Remote working pros and cons

After almost 10 weeks of working at Swirrl, here's a quick post that lists some of my pros and cons of working from home.

Pros

Time to focus

When working in open plan offices, I have found it difficult to focus on a single task for a few hours. Now, I'm able to do it most days. This is really important for me, because I need time to get my head into a task.

More time with family

I'm able to spend more time with my family. I'm spending most of my new found spare time doing the morning school run. Which I'm sure fellow parents will agree, can be stressful sometimes. But I feel like I'm able to be a more hands-on parent.

Less driving, more walking

I'm hardly using my car at all. This is saving me time, money and carbon. Commuting is also surprisingly tiring! Because I'm driving less and doing more school runs, I'm pretty sure I'm being more active. There are also less tempting options for lunch, so I can control my diet a little easier.

Cons

Harder to form relationships

Not being in the same room as people makes it more difficult to form relationships. Swirrl encourage and support me to visit their HQ as much as I need. But after a busy few weeks when I first joined, I decided not to visit during May, which meant I didn't visit for 6 weeks. In hindsight this was too long, so I'm planning on visiting at least once a month from now on.

Sitting in the same room can get boring

I've got a nice home office and most of the time I love it. But Sometimes I find that I need to change my environment to stay motivated. Perhaps sitting in the kitchen is enough. Or going for a quick walk. A change of scenery helps when thinking over complex design problems.

Sometimes, it's hard to focus

In contrast to my earlier point. Sometimes it's hard to focus when nobody is around. For example, if I have to read something long and boring, I've found that visiting a cafe helps me to concentrate.