's tough to communicate that to your partner, especially when she comes home at six to find you in your bathrobe playing Fantastic Contraption (, relaxing after a long productive day, but it probably doesn't look like it.)
Like most things, a lot of it comes down to self-discipline. I tend to start the day at 8am with a cup of coffee and a walk up the stairs to the office. As the author says, there's nothing wrong with a little bit of schedule, so long as you remember to take advantage of the upside of running your own business. If the sun is shining at noon, chances are you'll find me out in the hills with a pair of rock boots and a bouldering mat.
Most of the entries from "The Horrible" section of that remind me of my effort to work from home full time - I only lasted a month before giving up and moving into quite entertainingly bad offices (no heating, above a welding shop) with my co-founder.
I can do all of those things during the day, because I am self-employed. I do what I want, when I want, because I'm self-employed. I go hiking mid-week, run errands when no one else is, etc.
That one can be a fantastic time saver. I like to go food shopping at about 2 in the afternoon - the stores are virtually empty, so it's very quick - so much better than going on a saturday afternoon with a zillion other people.
Sure, honey, of course I can pick the kids up at 3:00. Sure, I can run by Meijer on the way. Sure, I can take our son lunch because he forgot it. Sure, I ... wait a minute. It's Thursday? Didn't I have something due yesterday?
Yeah it's true but it can also be hard to then get the work done you intended. Sometimes I take the day very easy or get distracted, then people around me come home and relax after a days work and I get suckered into relaxing then to.
I can see both sides of this. Everyone arguing that your schedule is flexible has a point...
But I also know what happens when you have a schedule like that: Everyone around you treats you like you have a flexible schedule and asks you to do things during it... And then on their downtime they expect you to join them. In other words, your flexible schedule isn't really flexible because theirs isn't.
If you try to tell them to keep the house quiet so you can work, you get a lecture about how they need to rest after work, as if you don't need to and they didn't take part of your day.
It's the kind of thing that always happens when you aren't on the same schedule as the rest of the world.
...especially if you have kids, and double-especially if they are involved in after-school activities. Sports are particularly bad because coaches don't seem to know how to read a watch.
Especially when she comes home at six to find you in your bathrobe playing Fantastic Contraption
Heh, I prefer to have woken up that 20 minutes earlier so at least I'm dressed. That was I can be really cheeky and pop out for ten minutes at lunchtime to buy a sandwich ;)
What you've written is absolutely true: people just do not get that working from home involves actually working for those hours. I've basically given up with my fiancee/friends/family: at 4pm I get up, and spend 30 minutes doing housework. I then finish my working day between 18:30 and 19:00, and life is good for everyone concerned :)
I've just started working on my own and I feel the same way when people ask me to do things. However, I have found that taking a forced break from problems helps me to come up with better solutions to them.
I think its important to not get too stressed when you have to do something else.
"That’s the the thing about schedules: once you have one everyone else needs to, too, preferably as close to yours as possible."
Quick schedule hack: run your schedule a half hour earlier than everyone else's. Show up for lunch at 11:30 instead of 12. Get to the restaurant at 5:30 instead of 6. View an earlier movie. Get to work a little early.
You'll always get preferred seating, preferred parking, and you'll never wait for a meal again :). You may beat traffic in some locales, but I've yet to benefit just from a 30 minute shift.
Sounds like a good hack (as long as you like to wake up early)
A bit off-topic, but... you dine at 5:30 or 6 p.m.? Over here (Uruguay) the earliest people dine is 7:30 p.m., and sometime between 8 and 10 p.m. is the usual.
You probably won't find many restaurants open for dinner at that time!
I've seen that in other countries, Austria for example, people have dinner much earlier, but it also gets dark earlier in winter. Sounds healthier as well. Do you keep coding after dinner?
It's hard to pinpoint an average eating time for Americans, but restaurants start to get crowded around 6:00. If I'm not eating out, my dinner is typically much later, since I run after work and before dinner.
"Do you keep coding after dinner?"
Yes; I work on personal projects at night. But I take a long dinner break for cooking, cleanup, watching some TV with my girlfriend, and any other needed relaxation. I usually "work" for another 2 hours in the PM.
Once went out with some people in Austria, and we stopped for what my wife and I thought would be an afternoon snack at 16:30. They ordered dinner, though!
