I’ve been working from home for two weeks now. The first week I’d already planned in advance once the MVP Summit went virtual (so I’d be attending sessions online in the morning and then working the rest of the day). But by that first Wednesday the rest of my office had followed the same pattern. It was a bit sad, as I had a colleague leaving. Usually as an office we’d make a point of going out to lunch and enjoying our last day together, but social distancing had other plans.

I originally set up camp in our ‘middle’ room - which is pretty much where everyone moves through. While it is nice to be in the centre of all the action, it did mean others had to tip-toe around when I was on a conference call. So last weekend I decided maybe I’d be better moving down to our ‘end’ room. The TV and piano are there, but for daytime hours, I can sit down here uninterrupted.

My home desk

It’s quite a pleasant spot. I can look off to the side and see out to our garden and beyond. Last year I had been researching standing desks. I think if I end up working here long term, I might follow that up again.

Last weekend I brought home my 3 monitors + stands from the office. Sadly one of the monitors refused to start up when I got it home. The previous week I’d bought a new Acer 23” monitor, so for now I’ve got that in the middle, with the two remaining AOCs either side. It would have been fun to have 4 monitors. Maybe later.

Remote office not required I saw a tweet by Jason Fried offering to refund the purchase price of his book (co-authored with David Heinemeier Hanson), “Remote: Office Not Required”. I was inspired to purchase a hard copy of it, and while I was there I figured I’d grab “It doesn’t have to be crazy at work”.

I’ve had previous jobs where I worked from home for a day a week. This is the first time I’ve done it for any consecutive period.

The “Remote” book is quite an easy read. Each chapter is divided up into a number of 1-3 page bites. It’s certainly got me thinking about whether this is something I’d want to continue doing even after the current situation.

A point the authors make is it doesn’t have to be “all or nothing”. Working from home Monday to Thursday and heading in to the office on Friday could be an option. Why Friday? Well traditionally that’s our ‘team pizza lunch’ day :-)

The fact that my entire company is working from home potentially makes this more viable, as whether they like it or not, everyone is hopefully now learning now to be effective working from home. I’d like to think that learning will remain long after the pandemic has gone.