with Robyn Larson #teamRemote
Note: Speakers have been paraphrased
So many of us spend hours a day commuting to our jobs. The reason we work from 9 - 5 came from decades old labour laws that are no longer particularly relevant.
Why do we work 9 to 5?
Hacking our productivity and achieving the integrated state. Ideal Year - given the choice, how would you spend your hours, weeks and days of the year to spend your time the way you want. Flow - how do we reach flow and can we style our time in a way that allows us to reach flow on a daily basis.
Hack your daily routine
- Robin's schedule: -- 6am wakeup and coffee/eggs -- 6:30 - 11am coding -- 11 - 1pm gym, shower, lunch, nap -- 1 - 4pm coding & meetings
Review the Maker's Schedule
Integrating the remote life - redefining the way you work and play
- remote working might not work for you
- about 25% of all US companies have some sort of remote working policy
- it's often an experiment for you and your employer to find what works for everyone
- one of the times to introduce remote working might be when you are negotiating a new contract
- maybe start with one day a week, this is often a good starting point
- sometimes you might be the first person to remote work: managers worry about how to know what you are doing
- initially, you really need to communicate, over communicate, more than you ever communicated before - this let's everyone know you are there and doing the work you need to do
Case Study - started this at TWG
- started at 1 day per week for 1 person over 3 months
- then 2 days per month for all employees for 6 months
- current: now 1 day per week for everyone and 8 fully remote employees - got to this point after 18 months of experimenting with remote working
- challenges now include, how to you bring up people in a leadership position when they are remote
Case Study - Phuse
- 13 full time employees
- 30 hour work week
- 3 continents
Use Slack for EVERYTHING. They use it out in the open. Use Gel(?) and Trello to set schedules, tasks and plans for the day and these are integrated in Slack on a private project Slack channel.
Being a part of something larger. Employees who feel this attachment are more likely to succeed at remote working.
The virtual water cooler. How do you create those random office interactions that foster team relationships. Slack is great for this particularly as it provides a way for introverts to shine in a way that they might not in a face to face setting.
Weekly team hangouts - one hour a week, video chat is on for everyone and no one talks about projects! Instead they share about their lives, tell stories, etc.
"rationing the amount of in person meetings can actually elevate them to a little treat" - Note: find this exact quote, think it was from Basecamp
Need to do things like annual retreats.
Discipline and personal commitment
- you really need to be careful to not get caught up in things that need to be done around the house, ie. getting up to do the laundry or dishes
- must force yourself to create a workspace/time that is dedicated to work!
- this is the thing employers are most concerned about, that employees will be doing other things
- setting boundaries: are your kids or partner at home? You must have a way to create rules to keep these out. Dedicated work spaces where the family know they can't bother you.
- In Code Mode - sign by Jessica Hisch
Non-disclipline - what about the days when you just don't feel like working?
- talk the time off!
- this is a super hard concept for many employers to be ok with
- taking the time away you need to recover/set your mind
- when you come back, you are often 10x as productive and will more than make up the time lost
Slack Gmail Zeplin - integrates with Sketch Github Bitbucket Gel - for daily standups Trello - for project management Donut - schedules meetings with random team members to encourage a sesnse of community in remote firms Screenhero - pair programming over screen share - they were bought by Slack, presumably for integration into Slack Harvest - for time tracking Invision - for prototyping Dropbox Google Drive Forecast - forecasting tool that integrates into Harvest
30 hour week is an acknowledgement that no one is actually going to do 40 hours of work in a week. At Phuse they do this on a reduced salary, so they make 75% of a typical salary.
How do you balance the desire to get into flow in a designated work period with the need to over communicate?
- acknowledge that certain blocks, ie, the afternoon are not going to be times that flow is possible and go all in on the communication then
- try and protect time blocks, by setting meetings and things in a designated block