{"id":8214,"date":"2020-03-16T12:00:02","date_gmt":"2020-03-16T16:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/?p=8214"},"modified":"2020-03-16T19:26:58","modified_gmt":"2020-03-16T23:26:58","slug":"distributed-work-in-the-age-of-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2020\/03\/16\/distributed-work-in-the-age-of-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Distributed Work in the age of COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:1361,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.takecontrolbooks.com\\\/working-from-home\\\/?attribute_pa_format=ebook&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20251103204706\\\/https:\\\/\\\/www.takecontrolbooks.com\\\/working-from-home\\\/?attribute_pa_format=ebook&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2025-12-05 12:40:11&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2025-12-19 02:48:05&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-01-02 09:32:32&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-01-17 02:50:14&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-01-31 01:09:19&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-02-18 09:12:47&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-04 02:45:42&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-15 05:51:16&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-24 04:53:26&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-07 03:30:54&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-18 10:02:18&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-23 21:20:05&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-26 21:37:19&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-26 21:37:19&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.takecontrolbooks.com\/working-from-home\/?attribute_pa_format=ebook\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">UPDATE: Exceptionally well timed Glenn Fleishman has published a FREE Take Control book called Working from home temporarily. GRAB IT! (Even if some things in there contradict me)<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t see teleworking succeeding in this era.<\/p>\n<p>The reason is due to the monumental shift traditional office-work will need to endure for society to catch up and for traditional management to untie many decades of learned behaviors. It was 2007 when I started a company completely from a cafe and wrote a book from that same cafe and joined a co-working space to have meetings and went into an office once a week at most. I continued this behavior until joining my current employer in 2010 where I reported to a boss for 3 years who strictly forbid remote or teleworking. I grew accustomed to being in an office but I never forgot how possible distributed work was because I lived it and succeeded at it.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s focus on the worker-bees, the doers, the 80% of the workforce that can remotely work in those industries where it\u2019s possible (primarily office jobs). These individuals would like to work remotely but often for the wrong reasons. They want the freedom of being able to hit the bank before it closes, pick their kids up on time and not have to pay for daycare and save wear &amp; tear on the cars and stay in their PJs. This approach to remote work will eventually grow stale and normal and the person must desire remote work for completely different reasons and treat remote work just as they would their office job. Here are some tips I have for my colleagues who are today for the first time, executing on their job from somewhere not their office..the individuals who never took their laptops home or put work email on their computer:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Dress for the day. Get up at your usual time and follow your AM routine of waking up at your time and you\u2019re free here to sleep an extra half hour since you\u2019re not going to commute but I don\u2019t think this should be embraced because you have now found 30 extra minutes this morning to spend time with your kids, go for a walk and tidy up around the house. Shower, shave, skip the perfume but other than that, dress for a casual Friday. Don\u2019t stay in your PJs and roll over to your computer.<\/li>\n<li>Set office hours. You were in the office from 8:30-5PM last week. Do that today but with one caveat, take at least 1 full hour with the computer off and take lunch. One thing you\u2019ll notice is that by 4PM, you\u2019ll have gotten everything done that you normally do because the distractions are so few that it actually allows in productivity increases<\/li>\n<li>With that extra time, go get some exercise. Working from home should yield an adjustment in your diet to reduce caloric intake because the act of preparing for the day, commuting, walking between meetings and offices and out to lunch, these burn more calories so if you\u2019re not going to take an afternoon jog, note you\u2019ll burn less calories<\/li>\n<li>Setup a work space in your house that is for work if possible. I\u2019ve never had that ability because I\u2019ve always rented (and now own) 500-700 square foot homes. My current home is 700 square feet so I work at a desk 12 feet from everything else but I also started a company in a busy coffee shop. If you\u2019re new to remote work, creating a space free of distractions is a great idea. If you can get a standing desk, that\u2019s even better even though I don\u2019t personally prescribe to that.<\/li>\n<li>Schedule more meetings\u2026hear me out, you\u2019re going to start becoming more disconnected so bring all of your normal watering-hole colleagues into a Slack \/ Teams \/ IRC chat and just keep things going throughout the day. Make a channel that is specifically for non-work and be social there. Don\u2019t be afraid to break-out into 1:1s and with permission, give them a call and ask how things are going. Be social even when alone because\u2026.