I've had "real" offices. I've worked in open-plan offices. I've had a home office. I've worked from bed.
There are tons of good ways to do it.
Lately I swap between a kitchen table and a chair on my porch. I no longer use multiple screens, I've just gotten really fast at swapping windows on my 15" laptop; I've gotten good at figuring out how wide my terminal window breaks should be and where my browser dev tools should sit.
Surely there are more optimal ways of doing stuff. Odds are that there is a Taylorist approach that would pull more productivity out of me. But much like my typing speed (~50WPM) isn't really the limiting factor in my programming skill, screen real estate isn't a big factor in getting stuff done for me.
But the big thing for me is that, in the end, it's fine for me to switch stuff up on a monthly or quarterly or yearly basis.
I could never have done that when I was in an office. I couldn't take 20 min and play banjo or accordion and come back to my problem with a fresh eye. I couldn't put on my laundry and hang it up while I listen to other folks on the daily stand up. I couldn't start my lunch cooking in the instapot while waiting for a script to finish running.
It would take a hard, hard sell to get me back in an office, not matter how much real and legitimate enjoyment and utility other folks get in an office.
That's work from home brilliantly summarized, very true.
However, I have my doubts about productivity in smaller teams and startups. Being in the same space physically I think speeds up a lot of things. In small teams and esp. at early stage startups your whole day is a meeting where things are discussed and resolved spontaneously. Sometimes it is important to have an environment where information is exchanged dynamically and in an unordered fashion, as opposed to structured meetings, schedules and planning that become necessary in fully remote teams.
Then there's the social part. At least don't forget to do regular meetups in real life if you can.
Honestly, I'm very divided over this. Is there a way to have the spontaneity and dynamism of working in small teams in real life, and have the comfort and freedom of working from home?
> Being in the same space physically I think speeds up a lot of things. In small teams and esp. at early stage startups your whole day is a meeting where things are discussed and resolved spontaneously.
Who's going to write the fine-detail code if they whole day is a meeting? It may change from case to case, but for some small teams the biggest challenge is to produce something so good that it out-competes the product of teams significantly larger. A brilliant idea gets you 5% of the way, the rest is getting busy with very boring details and corner cases.
My small teams and startup experience: none of that boring work gets done as soon as there are two people together. Simply put, social interaction is way nicer than boring work. This is not just technical development work, but even commercial research. I know this is a thought crime, but I sometimes feel like it would be a good idea to lock the socialite sales person in a room with no human contact whatsoever until they finish that Excel spreadsheet.
I work remote at an early stage startup, I’m not sure you’re right. It might be faster to work together but only by the amount of time it takes to type. We’re on slack talking all day and have video meeting when needed. We work fast as it is so I’m not sure we’d gain much by being in person (other than social stimulation.)
You can have that remotely. In my team we (8 people) spend our whole day on a visio conference room. We’re mainly idle but we use it to ask for help, discuss decisions informally, vent, talk about whatever(games, movies, etc.), all of that exactly the same as in the open space, but better because we can still disconnect if we need to focus.
If we need a real meeting or need to talk with a specific subject, we just go to another conference room, in the same way we’d use a meeting room in the office.
The thing though is that we have a dedicated device for the visio. For now it’s a Cisco DX but it could work with an iPad for example.
I'm also divided, and I still go to office because of that (at the moment we can sort of choose it ourselves), 1 or 2 days a week. Sometimes 0. I enjoy the time in the office, I see who is there, try to gather a big group for a good lunch and talk as much as I can. At home I focus on coding, document writing etc. I'm all for letting teams hash it out among themselves.
One argument that I think fails in the long run is that creativity drops. Maybe it does, in the short term, but if people are happier at home, and more companies will support it, new ways of being creative or even together will be found. I wouldn't worry so much about losing the "classic, old" way creativity worked before, there is so much to be gained and so much yet to be learned. Give it some time, embrace it, see where it takes us.
One example of growing creativity for me has been: One colleague in our team is from the US, he's the only one. Pre-Covid he'd be on a speaker in our meeting room, no cam on. Since Covid he has his cam on, same as everyone else. We engage much more in small talk, recently we got a tour of his house and garden via webcam. What a nice guy! We wrote some patents together now too. Even though we are 8 hours flying away from each other. The talent pool for teams just grows much bigger.
In my experience, reasons like "spontaneity" and "dynamism" are used to cast lack of vision, poor planning and management, and amateurish execution in a positive light. YMMV.
> Being in the same space physically I think speeds up a lot of things. In small teams and esp. at early stage startups your whole day is a meeting where things are discussed and resolved spontaneously.
