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When you’re telecommuting, self-discipline is key. Think about it. You’re sitting down at your desk to start work on that important project that’s been hanging over you for a while. But first, you’re just going to check email to see if there’s anything urgent that you need to work on. Nothing urgent, but there is an email where it would be best to get a response out sooner than later, so you can get it off your plate and focus on getting started on your project. And while you’re working up a reply to that message, you get a phone call from one of your co-workers who needs to discuss an important aspect of the new code that’s going into the release cycle tomorrow. And after that you look at the time and realize you have a meeting in 20 minutes. No point starting on your project now – better to find some other small tasks to complete and you’ll get started after the meeting.

Does this sound familiar? We’re all capable of procrastinating, especially when we’ve got a big task looming over us. And all those examples I gave apply no matter where you’re working – even if you are in the office.

So what’s different for telecommuters? Well, when you’re in the office, there’s only so many emails, phone calls, and meetings you can hide behind. Eventually you realize you do really need to get to work. But at home there are even more distractions. Hmm – I need a break from my desk. I’m going to get up and throw in a load of laundry – it will be good for me to move around for 5 minutes. And now I notice it, the kitchen is a mess. Let me just wash a few dishes before I get back to work so the place won’t be so messy for dinner tonight. You know, now I’m in the kitchen, I’m feeling hungry. I’m going to pull out a snack – it’s still hours until dinnertime. And while I’m eating, I’m going to read just a couple pages in that great new book I’ve started.

Well if you’re really trying to avoid getting started on that new project, a few pages in that great book can turn into a few chapters! And even if you’re not avoiding your work, if the book is good enough, you may still get sucked in for much more time than you intended. At the corporate office, it’s much harder to sit and read a book for longer than the time it takes you to eat your lunch or your snack. You’re very conscious that people are walking by you – probably eyeballing you and questioning why you’re not working. Even if you have been putting in really long hours lately and deserve to take a nice long break, you’re not going to be so visible about it because you know others don’t know how long you’ve been working lately and you don’t want to be judged.

At home, you are really your own gatekeeper. You have to be self-disciplined and not let the household chores (or the household TV) call to you too loudly. That, of course, is not to say you can’t do anything around the house when you’re working at home. I’m a strong believer that just like in the corporate office when you take breaks to go to the gym, or chit-chat with your buddies, at home you’re allowed to take breaks and do household chores if that’s how you want to spend your time. But you do have to keep an eye on that time yourself. And for some people (myself included) I can be quite disciplined about most activities, but when I’ve got a really good book I do have trouble putting it down when I’m finished with my lunch and I struggle with the eternal “let me just read a couple more pages” battle!

So consider your own levels of self-discipline when you work from home. Use a timer when you take a break to do some chores around the house. And if you have a really good book, maybe you need to leave it safely closed away in the drawer of your nightstand and don’t take it out until the evening, after you work is over!

Technorati Tags: telecommute careers, telecommuting, remote work, telework, work from home, work at home, work from home mom

We all know that telecommuters get less “face time” with their co-workers, but some get none at all. If you’re a full-time telecommuter, perhaps living too far away to commute by car, you may only see your co-workers when you get on a plane and fly out for an on-site meeting. Or if you’re in a company where there are offices in different parts of the country (or even different countries altogether), regardless of how often you come in, you may have close co-workers who you’ve never seen at all.

Sure, you can build a relationship through phone calls and emails. I’ve had plenty of close working relationships with people I had never met in person. Heck, I even had a boss once who I didn’t meet face-to-face for nearly two years! Email is an effective medium for getting basic work done and during phone calls you can normally even fit in opportunities to get to know each other a little. You can find out if your coworker is married, has kids, learn what his or her hobbies are, etc. And this kind of personal knowledge can help you bond in areas of common interest, and can enhance your working relationship. As we get to know each other personally, we have more trust in each other, are more willing to go above and beyond to help the other person out, learn where we can rely on each other, etc.

So I’ve found that I can get to know people quite well and have a great relationship with them, without having any idea of what they look like. But then one day I’ll stumble across a co-worker’s picture on LinkedIn or they’ll send out a picture from a team off-site meeting that they were in, and I’ll do a double-take. “Wow, Bob, that’s not how I pictured you!” To which the response is invariably “Oh? How did you picture me?”

