9 tips for successful telecommuting
Two weeks ago this past Wednesday, I gave notice to my former employer that I had accepted a job from a local company as a Software Engineer. It was a hard decision to make; just over eighteen months ago I had written about getting the job which basically amounted to a “dream job” situation. I was working with Rails, doing cool stuff with weather and mapping.
The only catch was that it would be 100% telecommuting.
After eighteen months, I pretty much had it firmed up in my mind that telecommuting, and the lifestyle associated with it, wasn’t for me. Before accepting the job, I had done a ton of research into what it would take. Telecommuting isn’t for everybody, and when I would tell people that I telecommute, the usual response was something along the lines of, “Wow, that must be nice!”
It was nice, but the drawbacks didn’t really become apparent after the third month.
If you’re considering telecommuting, there are a lot of things to take into account, especially if it’s going to be 100% of the time.
Keep work and personal space separate.
This is probably the most important item here. Dedicate a room to your home office. Don’t share it with existing space if you can. Keep work and personal space separate. Resist the urge to be in the office space “after hours” if you’re doing casual web browsing, email-checking or whatever.
You never really leave work.
It’s too easy to walk into your home office after-hours and work. Bored? You can sit down and work.
You never really leave home.
The flip side of this is that you’re always around the house. Bored working? It’s almost too easy to go play some Guitar Hero or fire up the Wii. You’ll have to be immensely disciplined to get work done.
Don’t become a hermit.
Socialize. You’re around the house more, which means you don’t have a lot of people around to talk to. Not long after I started telecommuting, I noticed a shift in my personality. I’m already an introvert, but being isolated from people seemed to make it worse. I generally felt more awkward around people, and it was harder to socialize and relate to people in general.
Be aware of time shifts.
Because the home office was in Denver, I generally got started one hour later than if I were working locally. This also meant that I worked an hour later as well. Sometimes this would throw off things like eating dinner or going to bed. This can obviously affect your family, so make sure they understand why you’re getting up late and staying up late if this happens.
Get a separate phone line, and use it.
If your home phone line (or cell phone) becomes your lifeline to the office, it’s even more important that your coworkers understand this setup. They shouldn’t be calling you at home on Saturdays.
One of my bigger challenges with telecommuting (especially as a software engineer) was that much of my communication with my coworkers and colleagues was over email or IM. Looking back, I wish I had a separate, dedicated work line, and that I used it more. It’s much, much easier to communicate complex thoughts and ideas over the phone, compared to email or chat. Don’t be afraid to fire up the phone.
Get a headset for your phone.
We would have weekly engineering meetings, and status meetings with our client quite often. Having a headset that I could plug into the phone was very useful, mostly because it kept my hands free for typing on the computer.
Make your employer pay your bills.
Ideally, your employer should be paying your landline or cellphone bills. They should even be paying your cable or DSL bills. After all, they are saving quite a bit of money by not having to maintain physical office space an other facilities for you. I made the mistake of not getting my phone and ISP bills expensed, and wished I had gotten it taken care of from the start.
Investigate the tax benefits of a home office.
If you have a room dedicated to office space, I believe you can write off a percentage of your taxes based on what percentage of the house is being used. I’m not a tax expert, but I highly recommend looking into writing off what you can.