I do not understand how people can get work done in an environment like this. I've had similar experiences and "the whole day is a meeting" only served me for unnecessary interruptions, useless workplace banter and unsatisfactory results.
I think that small teams with high throughput communication can work in place and remote. In place the high communication is there by default where the default remote position would probably be lower communication / more isolation. It doesn't have to be this way of course, but it would require the remote high communication model to be put into action intentionally.
It's worth remembering that this high communication method isn't really scalable too, and that larger teams trying to follow it will find themselves dedicating a larger % of their time to noise. It would take some intentional actions to move away from it as the team grows.
Communication points are a bottleneck. Smaller teams help, but the ideal team size for accomplishing a task is 1.
Putting engineers in a war room or open office is only going to irritate the ones who want to spend their time doing deep work. And those are usually the better ones.
Look at the entire crypto space. $1.5T+ of value and growing and the vast majority of it is built remotely, sometimes anonymously, and it's one of the most free and spontaneous industries.
the best of both worlds would be to work remotely most of the time and have (frequent?) sprints where you get to know your coworkers and also engage in this kind of high bandwidth settings.
Being able to noodle on a guitar while stepping away from a problem is a super power for me. If you work from home, get an instrument you can distract yourself with. The music or drills can break you out of ruts, and if you do it half seriously, you can develop real skill.
The oh so serious kabuki show we all play out in offices, especially open plans, wastes a lot of mental energy on "professionalism" and decor. People get away with being good at that type of theater, instead of being competent problem solvers, or try to turn those things into leverage for internal politics and career maneuvering.
If people are doing knowledge work, then the privacy of their home gets rid of all the unnecessary play acting. Maybe the pandemic will demonstrate once and for all that an employee with a good work ethic can be lots more effective from home than at the office. And if we encourage music and creativity and development of other relaxation and focusing skills in service of optimizing mental acuity, that leads to a better world.
==If people are doing knowledge work, then the privacy of their home gets rid of all the unnecessary play acting. ==
Except for all the hours you spend on video calls where people are looking directly into your home. If you use some type of background to blur your home, that becomes the same type of "kabuki show" you reference about offices.
==Maybe the pandemic will demonstrate once and for all that an employee with a good work ethic can be lots more effective from home than at the office. ==
Maybe you have a bias here? I know lots of people with "good work ethics" who feel less productive at home.
+1 and I like your writing style: “””The oh so serious kabuki show we all play out in offices, especially open plans, wastes a lot of mental energy on "professionalism" and decor.”””
This is the biggest improvement in my ‘quality of life’ from working from home. I’m still not totally convinced I don’t like working with others around me, but the ability to eat well, integrate exercise and chores into the breaks away from the screen i’d take in the office anyway are priceless.
And I find too that it doesn't even reduce down your working time too - an awful lot of thinking time in an office is when you get up from your desk and walk to the watercooler, bathroom, whatever. I do so much thinking and working out whilst doing these home chores.
Personally I have a MUCH easier time paying attention if I busy my hands with something mindless like dishes. This has been ruined lately by me becoming the guy that runs the meetings, but hopefully I can change that soon since I really dislike running meetings and would much rather wash dishes.
Bringing up an anecdotal edge case, a couple years ago I have attended a viewing in a coworking space (Bricklane, London) where members had to sit on old recycled school chairs because that was the "design". Apparently you need to get a sciatica to look like a hipster coder.
Having the right setup is not only about making your brain more productive - it's about keeping your spine pain free. While my home office is set up for this purpose, only one company that I have worked with so far had this aspect in mind. In the past, I had to take days off because of terrible set ups and long work hours. Having a well positioned and large second monitor helps a lot.
You have much more control over this while designing your home office. Working from bed is not the way unless you're planning to marry a physiotherapist in the future.
The chair thing is always amazing to me. I worked at a company that had crappy chairs (because they claimed they couldn't afford better).
One of my team decided that they needed a good chair for medical reasons and asked for it. They got a really nice chair.
I don't know if anyone complained, but it wasn't long before the whole team had really nice chairs. The cost was negligible compared to the morale boost, IMO. I don't think I ever looked at that chair without thinking, "Man, that's a good chair!"
When I got a new job that had crappy chairs, I bought myself a new chair right away without even asking. Whenever I upgraded, I'd give my old one to anyone on my team that wanted it. I don't know if they cared much, but it sure made me feel better.
I think working from bed for a short time is a good way to keep varying your posture.
The headline is misleading because I would have answered that I work from bed sometimes, but I also work from every chair or position around the house. I have a laptop and I move around.
Working from bed is when I am trying to finish something that's not particularly challenging while also kind of watching the baseball game on TV.