My answer is that I didn’t even realize I was doing it, but somehow I had formed some kind of mental image to fill the gap. For some reason it seems that human nature drives us to try to visually picture this person with whom we’ve suffered through stressful or difficult work experiences, commiserated on disappointments, and shared our successes. I don’t even realize I’m doing it at the time, but somehow I put a vague, imaginary face to the voice. My guess is it’s a confused amalgamation of all the people I’ve known in my life with the same name, voice, and/or personality as my faceless co-worker.

Afterwards, it somehow feels more “right” when I call up Bob for my weekly phone meeting with him, to have a voice to put with the name. I feel almost closer to Bob, and our working relationship becomes that much stronger.

So lately when I work with someone for a while but never have a chance to meet them live, I’ve started looking for opportunities to send them a picture of myself. In fact, I send them the address to my family website which is full of pictures of my kids too (any chance to brag about my children is, of course, taken). I figure if one picture is good, many is better! And they typically reciprocate with at least a picture or two.

Give it a try. You can even try looking for opportunities to send a picture to the folks you find challenging to work with. Perhaps getting them to see you as a real human being with a real face will make them realize that you have your own set of challenges in your job and are just trying to do the best job you can under difficult circumstances like they are. Hey, if a little humanity and familiarity helps make your job easier, why not?!

Technorati Tags: telecommute, remote work, telework, work from home, work at home, work from home mom

If you already read Parts I and II of my “Home-buying for the Telecommuter” series, you’ve learned already about 2 factors that the average telecommuter must consider when house-hunting that non-telecommuters may not need to concern themselves with.

Read on now to learn about the final factor that is probably the last thing you’d expect me to tell telecommuters to be concerned about!

Location:

Every home buyer (or home seeker) has heard the real estate mantra “Location, location, location!” Getting a home in just the right location can be one of the biggest challenges when buying your house. In Part I of this series I mentioned, however, that the exclusive telecommuter may not be concerned about location – sometimes living hundreds of miles away from his or her company office. And even for people who still have to go in once in a while, a long commute once or twice a week is a whole different consideration than a long commute every day. Obviously if you only telecommute occasionally then you still need to live driving-distance from work. But chances are, the more often you telecommute, the easier it will be to tolerate a long distance to the company office.

However, no matter what your current telecommuting status, one thing you must remember is that the only constants in life, as they say, are death and taxes. I’ve never heard telecommuting added to that list.

• Even if you work for a company that is very pro-telecommuting, you never know when the rules might change for you. I’ve seen even very large companies that are known for excellent telecommuting policies suddenly switch gears and call all their telecommuters back into the office. I’ve seen policies so strict that people who were unwilling to move could no longer keep their jobs. All it takes is a new CEO, or new head of your organization, and suddenly the rules are all different.

• Don’t forget the risks from down-sizing. Suddenly your whole group is cut and you’re job-hunting. But the jobs you apply for may not be as interested in hiring someone who lives in the middle of nowhere and can’t come into the company office on a regular basis. Do you have a large financial cushion to take the extra time to find a job that permits full-time telecommuting? Or do you have a family depending on you as sole bread-winner, and you can’t afford to be out of work for more than a couple months?

Unless you are certain that you’d rather take the time and make the sacrifices to find a new telecommuting job than go back into a company office again, or you don’t expect to stay in this house you’re buying for very long, don’t get too cocky about how flexible your home location can be. You may want to hedge your bets and make sure you live close enough to your company (or other companies in your industry) that you can drive in (perhaps nearly daily) if you absolutely had to!

Technorati Tags: telecommuting, telecommute, remote work, telework, work from home, work at home, work from home mom

If you already read Part I of my “Home-Buying for the Telecommuter” series, you understand that telecommuting offers some additional flexibility for telecommuters choosing a new home. The challenge of finding a home in just the right location may become easier to deal with if you don’t have to worry about the length of your commute. However, you also learned that there are some new factors for telecommuters to consider that are less of a concern for the non-telecommuter.

In Part I we talked about the first factor – space. Now we talk about the next factor:

Network Access:

If you plan to do a lot of your work over the internet, perhaps connected to your company’s internal intranet via a VPN (Virtual Private Network), it is critically important that you have a fast network in your house. Working on an ongoing basis, regularly communicating by email and Instant Messenger, sharing and exchanging large spreadsheets or other documents, simply isn’t feasible using a simple phone-based dialup connection. You need something fast.

