How To Not Suck at Working From Home
WFH is here to stay for a lot of us. Whether we wanted it or not. At best, the freedom to work from home can offer you more time with your family and friends, the ability to travel and increase your productivity. At worst it can leave you feeling alone, depressed and overworked.
Of course many tech companies paint WFH as a benefit: office space ain’t cheap and neither is wifi 😉. All those free fizzy waters and ping pong tables add up amigo.Work from home they say! Yeah, but what if you don’t really know how?
As a software engineer, I’ve worked from home and in office for the last few years, usually splitting my time nearly in half between both. My first experience with WFH was the opposite of good. I was on a distributed team with co-workers on the east coast and Colombia while I was in California. Making a 90 minute trek to the office to speak to my co-workers on video calls didn’t make a lot of sense. Thus began my descent into WFH mediocrity.
So why did I fail?
Well, I just did my work. Things weren’t really much different for me whether I was at home or in the office. I was heads down into my code and getting things done. I took lunch around the same time each day and had time to take my son to school which I liked. But I didn’t feel connected, engaged or as if I was making an impact at work.
Work is performance art when you’re in the office; You show up early. People notice. Sally is here everyday at 8am. That is admirable. Or look at Tim, always helping a co-worker to find a solution. He’s showing real leadership skills. Then there’s Chad who’s been burning the midnight oil and leaving the office at 8pm the last couple nights to get that big presentation ready. Now that shows grit!
At home, no one really knows when you are working or helping solve issues or driving projects forward. Sure, they may see your work being completed in a timely manner. They know you seem to be online when they need you, but without strong verbal communication, it can be easy to treat WFH like WFO. Don’t do that.
Communicate, communicate, communicate
So you should communicate. In fact, over-communicate. It can feel odd at first, especially if you don’t have a very…