Speaking of "leveling up" (and EpicWin, from what I can see, is clearly mankind's greatest invention):
The new AppointmentReminder site is extremely solid.
Can I invest?
By the way: Get the office.
I'm working from home this week too, because it's the first week of middle school for the boy and so the first time he takes the bus.
Since the beginning of the year, on a typical week, I actually full-time on product for Matasano, which always feels less productive than being billable --- nothing is more "productive-feeling" than being billable. But this week is different. I'm doing a web pentest for a friend's company, because, well, I like the company. So I'm actually unusually productive this week.
But because I'm home, it does not feel that way at all. I feel totally unproductive and lost, despite clear daily evidence to the contrary. It's because I'm not going to the office to boot up my work day.
At 2 in the afternoon yesterday, I hopped in my car and drove 2 hours to the beach. I sat in the sun and gazed out at the ocean while the kids played in the sand. We took a long walk along the beach, did a little window shopping in the local town, then went out to dinner. We watched the sun set behind the perma-cloud spanning the horizon, then drove back home.
The worst thing about being self-employed is that I don't do that sort of thing more often. I feel much more pressure to constantly work - even if I'm not being productive. I used to think the hardest thing would be self-motivation, but really I've found the hardest thing is forcing yourself to stop working and take a needed break. (Oh, that and taxes. I hate doing taxes)
I have stopped taking the issue of 'working from home' so seriously. In fact, I find it liberating to have an infinitely flexible schedule. In fact, not having to commute and not having a strict schedule was one of the primary motivations of doing a startup. As long as you are making more sales than what you were originally earning and the sales keep growing, why bother about fixed schedules? I'd love to see some hard research on productivity effects of fixed v/s flexible schedules.
Like most people, I have lived an entire lifetime conforming to schedules. They exist like the Greek gods: you didn’t ask for them but they are there, there is no negotiating with them, and prolonged association means you are likely to get your dignity violated by a bovine.
Once again Patrick nails it, with his usual flair.
Yeah, it's great setting your own schedule, but it can be brutal too. No one yells at you if you're screwing off, you've got to be your own taskmaster and slavedriver, which isn't always a healthy relationship with yourself.
Me, in order to stay productive, I needed to start tracking my time and having daily objectives in order to get anything done. I wrote up something about this if anyone is interested - "The Evolution of My Time/Habit/Life Tracking" - http://www.sebastianmarshall.com/?p=127
It isn't supposed to. It's merely more flexibility. I agree that more flexible hours and the ability to get things done with fewer of them would be a fine thing, but complaining that you only get one is like griping that "Here's a new car" doesn't mean "Here's a new car and a private jet."
Since giving up my previous work as a small business manager/co-owner, I've struggled greatly with this. I go through periods of great productivity, but especially while traveling, it's easy to do nothing for days.
So, what is your immigration status? I'm pretty sure I couldn't stay in the US, pursuing the kind of business you have, without obtaining a green card by some other means first.
Engineering status of residence at present, gained with support of old day job. Japan is fairly understanding about renewals for this: still engineer, pays taxes, demonstrable means of support = auto renewal on application.
There's absolutely no way I could do this without getting an office though. Well, an office isn't essential, but somewhere other than my home office is. There's just no way I can get myself into the right mindset to work at home on a consistent basis.
At least some of the week I find needs to be spent working from somewhere other than a home office, or bedroom in my case at the moment. I find to if you can go somewhere where people are working hard around you it is a motivator to stay on track.
So, no, I can't take the car down to the DMV to get the emissions tested at 11. I can't run a bunch of little errands because it's not my day off. I need all 8 of these hours in an unbroken stretch, and if I do it right I won't even find time to stop for lunch. It's tough to communicate that to your partner, especially when she comes home at six to find you in your bathrobe playing Fantastic Contraption (, relaxing after a long productive day, but it probably doesn't look like it.)
Like most things, a lot of it comes down to self-discipline. I tend to start the day at 8am with a cup of coffee and a walk up the stairs to the office. As the author says, there's nothing wrong with a little bit of schedule, so long as you remember to take advantage of the upside of running your own business. If the sun is shining at noon, chances are you'll find me out in the hills with a pair of rock boots and a bouldering mat.