<\/li>\n<li>You will begin to starve for people time. Remote work can be lonely if you let it and amid the COVID-19 Pandemic, we are even mores starved for time with others so just know your colleagues are going through the same emotions and you should reach out to them and keep things social. This is why the work space is so important because you won\u2019t have a worry about doing video calls with a dirty house behind you. In your work space, things are neat and orderly and if you followed my first advice, you\u2019ll have your hair done and be wearing a collared shirt and so the video chat will not feel like you\u2019re taking it from home lounging on the couch.<\/li>\n<li>Be productive and identify areas of unproductive situations and discuss these with your manager. What tool or methodology or task is strained or impossible from home? What can we do to mitigate that? Once you begin breaking down remote work barriers, we\u2019ll have a clear path to making this whole distributed thing work.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Finally, do not forget office hours. When you are done for the day or 5PM, log off. Keep up your work life barriers. Set Slack or other messaging apps to not push notifications to your phone after 6PM, ignore messages after hours and allow yourself time to unwind.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A crazy thing happens when you do what I did and fall out of your bed in a 150 square foot apartment in San Francisco and on to your tiny folding desk with a PowerBook and external mouse\u2026.you start to go a little bit crazy. The separation from work and fun and hobbies and business get blurred so despite COVID-19, if there\u2019s a \u201cwork location\u201d you can go to be it the mother in law suite or a nearby park just for 1 day a week, spice things up, change locations and try to not get stuck in the seriously sinkhole of a mentality where your days and hours blend together. By week 3 of remote work, you\u2019ll feel a bit of depression if you don\u2019t get out and exercise and remain social and your productivity will suffer as a result and this whole distributed work necessity will go back to being a blip that trust me, a lot of corporations are tracking to see if it even works. They\u2019re watching and we need to work very hard to show that this can work for some roles and people.<\/p>\n<p>For managers, you have to take up everything written above but also you need to trust your employees. Don\u2019t react to lower productivity of someone who has never worked remotely before with a punishment or firing. Don\u2019t think they just slacked off because they weren\u2019t in an office. Be respectful of this major shift for them in how they get their job done and understand there will be inefficiencies.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>You also need to be even more mindful of their mental state and how they\u2019re doing. Do more regular check-ins but be clear that you\u2019re not spying on them, just making sure they\u2019re coping okay and adjusting to this new world. Some of my colleagues have gone to the same office every day for 25 years to build maps and they\u2019re not being asked to take their 14\u201d laptop home and they\u2019re trying to work today without their external monitors and deal with VPNs and tools and communications that always came 2nd to in person discussions and meetings. Be aware of that and offer your support.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Finally for managers, don\u2019t assume that remote work will be hugely successful or fail miserably. Look for people to make adjustments and then rise to the occasion to their previous productivity levels. I will say that some people will soar remotely and others will suffer so be there for your employees. I personally break-even when working remotely because I know when I\u2019ve done my best work and I log off, sometimes even slightly earlier like 3PM instead of 4Pm because I know I\u2019ve put in a good day of work. I log back in like I usually do from 8-9PM to address anything else before I get ready for reading &amp; contemplation. Some people will adapt their own schedule but as a manager, you can simply ask that they keep you informed of their hours and let them figure it out for themselves. Given the true higher ups are looking for distributed work to fail, don\u2019t force your methodologies and allow employees to determine their best way of getting things done and see how it goes then discuss and improve.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;-<\/p>\n<p>I started this post out so negatively because the thing is, there are companies that are not setup for remote work. The tech and business just aren\u2019t designed for it and they haven\u2019t implemented tools like Slack. Then there are employees who lack the tech acumen to evolve how they do things to make remote work possible and I think these two factors will ultimately make the month of March 2020 a set back for distributed work. I hope I\u2019m wrong but I spent 3 years honing remote work from 2007 &#8211; 2010 and it wasn\u2019t without failure and now we\u2019re asking an entire industry not just tech but finance, insurance, HR, legal and on and on to all go remote with a 2 week notice? Good luck with that.<\/p>\n<p>I would have preferred that over the next 15 years, we keep moving more and more people remote because this month will be just a test, a failure and a set back for the concept where the last 10 years have been incremental improvements and growth to what I still believe is the future of technology work. There\u2019s no reason I shouldn\u2019t be able to live in New Hampshire where my house cost $93,000 and work in a San Francisco based workforce where they\u2019re spending 1.5 million on a home. I shouldn\u2019t have to be in the most expensive real estate market in the world to perform a duty and that goes for most of us.<\/p>\n<p>I wish us all luck in this test and I hope we don\u2019t get set back too far in the distributed work revolution.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UPDATE: Exceptionally well timed Glenn Fleishman has published a FREE Take Control book called Working from home temporarily.