While there are a few good options out there for most people, not everything is available to everyone. For instance, your standard DSL connection is simply not available at all houses – even in an affluent area full of technological conveniences. Availability depends on how close you are to the nearest cell tower. You may not be able to get DSL at all. Or you may only be close enough to get the basic connection which is slower than the much faster “professional” connection.

There are other options like a cable modem, which is also a good choice (it’s what I use today). However, you still need to make sure your new house has capabilities for this.

So when you start looking, explain to your realtor the importance of this factor. And if you see a house you really like, enlist your realtor’s aid in finding out in detail which internet access options are available.

Be sure to read for Part III of this article to learn about the final, and rather surprising, home-buying factor for telecommuters to consider!

Technorati Tags: telecommuting, telecommute, remote work, telework, work from home, work at home, work from home mom

Buying a home can be both an exciting time, as well as a stressful time. On the one hand, now is your chance to try to find the home of your dreams, with all the details exactly as you want. On the other hand, the home of your dreams may be out of reach for you financially and you have to choose which items on your wish-list are the top priorities, and which you’re willing to sacrifice.

Two of the biggest factors in home-buying are, for most people, cost and location. For the exclusive telecommuter it’s possible that you have a lot of flexibility with location. You may not have to worry about living very close to work. You may even choose to live in a different state or country than where your company’s office is located.

However, while the flexibility of telecommuting removes some of the limiting factors in home-buying, it does actually impose some new ones. There are other items that may be lower priority for the non-telecommuter that suddenly become an important factor for you to consider:

Space:

Many people, at a minimum, are looking for sufficient bedrooms for themselves and their children (if they have any). However, for the telecommuter, an extra room that can serve as your home office may now be very important. Especially if you do have children who are at home during the day, you really may need a separate room where you can close the door and close out the noise. If you have the option, making sure that room is far away from the center of the family activity is also important.

If you don’t have children at home, you can be more flexible. Perhaps you can use the dining room or set up an office in the corner of your bedroom or some other part of the house. Perhaps you can make do for a few years and then build an addition down the road after you’ve had time to save a bit. There are a lot of options if you can’t afford an additional room in your house, if you get a bit creative.

Be sure to read Parts II & III of this article - to be posted soon - to learn about other home-buying factors for telecommuters to consider – including a final, rather surprising factor!

Technorati Tags: telecommuting, telecommute, remote work, telework, work from home, work at home, work from home mom

Many of us know that telecommuters can get more done working from home, both on work activities and personal activities, due to time savings and increased focus. But I recently discovered a specific situation in which I, as a telecommuter, found myself getting less done.

In a typical work-day I get started working early, in my pajamas. I work hard for stretches of time, but like all people, I need the occasional mental break. During the times I need to step away from my work I might read and respond to personal emails, throw a load of laundry into the washing machine, pay a few bills, etc. Because I save at least an hour each day I telecommute from avoiding the drive to the office and because I avoid the gossip and non-work-related chit-chat of my co-workers I have more free time during the day to go the extra mile on a work project or get some personal tasks checked off my list.

So I’ve always felt there are really only up-sides when it comes to personal productivity and telecommuting.

However, I recently spent nearly 2 weeks at home with my husband and children during the Christmas holidays. During quiet moments (such as when the youngest was napping and the older child was watching a movie) my husband would happily disappear into the office for an hour or two to work on personal tasks on his computer. However, I found myself avoiding this as much as possible. Sure, I’d spend 5 or 10 minutes a day glancing through personal emails or handling some paperwork on my desk. But I kept it to a real minimum. I found other ways to avoid going into my home office – any little excuse I could. The dishes needed washing, I needed to work on a grocery list, anything.

At the beginning of the holiday I had grand plans on working on more articles such as this one and all kinds of other tasks. But I managed to avoid almost all of them.

This morning as I laid in bed resentfully staring at the alarm clock that had just gone off for the first time in 2 weeks, I thought about this odd avoidance. I realized that it’s because I associate sitting at my desk in my home office, in front of my computer, with work. I mean my day-job work. I knew I was on a nice long vacation and therefore resisted anything that felt like that kind of “work”.  My husband, who drives into the office most days and only telecommutes once or twice per week, didn’t have such a strong mental association and so he didn’t have that difficulty.

It was an interesting revelation. Definitely something for telecommuters to be aware of, especially if you have some important activities you want to get accomplished during a holiday. I think next time I have a vacation at home I’ll try moving my laptop into my bedroom or the dining room – and see if it makes any difference. Think about it for your next vacation!

