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

You may have noticed I haven’t been posting much lately. That’s because I haven’t been telecommuting much lately! Aaarrrgghhh!

My boss had another 3-day face-to-face where he flew in team members from around the world to meet together. Luckily for me it was, again, in California so I didn’t have to travel. But I did have to commute. I am reminded each time I have to be in the office for an 8am meeting why I like so much to telecommute!

I will admit, the face-to-face meetings were helpful. We’re working on a major project right now with a very tight deadline. Being in person all day with my European counterparts (who I can normally only speak with by phone for an hour or two first thing in my morning before they go home for the day) was a big change. For a frequent telecommuter, all this face-time is really useful. I can really make the most of it to build up relationships - even with those who are in the same office as me.

On the downside though, a few days later I came down with an awful cold - the second reason I haven’t been blogging much lately. The cold, I’m sure, was a direct result of being in contact with so many people (the first day there were about 30 of us in one room!). All that hand-shaking passed around too many germs.  Honestly, I think we have to come up with a new greeting method that doesn’t involve touching palms. How about making brief contact with the backs of our hands. Or our elbows or something? There’s got to be a better way!

Technorati Tags: telecommuting advice, telecommuting secrets, remote workers

Do you bring your laptop to long team meetings and try to monitor emails during topics that aren’t so important to you? If you frequently work from home or you are a remote worker, flown in for the meeting, stop and think about what opportunities you’re missing by doing this!

Last week my boss had flown in a handful of my teammates located in other parts of the country/world so the whole team could talk about some large projects face to face. We spent two days closeted together in a conference room going through all our services and discussing how they were impacted by these projects and what we needed to do.

I noticed that my teammates paid detailed attention whenever the conversation was related to one of their services. But as soon as we started talking about a service unrelated to their own, their heads would go down as their eyes fixed on their laptop screens and their fingers clacked away furiously on their keyboards.

Who can blame them? Our day-to-day jobs don’t go away when we’re in these kinds of meetings. The emails and action items don’t stop. While we may all have out-of-office messages saying we’re tied up these two days and responses will be slow, we don’t want to spend our evenings or the following work day trying to dig our way out of our overflowing inboxes

However, there’s an opportunity cost to this. Sure, those folks who are located with the core team and who come into the office every day may be well plugged-in to what all their teammates are doing. But for the people visiting from out of town, and for the telecommuters, this is a perfect opportunity to get some more detailed exposure to what else is going on in their team and learn more about some of the activities, challenges, etc of their peers.

This kind of exposure, while seeming unimportant in the short term, can be valuable down the road. You get the opportunity to learn from your peers – for instance, if there are issues they are dealing with that you struggle with too, you can contact them later to compare notes. And it increases the opportunity for cross-collaboration and integration of projects down the line if you have a better big picture of everything that’s going on in your team.

So I made a real effort to stay tuned-in to what my coworkers were discussing, even if it wasn’t related to my services. The coffee helped! Sure, I paid for it in my workload after the 2-day meeting was over. My cost was an over-full inbox the next day. But that’s no different from when you’re away on vacation and the workload is piling up. (At least I *hope* you let the work pile up when you’re on vacation and you’re not sneaking into your hotel room to check emails while your spouse is lying on the beach.)

So telecommuters and remote workers, next time you’re face-to-face with your team and tempted to sneak in some time working on your email, consider the opportunity you’re missing. Grab an extra cup of coffee and pay attention to what your peers have to say!

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