Remote working is great till it isn't, but I love it!

hello@mikebell.io (Mike Bell) — Wed, 23 Mar 2016 13:33:32 +0000

Just over three months and I figure it’s time to check in. What can I say I love remote working it suites me very well. I’ve gone form a noisy office full of distractions to a focused purpose built development environment.

That’s not to say their aren’t issues though.

Remote working is great till it isn’t.

It can be quite lonely, I’m trying to make sure I have a daily hangout with at least one person a day. Sometimes it’s about work sometimes it’s not.

Cabin fever exists! It really does. I can spend around 4-5 days working in the house before I go a bit loopy and need human interaction again. I usually head in to Manchester and work from a coffee shop for a bit.

Debugging difficult problems is a pain, I’m currently looking into a solution for that though. I do miss being able to turn round and have a load of developers there in front of me.

BUT it’d be hard for me to go back.

Traveling is awesome. I’ve been to London a fair amount and even Birmingham, sure the journeys are long but it’s nice to see different parts of the UK and I find traveling allows my head to unwind a bit.

I no longer clock watch. I’m not working 9 to 5 anymore. I can sit down and work on a problem and just get it done. It really helps that I don’t have to timesheet anything, it’s so liberating to feel like you don’t have to account for every single minute of a day. No more longing 10 minutes to a task because I made a cup of tea!

I control the day. I can pick and choose what I do as long as the project gets done. I built a dashboard for a client, they didn’t ask for it but it saves us all time in getting the data they need quickly.

It’s my desk. Sure it’s uncomfortable (why would you have a wooden shelf at shin level????) but it’s mine, it’s configured how I want it with my equipment. It’s not the tidiest desk, I’m not known for having a tidy desk. So far no ones complained about my keyboard either which is great.

I’ve stopped feeling guilty about taking a break. It sounds silly but just sitting their and your machine expecting a tough problem to fix itself is just stupid, I just get up and wander around a bit, make a drink and head back with a fresher head.

Hopefully I’ll blog some more about remote working as it’s something everyone should experience at least once.

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Remote Working on Mike Bell - Blog & Stuff

Remote working is great till it isn't, but I love it!