How to work from home - revisited
Revisiting
Back in March last year, I wrote about how I was keeping sane while working from home. From then to now, a lot of things have changed. New house, new job, new habits. Not all has changed though. COVID is, and will be for some time, a reality. And with it, work-from-home is here to stay. While some people hate working from home, I for another hand, find it to be something very close to "the future of work". Whatever that is.
Setup
On a previous post, I talked about the importance of having a home setup. And argued that you should aim to have a better one than in your office. Some of these devices might seem like some stupidly expensive objects. But saving in your home setup will cost you a lot of money (and health) in the long term. Save a lot of money by not buying a chair - and complain about your back after working for 2 weeks on it. I value my health - so I invest in it.
I've upgraded to a larger curved monitor with a VISMA mount. In combination with a monitor arm really wins me back a lot of desk real estate. I do live in Denmark, where it gets dark especially early (~3/4 pm). So I decided to get this great monitor light bar - which I have been really enjoying for the past couple of weeks.
I am completely sold on Keychron - I've been trying to upgrade to the K3, but it seems impossible to buy one right now. The mouse, is still the mighty MX Master 3 - which is ridiculously expensive, but such a joy to use.
Habits
I'm still trying to keep good habits while working - especially now that my default mode is working from home. I still run everyday, always get dressed before starting to work. I still try to read the news in the morning using my RSS reader.
I started to develop a taste for coffee other then Nescafe. I know - I'm turning a bit posh. I now order Portuguese or Italian coffee (Bobino still thinks the latter is better - I disagree). Every morning I grind it, and get the moka going.
When working, now more then ever, I default to turning off all my notifications. Except for a couple of contacts in my favorites. We already receive too many notifications. Apps, emails, slack, calendar - it's just too much. I decided that I don't need any of them - and that they only distract me from getting something done.
Apps and Music
When working I rely on a set of highly programmable, albeit archaic tools - but that's a post for another time. When I'm not working with code, I use a core set of applications that help me get work done. Instead of standing in my way when I'm trying to. This includes an app that shows my next meeting in my menu bar instead of sending me annoying reminders. An app that uses OCR to copy text from any screenshot I take, and an app to keep things clean.
Even though the amount of meetings I am involved in has been steadily increasing - I still shamelessly block my calendar for long periods of time. I reserve this time to do focused work. If you don't claim your time, nobody else will claim it for you. So block that slot.
For those enjoyable moments of focused work, I normally listen to some podcasts or music. For Podcasts, I highly recommend the Changelog network, for those of you in tech. For music, I'm still a big fan of those long mixes, that are actually curated by professionals, and not some AI (looking at you Spotify). Joe Kay, Sasha Marie and Complexion are some of the biggest "sponsors" of my work.