WFH

I don’t care what anyone else says, working from home has been an absolute Godsend to me. My life has transformed in ways that wouldn’t have been possible if I wasn’t working from home.

Time Back

One of my pet peeves is when I’m on a work conference call and the meeting draws to an end before the end of the allotted time, and the organiser says ‘OK, if no-one has anything else we’ll finish the meeting early and I’ll give you all five minutes back,’ like they are God or something. Like they don’t recognise the 55 minutes we’ve all just wasted on this meeting and will never get back.

But wfh has truly given me time back, and not just a measly five minutes here and there. My round-trip commute was in the region of 1.5 to 2 hours per day. I didn’t really thing too much about it for the many years I had been commuting. But now it seems ludicrous to spend upwards of 10% of your waking hours just getting to and from work. That time is now mine to do with as I wish. Would I ever have been able to establish my morning routine whilst having to commute? Since I never did manage to establish a morning routine whilst having to commute, the evidence suggests ‘no’. Sometimes I would force myself to go for a walk or to the gym before heading off to work, but I never found it sustainable.

Introverts

I’m an introvert. I don’t like too many people around me for extended periods of time. I certainly don’t like being in a massive open plan office full of people for 40+ hours a week. I can only handle so much social interaction and forty hours per week takes me so far beyond my threshold it’s not funny. Since wfh, I’ve come to realise I didn’t dread work, I dreaded being around people for such long periods. I would feel trapped.

Sometimes I would have the feeling that I didn’t really fit in the world, but the reality is I didn’t fit in that contrived world. Give me peace, calm, tranquillity and nature and I really fit in just fine.

Now I get to pick and choose my social interactions. I can’t tell you how wonderful it feels. And because I’m no longer exhausted by constantly being around people, I actually enjoy the time I do spend with others so much more. I’m more engaged, more vibrant, more energised.

Being constantly in a social environment is debilitating to an introvert. It’s my Kryptonite.

Self-Medication

For decades I drank alcohol every Friday and Saturday evening. Oh I might have the occasional week off or even a month, but by and large I drank on the weekend. I now think this was my way of dealing with the fatigue that came with too much social engagement from the previous week, and trying to block out the thoughts and feelings of more of the same the next week. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that I have effortlessly been able to quit drinking since wfh.

Headspace

The combination of more time, and less stress has enabled me to open up my headspace. Most people who work long hours and commute do not have the opportunity to stop and think or to smell the roses. We are in such a state of frenzied depression that we cannot switch to a state of calmness or contemplation. Add to that the strictures of the office environment and is it any wonder that people struggle to grow when doing a traditional office job. Strictures that prevent me from spending time alone, or taking a nap, or meditating, or reading, or going for a run. I know some companies provide pods for napping and rooms for meditating, but for me it’s really not the same. In the office there is the sense that you are being watched and monitored.

Productivity

Since wfh no-one really knows if I’m at my desk working or not. If they ping me on Teams and I don’t respond I can just say I was having lunch or went out for a walk. This is accepted. I’m not expected to be tied to my desk. Obviously if I have meetings scheduled, I’m expected to attend the meetings. But beyond that I’m now in a situation where I’m paid for the amount and quality of the work I do. I’m no longer assessed and paid based on the number of hours I sit in a particular location.

When I was working in the office I would often go months without producing any meaningful output. Everything would get kind of blurry so it wasn’t possible to really measure my output. I would spend a lot of time doing small support tasks of minimal value, but which filled the time. I started to feel unable to do the more meaty, meaningful tasks. I found I couldn’t get into the required mental state for deep work. Being paid for the number of hours I worked encouraged me (or at least allowed me) to maintain minimum standards, just high enough so that it didn’t create any problems or cause me to get sacked. I would ‘work hard’, but I wouldn’t necessarily do the right work. I would prioritise shallow work over deep work. Beside it was nearly impossible to do deep work in the noisy office environment with the constant chatter about weekends, holidays, relationships, anime, gaming, sports, the latest Marvel movie etc. I also felt an underlying anxiety in the office that didn’t enable me to fall into a deep work state. I didn’t fully notice the anxiety then, but looking back I notice it now. For me the mental state required for deep work is very personal, almost intimate, and therefore very difficult to achieve with others around me. It would be like sleeping or meditating in the middle of a crowded office.

WFH encourages me to find new ways to be productive, since the better and quicker I complete my work the more time I have for my personal activities. Work no longer feels like work. I’m a software developer and work projects now feel more like interesting, challenging, engaging tasks than work. If I am in the right headspace, I will gladly work over the weekend knowing that this will free up time and space for me in the week.

I am now able to arrange my day in a way that works best for me, both as an individual and as an employee. For instance, I enjoy working in the evenings and on weekends because I can focus better knowing that I have no meetings and that no-one will be contacting me on Teams. Just the knowledge that these interruptions might happen impacts my ability to do deep work. On a personal level, I enjoy writing and feel that I am at my most creative between 9 and 11am. Wfh enables me to satisfy my creative need and produce more and better work than ever before.

Since wfh I am now rewarded for the amount and quality of my work which is so much more motivating than being rewarded for turning up and sticking it out. Each and every day I worked in an office I had one main goal: to get to the end of the day and get the hell out of there.

Now I can do things to help me get into work mode, be that meditating, taking a nap, going for a walk or grabbing a coffee. Don’t get me wrong I am far from perfect and can be prone to distractions when wfh. I enjoy listening to podcasts or watching True Crime documentaries whilst working which must surely impact my focus and concentration. But if I can achieve 2 -3 hours of deep work every day that far exceeds my weekly total when I used to work in the office.

Square pegs, round holes

When you are a square peg trying to fit into a round hole you feel the resistance. Sometimes I would try to force myself into the round hole. And of course, there is some value in taking yourself out of your comfort zone and trying to develop new skills, trying to push yourself. But after thirty years of adulthood I was still not particularly skilled in the art of social interaction.

Another way to fit a square peg into a round hole is to shrink the size of the square peg. Ultimately I feel that’s what I ended up doing.

I feel there is (or at least was) an underlying perception that the round hole is correct, true, real and if you can’t fit into it then the problem is you. I held that perception. I felt that I was weak, wrong, somewhat pathetic. I carried that perception in my work bag each day, along with my water bottle and notepads and sandwiches.

Downsides of working from home

Some work really does benefit from sitting cheek by jowl with your colleagues. Working in software development I find that some of those early analysis meetings work better when sitting in the same room. However, I would say that as people get more adept at remote working the advantage to being on location in these instances gradually diminishes.

Family members are very keen to make use of my greater availability. I am now available to do housework, pop to the shop for groceries or give lifts. How my wife and kids ever got to and from work or school when I worked in the office I’ll never know.

The lack of social interaction can be an issue for some people. Personally, I don’t need much social contact, so the occasional meet up for coffee or beers suffices. Plus I also have my family around me in the evenings and weekends to satisfy that need. As mentioned earlier, I would much rather choose for myself with whom and when I socialise than have it forced upon me.

No weekend buzz. Because I no longer dislike my work, I no longer get the high from reaching the weekend. There is no longer that clear demarcation between the two. As far as downsides go this is really not that great. Essentially I’m saying that since working from home I enjoy my weekends and I enjoy the week.