How Remote Work Can Help You Grow Personally and Professionally
Find out how remote work can help you develop your best self. Learn how to stay productive and motivated while working remotely.
Being a software developer, remote work has been an attractive perk in my career decisions. It gives you the chance to work from different places, maybe different countries, helping you to better exploit your time.
Pause. This sounds amazing, I know. But I’d like to reflect a second on the real matter: how is this going change my work quality?
I never thought about it before the COVID-19, because I never spent more than a month constantly working from home. Even if during the time spent working at Codeworks I learned some techniques to be an efficient remote worker (which they’re now utilizing themselves, as all their boot camps are remote during Covid-19), I never faced a so long period of remote work. And it brought out some interesting lessons which help me to move on as a professional developer, to realize what really matters while working.
What’s your space?
On the table of your kitchen or under the sun on your terrace, this is the most personal aspect. Everyone has a different posture preference, light condition, and environmental sounds which increase (or reduce) the focus while working, and it is our duty to experiment and find the right spot.
For me, the perfect place results to be my kitchen, because there is a combination of natural light and natural sounds which make me feel focused on my tasks.
Find a good time
Last week, I was challenged with a refactor involving performance-sensitive operations at my current job. It was difficult, and I spent the first half of the week struggling with it with poor results.
Also last week, I spent awake the night waiting for news from the hospital while my sister was giving birth to her son, and I found working a couple of hours could have helped me stay awake.
Absurdly, maybe because of the late hours or the I’ll take it easy mood, all the missing pieces of the puzzle to solve that problem started to come out, similar to magical hints provided by the night. I felt gratified by the final solution, but what mostly gave me a useful inside was to realize how the right condition, at the right time, can give a concentration I’ve never had in days.
Take care of your body
Staying home with no chance to take a walk and stretch your legs could be challenging. It’s well known the fact that doing physical activities help to activate the brain and be more productive, with a lot of other benefits. But with the restrictions imposed by the governments to not leave your safe house, keeping a healthy routine became challenging.
Luckily, the web has plenty of free tutorials and courses to practice at home, with no need for any type of equipment.
I found it useful to establish a short routine in the morning, something not aimed to improve my physical strength as spending a good hour at the gym, but at least useful to remember my body to stay active. Mine is pretty short, but it’s really personal and everyone should find one that matches their own habits.
Drink and sleep more
This seems more like the typical recommendation by your parents, something that at an early age we use to ignore. And I can’t negate I spent my university years sleeping 6 hours a night or taking less care of myself than I should have.
Now I changed it. Adapting my routines to the free time I earned by working at home, I started sleeping at least 8 hours every night and drinking over 1.5L of water each day.
The result is unbelievable. I’ve never felt so energetic. My attention working on complex problems increased, I’m less stressed and, consequently, my productivity jumped to a higher level, giving me the chance to study more and better.
Wrapping up
If you are as lucky as me to have the chance to work from home and keep your job, you can always help other people who have a worse situation. Spend 5 minutes a day reading about people looking for a job after becoming unemployed because of the Covid-19, time spent helping others is always worth it.
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