I'd be interested to know some long term remote workers experiences with regards to interruptions. It's one of the things that I believe would be better. In many places I've worked I tend to become a "go to" person which results in many many interruptions, it doesn't make too much difference how much you write down, it's usually always quicker to just ask someone who you know knows the answer to whatever question you have. Remote working seems like it would put up just enough of a barrier that written information / async communication would be an easier go to?
I've long been that "go-to" guy. I'm friendly, I like to help, and I'm a bit of a jack-of-all-trades. That's fine, it's my natural fit and I enjoy it.
I've been working remotely (from home) for about 2 months now and my productivity is through the roof. It's astonishing. When I work 8 hours, I get ~6.5 hours productive work done. That feels like a theoretical maximum. In the office, 8 hours "at work" – read "in the building" – often felt like 2 or 3 hours of actual work, on a good day.
You spend so much time in the office chatting to people, getting coffee, overhearing interesting conversations, waiting in a meeting room for people to turn up, waiting at the door for people to come to lunch, getting there in the first place, setting up, packing up. It's madness, really. (I'm in Melbourne, Australia. I think our work ethic is different to you Americans.)
I'm lucky, my partner is also a freelancer. We wake up – often at 5am – and make a cup of tea and a slice of toast. "First breakfast." Half an hour later we're awake and we wander upstairs to the office. We put some ambient music on, or not. We knuckle down and work. Two hours later, sun's up, we make a coffee and have "second breakfast". :-)
It's transformed how I live and work. I'm lucky in that my boss is an old friend and he trusts me absolutely. The work I'm doing is exclusively for him, so it's not a problem that I'm not around colleagues. We just use the phone or iMessage to communicate.
We set a weekly rhythm so I don't have to tell him when I'm working; but, because he's a friend, if he calls and I'm not at my desk that's cool.
I am in love with this situation. I can never go back.
My experience is that it's a lot better but that Slack can be the biggest remaining source of interruptions. I still struggle to find the balance between being sufficiently available on Slack and getting focused uninterrupted work done.
My approach has been to encourage email communication and then I just periodically check my email. This allows me the ability to get in the zone without constant distractions, while still providing the ability to assist when needed. If it’s an absolute emergency then I can be reached via mobile. There are also times though that I will sign into our internal instant messaging system or Slack and will respond there as well. My current tasks tend to dictate how “available” I am.
If I may play devil's advocate for a minute, I would say that just because you felt like were not productive doesn't mean that you weren't being productive for your team/company. Those people interrupting you with questions are often stuck or could use the extra input to do their own work better.