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2020-03-16T16:00:09Z","apple_news_api_id":"15b953ba-954d-47ce-bddc-275ab74364ff","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2020-03-16T16:00:10Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AFblTupVNR8693Cdat0Nk_w","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_custom_appearance":"","csco_disable_excerpt_posts_layout":false,"csco_page_load_nextpost":"","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_location_hash":"","csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8214","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-technology","7":"cs-entry","8":"cs-video-wrap"},"apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pb3IC4-28u","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3842,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2012\/09\/25\/culinary-the-blue-bottle-craft-of-coffee-book\/","url_meta":{"origin":8214,"position":0},"title":"\u2605 Culinary: &#8220;The Blue Bottle Craft of Coffee&#8221; Book","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"September 25, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"A coffee book for your coffee table?\u00a0 One of my favorite \"experience\" spots is Blue Bottle. You go and stand in line and chat with strangers and the waiting with occasional doses of coffee smell \u00a0hit your nose until you can't stand it anymore and suddenly, it's time to order.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Culinary&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Culinary","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/culinary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Blue Bottle Coffee - San Francisco","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm3.staticflickr.com\/2225\/5709040374_ae9c1dabde_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm3.staticflickr.com\/2225\/5709040374_ae9c1dabde_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm3.staticflickr.com\/2225\/5709040374_ae9c1dabde_z.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":338,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2009\/06\/01\/busting-your-ass-for-one-year-a-realization\/","url_meta":{"origin":8214,"position":1},"title":"\u2605 Busting Your Ass for One Year. A Realization.","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"June 1, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Today was the 366th day I've lived in San Francisco. I've promised this \"one year in SF\" to you guys and it's 74% complete (more details soon). In honor of this San Franniversary, I went to my favorite cafe to work away from the office. I generally find myself at\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Life&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Life","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8257,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2020\/06\/26\/life-16-weeks-remote\/","url_meta":{"origin":8214,"position":2},"title":"Life: 16 Weeks Remote","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"June 26, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"I\u2019ve been reading a lot of bloggers who try to brand their own spin on \u201cwork from home\u201d It\u2019s a bit exhausting. I kind of liked \u201clocation agnostic work\u201d and I liked a whole lot less \u201cliving at work\u201d The second just makes you really depressed but maybe that was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Life&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Life","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4228,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2014\/08\/22\/photo-post-san-francisco-august-14\/","url_meta":{"origin":8214,"position":3},"title":"Photo Post: San Francisco &#8211; August &#8217;14","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"August 22, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"I really love doing these photo posts. This trip more than many SF trips in the past, I actually took a lot of photos (somewhere around 1200) and narrowed it down to just 100 uploaded. I\u2019m happy with these and the OM-D EM-1 from Olympus has turned into the greatest\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Photography&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Photography","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/photography\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"United BOS-->SFO","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm6.staticflickr.com\/5551\/14951782716_a39453991b_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm6.staticflickr.com\/5551\/14951782716_a39453991b_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm6.staticflickr.com\/5551\/14951782716_a39453991b_z.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":433,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2009\/07\/20\/the-web-innovate-now-reliability-later\/","url_meta":{"origin":8214,"position":4},"title":"\u2605 The Web: &#8220;Innovate Now, Reliability Later&#8221;","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"July 20, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"With the web, we generally follow the same fast food mentality that things need to be available right now but screw cost, health concerns and the big picture. The Chrome OS would rock if it was backed by reliable and secure applications but the fact that my life is behind\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Ideas&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Ideas","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/ideas\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8696,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2022\/04\/30\/life-post-pandemic\/","url_meta":{"origin":8214,"position":5},"title":"Life: Post-Pandemic","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"April 30, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"COVID-19 is not over. I must repeat that to myself every day. As a motorcyclist who rides thousands of miles a year on and off road, at track days and long 1000+ mile days in the saddle, I\u2019m aware of risk assessments. The first motorcycle safety course I took in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Life&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Life","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8214\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}