Technorati Tags: telecommuting advice, telecommute, work from home, remote worker, work at home moms

Many telecommuters like to come into the office occasionally to get a little bit of ‘face-time’ with their peers. But if you go into the office only to find your peers are all working from home that day, it can be a frustrating experience.

Companies that make it possible for many of their employees to telecommute are providing a great benefit to those employees, and also achieving the huge gains that I have written about in previous articles. However, when you find yourself in a team where more of your co-workers are working at home than at the office, it can be hard to find opportunities to get the face-time you’re looking for.

In a very diverse team where there are people working from home, or scattered geographically in different parts of the country or world, there will always be a few people who, for whatever reason, prefer to work in the office than at home. However, when these people come in day after day and find themselves sitting in a sea of empty cubicles, even these die-hard office workers will eventually throw their hands up and join the ranks of the telecommuter.

However, these are the people you count on seeing on the few days you are organized enough to get showered and dressed first thing in the morning (as opposed to at 3pm), fight the commute, and get yourself into the office for some face-time. Eventually you find that even the few people left have stopped coming in and now you’re the one sitting in that sea of empty cubicles.

This can be very frustrating as there truly is benefit to getting occasional direct contact with your team members. It helps strengthen relationships, provides opportunities to discuss work-related topics in a more spur-of-the-moment style, and provides you some social interaction to break up the days of sitting alone in your home office. Don’t get me wrong, there are ways to overcome all these issues – but if you have the opportunity to meet with your team in person now and then, it’s one valuable tool.

A simple way to solve this situation is just a little coordination. Raise the topic in your team meeting if your boss approves. Or just send out an email to your coworkers. Work with your team to pick one or two days per week that people will focus on coming into the office. That doesn’t mean everyone has to come in on the agreed-upon day(s). But rather, if you’re going to try to come in, that these days will be the ones you’ll aim for.

Another option if you only have a few local people on your team is to just coordinate on a weekly basis with them. For instance, each Friday you could exchange email with those folks and ask how their schedule is looking and which days the following week they think they’ll be coming in.

While telecommuting can be a huge boon, a cost and time saver, and a way to balance your personal and work demands, a little face-time can go a long way. So when you do plan to go into the office, make sure there are people there to make your trip worthwhile!

Technorati Tags: telecommuting advice, telecommute, remote work, virtual presence, telework, work from home, work at home

The ever-increasing wonders of technology allow us to do some amazing stuff today that no-one would have guessed 10, or even 5, years ago. Technology now helps us in ways that allow us to blur the lines even more between our personal and professional lives. While some people cringe at the idea that work intrudes even further into our personal lives, the same technology also allows for some movement in the opposite direction too – in small ways that can improve our lives significantly!

Yesterday I had to take my minivan in for a minor service. My husband and I both worked from home that day. We scheduled the service for around lunch time.

When it was time to go we both packed up our laptops, hopped in our cars, and met at the service station. We left the minivan, got in our other car, and drove to the nearby downtown area. My husband then pulled out his iPhone and did a search on locations nearby that had free wireless access. After a few moments of tapping on his handheld screen, he found a café/deli and off we went.

We found it quite easily. It was a nice little restaurant, offering sandwiches, salads, coffees, etc. And, of course, the ever-important free wireless access. Since the weather was pleasant we ordered lunch and then grabbed a table outside. Out came our laptops, we got our wireless access working without any effort and then both of us accessed our VPNs to get onto the internal networks of our respective companies. I had all the same access as if I were at home or, for that matter, in the office. We were well into our work when our sandwiches arrived.

We were able to work while we ate, occasionally stopping to exchange a friendly comment with each other (or rather, commiserate over some frustrating corporate politics we were facing). The hour and a half passed by in a productive, yet very pleasant manner.

Before we knew it my husband’s phone was ringing – the minivan was ready. I was almost disappointed to leave the sunny, outdoor seating we had. We packed up, picked up the minivan, and headed home.

Although we’d been gone from the house for over 2 hours, we’d managed to get quite a bit of work done during that time. We’d been online to respond to coworkers’ emails and IMs. We’d completed an important errand so that the following weekend could be spent in quality time with our kids instead of having to schlep them to the service station. Oh, and don’t forget the ever-important fact that we’d both done far less driving that day than if we’d gone into the office – saving gas and helping the environment.

