I've worked from home on a few gigs and largely agree with this article.
A couple things I would and/or modify are:
- Merge "HAVE A DEDICATED OFFICE" with "CLOSE THE DOORS TO THE ROOMS YOU'RE NOT USING". Once you are done with the workday, "close the door" to your work area just as you would by leaving an on-site office at the end of the day.
- "WEAR WORK CLOTHES" might be better described as "maintain the same morning routine you would have if going into an office." IMHO, "wearing work clothes" is much less important than the benefit of getting into the mindset of "going to work."
+ Take the same lunch break you would if at an office.
+ If you need to do an errand, let your coworkers know just as if you were in an office. Prefer to schedule it if possible.
+ Establish contact protocols as you would if on-site. For example, just because you might leave your laptop running should not imply 24x7 accessibility. If you need to be available (such as for production support), it should be no different than if you went into the office each day.
+ Keep a record of your start time, "leaving" for lunch, PTO (such as for errands), and "when you leave." This can be as simple as written notes or by way of a corporate time accounting system. I recommend keeping your own hand-written logs in addition to the latter.
+ Record work performed outside of the normal office hours as you would if called into the office.
I did a brief stint as fully remote (~3 months) so I never got fully into it, but these are all fantastic points, many of which I did to great effect.
One additional routine I found most helpful was to have a "going to the office" routine. After my normal at-home morning routine, I would leave the house and go to a nearby coffee shop for some coffee, then return home to work. That was my "commute". Before it I was at home, after it I was working. When I was done working for the day, I'd leave the house, take a short walk, and go back home. It really sounds silly, but having those "commutes" really helped separate work time from home time, even if they were in the same space. It helped that it was over the summer so the weather was beautiful.
A couple things I would and/or modify are:
- Merge "HAVE A DEDICATED OFFICE" with "CLOSE THE DOORS TO THE ROOMS YOU'RE NOT USING". Once you are done with the workday, "close the door" to your work area just as you would by leaving an on-site office at the end of the day.
- "WEAR WORK CLOTHES" might be better described as "maintain the same morning routine you would have if going into an office." IMHO, "wearing work clothes" is much less important than the benefit of getting into the mindset of "going to work."
+ Take the same lunch break you would if at an office.
+ If you need to do an errand, let your coworkers know just as if you were in an office. Prefer to schedule it if possible.
+ Establish contact protocols as you would if on-site. For example, just because you might leave your laptop running should not imply 24x7 accessibility. If you need to be available (such as for production support), it should be no different than if you went into the office each day.
+ Keep a record of your start time, "leaving" for lunch, PTO (such as for errands), and "when you leave." This can be as simple as written notes or by way of a corporate time accounting system. I recommend keeping your own hand-written logs in addition to the latter.
+ Record work performed outside of the normal office hours as you would if called into the office.