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Remote, but not Alone
Jonathan Marbutt • Mar 13, 2020
Working from home can be lonely, but you are not alone.
Over the past almost twenty years, I have worked remotely from home for WayCool Software, building CoolFocus and helping so many ministries. We have created a fantastic team that has accomplished many great things despite the obstacles that come from this type of work environment. While you may not have the opportunity to work remotely in your job, there may come some rare times or situations that you will have to work away from your desk or typical work environment. I wanted to take some time to share some of the experiences we have had over the past two decades of building CoolFocus. Whether you have been working at home for years or are just getting started in a remote job, I hope this gives you some guidance and encouragement and acts as a reminder that you are not alone.
Challenge #1 - Balance
In any remote team, it is easy to feel the isolation of being home without human contact. Over the time of working for WayCool, I went through several significant chapters of my life, including being single, getting engaged, married, having a child, dealing with childhood cancer, and everything in-between.
I often tell people the biggest challenge of working from home is the balance of working too much or not working enough. It is easy to feel the guilt on both sides. For me there several things I do to keep these things in balance, these include:
- Taking my daughter to school with my wife.
- Taking lunch dates with my wife (even if it is just a sandwich at home).
- Having a dedicated room for my office (with a door).
- Set times to work.
Challenge #2 - Focus
One of the biggest challenges that comes from working at home can be the desire to do things at the wrong time. It is easy to put off things like laundry when you have a deadline or put off calling a customer when you see your neighbor outside.
Throughout the years of working from home, I think this is one of my biggest personal struggles (for those who know about the Enneagram, I am a type 9, so of course this is my struggle). So I do some things to solve this including:
- Sit down and work uninterrupted for 30 minutes. One prevalent method is the Pomodoro technique, and many apps can help you with that.
- Virtual Commute - It takes time to get "in the zone" for work. For people working in an office, this is just driving to your office, but when your commute is walking into your office, sometimes you need more. Some ideas for virtual commute include:
- Walk around the block.
- Get ready like going into an office.
- Have a morning & an end of day routine.
- Write to-do lists - sometimes, having something written down helps. Some of our team has found that putting their to-do's in "time slots" to get done is very helpful when it comes to focusing and getting things done. For example Ashleigh (WayCool Customer Experience Specialist) likes to start her workday writing down everything she needs to focus on that day. She then breaks down what she will work on during what times like, from 9:00 to 12:00 she will work on marketing material for conferences, then 12:00 to 1:00 she will work on social media content, and so on.
Challenge #3 - Solving Issues
When you work in an office environment, you have people around you that you can collaborate with, but at home, sometimes you don't have anyone to bounce ideas off. So here are some ideas on how we solve this:
- Use tools like Slack, Google Hangouts, Telegram, or other chat programs to chat with your team. We use Slack heavily at WayCool, and we are always talking about everything.
- Talk to friends, associates, and others outside your organization. There are times you need to bounce ideas off of someone who has no idea about the actual thing you are trying to solve.
- When all else fails, and you have no one to talk to, rubber duck it! A common thing in Software Development where you explain your problems out loud to a rubber duck. By discussing this verbally, it eventually solves the problem.
Your Are Not Alone
While this is just three problems we have solved over the years, we find that having a great team and a supportive family will give you the strength to get through the hard days. I feel entirely blessed to have a fantastic team that loves the ministries and non-profits that we support. I hope this blog post gives you a little insight into how I work and hope it helps you in times you find yourself working remotely.