Wow – that’s a win-win-win-win-…uh…-win (did I get the number right?) situation! Now I bet you can’t do THAT without leaving the office!

Think about what kinds of things you could get done while still working productively, if you had more flexibility over where you work. Telecommuting even once or twice per week can make a huge difference in today’s hectic lifestyles.

Technorati Tags: telecommuting advice, telecommute, remote worker, work from home, work at home moms

There are right ways and wrong ways to run a meeting that has virtual participants and yesterday I had the privilege of seeing it done right!

Yesterday I went to an all-day face-to-face meeting with a team in my organization. There were about 15 people attending in person and 3 attending by phone. Usually when I attend these kinds of meetings, the people on the phone are on their own. Sure, there’s a polycom speaker and the presenter is sharing his/her screen so the virtual attendees can see the slides. But that’s it. No attention is paid to whether the attendees can here the whole conversation - especially when people in the back of the room, furthest from the mic, are speaking. There is no concern over whether the virtual attendees can hear, can keep up, or can even tell who is speaking.

But this was quite different. Tony, the person leading the meeting and doing most of the presentation, really cared about the folks on the phone. He constantly asked them if they could hear. When someone who wasn’t near the mic was talking he’d either hand them the polycom or, if they were too far, he’d quickly summarize what they said when they finished – speaking quietly into the phone. He also took copious notes on his computer, while sharing his screen – summarizing what each person said.

But it wasn’t all just what Tony did. Apparently the whole team had a culture of taking care of their virtual team members. Someone had brought a small webcam and either she or someone near her always made sure the web cam was pointing at the current speaker, turning the webcam, balancing it on a Kleenex box or water bottle to get it up high enough if need be. They made sure if someone got up and wrote on the whiteboard, that the webcam took that in too.

The whole effort of the team was quite amazing. This is a team I haven’t interacted with very much before, so I don’t know if this was just a fluke – perhaps driven by Tony who seemed to make the most effort. Or perhaps this is how the team always behaves. But regardless, I was very impressed.

So if you’re a telecommuter or remote worker who can’t make it into the office for face-to-face meetings because you live too far away, consider yourself very lucky if you work in a team like this one. If your team is not quite so conscientious, perhaps you can recruit a few friends to take this approach for you and see if they can spread the attitude to the rest of the team.

Most importantly, when you are attending a meeting in person and there are other virtual attendees, make it your business (as much as you can) to be the Tony in the room and take care of those virtual attendees!

Technorati Tags: telecommuting advice, telecommute, remote work, virtual presence, telework, virtual teams, remote teams

When gas prices went sky-high, a lot of people started telecommuting to save money. But now gas prices have started to drop, will more people start driving to work again? And what will that do to the environment?

Come on, you must have noticed. When prices went up there was just less traffic on the road… less crowding on the freeways. Even during rush hour the drive home (on the days you drove in) just wasn’t so bad. The hit to people’s wallet was enough to make people change their behaviors.

This was great for the environment. We all know that exchanging your old-fashioned light-bulbs with electric light-bulbs, or even driving a Prius, just reduces the energy you consume. But telecommuting, and other methods to actually avoid driving your car, are by far the absolute biggest ways for an individual to really help the environment.

But then the gas prices started to drop. Now, I’m hoping some people were so thrilled by the joys of telecommuting that they kept it up regardless. But I know that some people saw the costs go down and hopped right back on the freeway again. And I think this is a real shame. Although we all intellectually understand the dangers of global warming (I hope), and have the best of intentions to do our bit for the environment, the reality is, it can be hard to do the right thing.

But money is a much bigger motivator. When it hits our personal budget, we’ll do much more, go much further, make much greater sacrifices to save a few dollars. When these changes we make benefit the environment, all the better.

So now I’m going to say something that may shock or bother many of you.

I actually hope gas prices go up again. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like the high prices any more than the next guy. I have 2 small children along with the pre-requisite mini-van and I’ll tell you that filling that beast up at the pumps can cost me an arm and a leg when prices are high. But I know when prices are up, more people are taking actions that are good for the environment.

So if you were telecommuting when prices were up, don’t stop when they go down. If you found some inconveniences to telecommuting or some aspects of your work or interactions with your boss and co-workers were a bit more challenging, there’s many ways to overcome these. Take a few minutes to do a little research – you’ll find plenty of tips and tools out there to help you. Make the effort and keep telecommuting. It’s good for your wallet, and it’s good for the environment!