Transitioning to fully remote

After spending the last 6-7 years in an open-spaced office, I’ve decided to go fully remote with Herodesk.io . In this post, I’ll share my experiences from the first 8-9 months of working like this.

For starters, “fully remote” doesn’t mean “work from home” or “sometimes in the office”. It means “work from anywhere, never at the office”.

Not everyone thrives working remotely. Many prefer the chitchat at the coffee machine, the daily social interactions with their colleagues, etc… And that’s fine. But for others, it works just fine.

I’ve learned that I’m one of those people.

These are my learnings from the past 8-9 months, working remotely and alone on my new startup:

• The focus hours are awesome! I have 6-8 hours of uninterrupted focus time every day. I’ve never been as productive as I am today. I can plan my day to fit my exact schedule and make sure things get done. If I need to run some personal errands during the day, it’s no problem. If I’m not “feeling up to it”, I can take a nap (this is so underestimated!) or a walk and come back with renewed energy and focus. It is absolutely amazing.
• Be careful not to isolate yourself completely. It’s easy to “let the days go by” and not see or talk to anyone for a whole week. I have no problem going a day or two in full focus mode without talking to anyone during the day (obviously, my wife comes home in the afternoon, so I talk to her), but put in an effort to still socialize and see people. I try to get out at least once per week. SaaS/Entrepreneur meetup, network groups, padel tennis, whatever. Just something where I meet some other people and do something different than sitting in the office.
• No time wasted commuting is awesome. I hate wasting time. Especially commuting.
• Have a dedicated workspace. Don’t sit on the couch or at your dining table. Create a dedicated workspace. I have a whole room designed as my home office, which is dedicated to nothing but working. It’s designed for that purpose: good chair, big screen, lots of light, etc… I recommend anyone working from home (especially if it’s full time) do the same. This also helps prevent work and off-time from blending together too much.
• Find a rhythm. I’ve found it super useful to have a rhythm, just like if I were in an office. Monday through Friday, I get up at 5 a.m. I love the early hours and get so much done (including writing a post like this) until ~6.30 a.m. when my wife gets up. Usually, I hit our home gym for 45 minutes, shower, get some breakfast, and then get back to the computer at ~8 a.m. I work through the day and close the laptop at 4.30 pm. I don’t open it again until the next morning unless something breaks.

I initially had an idea that I wanted to work from different places some of the time. I have lots of friends in the city with offices where I can borrow a desk from time to time just to “see something different”. But so far, I just gotta admit that I really like the focus time I have from my home office. Maybe, if the number of meetups, etc., slows down, I’ll start taking a day once in a while at different places. It’s a good way to “shuffle things up” a bit.

Things will definitely change when Herodesk starts having employees, and I’m no longer a one-man army. There will need to be company-wide rhythms, tools to support our work, and three to four annual (mandatory, physical, and in-person) meetups. I’ll share my thoughts and learnings on that when we get there (I'm really looking forward to that, btw.).

8-9 months of working fully remotely has so far only confirmed me that I’m not going back to the office any time soon.

What an eye-opener!