Working From Home vs. Onsite
Since I use pomodoro, I decided to see how many pomodoros I can get done between working from home vs. in the office. For my experiment, I wanted to do it over a period of several days since in the course of human events… well, you get the idea.
I’ve heard some stories where people just couldn’t get anything done at home, especially with a wife and kids. Sure, they can be distracting, but I wouldn’t think about working at home unless I have a quiet office and sheltered from my personal life. I have my office in the basement where it’s quiet and somewhat sound-proofed from upstairs.
Well, to make the long story short, here’s the result. On average, I get little less than twice pomodoros done at home than in the office. You also have to be aware that I have two hour commute each way to NYC, so that’s 4 hours total that I can put to good use. Here are some of the factors I observed.
- At the office, I have very interesting conversations with others and get insights to other areas of development.
- I can bounce off ideas and get immediate feedbacks.
- When I’m home, I can get things done without much interruption and can take shorter breaks.
- I’m more comfortable at my home office. Usually puts me in good, productive mood.
- There are less meetings at home.
- The concentration level is extremely high at home.
- I miss people at home.
- People should turn on the video when using Skype.
I now firmly believe that companies should not choose just one over the other. Instead, there should be a balance between facetime and working remotely. Considering how expensive office spaces are, especially in NYC area, I think it’s silly to have a large offices for technology-related positions. We have Skype, IM, GoToMeeting/WebEx/Yugma, and VNC among other tools.
Comments
2 Responses to “Working From Home vs. Onsite”
I still think it’s something with the “control thing”. when freelances get paid by hours worked, employers wants to make sure they are really working. same for employees.
Well, I normally get paid by the work done, not by hours. This is why scrum is so good, you can actually get paid on cards, not hours. I’ll post my working model later.