> screen real estate isn't a big factor in getting stuff done for me
Lately, I've been wondering if less screen real estate actually makes me a better programmer.
Being able to simultaneously have 6 files open across two large monitors with a lot of vertical real estate means that messy code doesn't hurt me as much. In fact, I'm pretty sure the only reason I do that is to facilitate dealing with messy code. I no longer have to build a stable mental model of it in my head, because it's reasonably convenient to just keep referring back to the original source code.
When I'm just on the laptop screen, though, and I can fit one file full width, or two if I've been good about keeping the line length below 90, I start having to keep things in my short term memory. Which means that, when it's not amenable to that, I'm relatively quick to get annoyed and refactor it for comprehensibility. I'd like to think that, with time, I'd eventually come to just write more comprehensible code in the first place.
A couple more data points here, obviously riddled with bias, come from my colleagues. Some have desktop computers with multiple 4K monitors, some have a laptop connected to a single external monitor, and some have that and also a habit of unplugging the computer and working on the front porch whenever the weather is nice. My impression is that the people in the first group tend to write the least comprehensible code.
Of course, the 4K monitor jocks also tend to work the fastest. But I think it's maybe a bit like when I used to work for building contractor. Nobody liked to be on the same crew as the person who worked the fastest.
I've been using just one monitor for the last two years and never once wanted to go back to multiple monitors.
I used to have two external monitors and it was always frustrating to dock/undock and re-arrange my windows. That was why I transitioned. But I've seen no reason or negative impact on my work to drive me to return to multiple screens.
HackerNews often talks about how task switching and multi-tasking negatively affect focus. I wonder if those same people think multiple monitors contribute to either of those. On my screen I only ever have one window; it feels more intentional. On three screens I had email and teams on one, a browser on another, and my IDE on the third. Surely that's more distracting, no?
Initial Google results seem to sing the praises of multiple monitors. Am I truly unproductive on my one screen or have others seen the same benefits? How can "productivity" even be quantified?
So it seems I accidentally nuked my Macbook pro two nights ago after my dog spilled a glass of water on my nightstand and splashed some onto MBP- I thought it was an indirect hit, but the next morning I plugged it in and appeared to have shorted some stuff out internally, and even worse- it seems to have shorted out my thunderbolt monitor too.
So I was forced to just use my Macbook Air, and I was preparing for a massive productivity hit, and tbh- I think it may have actually helped a bit- I don't think we realize how much we get distracted by having email and slack or whatever open all the time, and just being able to focus on one task at a time visually was actually kind of a relief.
Long term, I am going to want monitors back and all, but I think there is a real benefit to keeping the things that are not 100% your attention at that moment entirely minimized and out of view.
You’re really on to something here about systems thinking and the relative power of tools. I feel similarly about big IDEs and stateful, long-running test runners.
This is spot on. The 'bottleneck' in programming is not the screen size or typing speed but the I/O of information in the brain.
I too stopped using multiple screens some time ago because it felt like being overwhelmed with information and experiencing fatigue, while not being more productive.
I stopped using multiple screens, but only because my 4K (at home) and ultrawide (in the office) can fit everything I need. I wouldn’t do the same with 1080p.
I've been working from home 20 years now, and I have the opposite setup from you. I've got a much nicer setup then I ever had in offices - from 3 monitors to my favorite keyboards. As I get older and my eyes get worse, I really appreciate the space the monitors give me.
I do agree about going back to an office... Its not really something I anticipate doing.
~10 years WFH here and my approach is similar to yours - my home office has become almost ludicrously well equipped.
My approach is that I think about how much commuting would cost me, and consider that a reasonable amount to invest in my working space at home. As a result, I have a very small, but very functional space that I feel good about sitting in for 8 hours a day. I'm comfortable, I'm calm, and when I need to think, I don't feel stressed by my environment.
Edit: to give some examples - I have very carefully chosen art for the walls that I can stare at and my mind can drift, when I need to solve problems. I had a desk custom made to give me the most amount of space because this is a very small room (~3m x ~2.5m) that regular desks can't make the best use of. I have great audio gear (mic, headphones and speakers), carefully tuned lighting, etc, etc.
In isolation the thousands I've spent on this room seems kind-of ridiculous, but compared to the thousands more I haven't spent on commuting and compared to the satisfaction I get when sitting in here, I think it was absolutely worth it, and I am very grateful that I was privileged enough to be able to make all these choices.
I've gone the opposite way. I did WFH/remote for ... years, always on a single laptop. I was very mobile - f2f client meetings, work from coffee shop, work from hotels, etc.
In the last year, as travel/f2f was essentially taken off the table, I've moved to laptop with 2 external monitors, and just recently to 'desktop' setup. I still have the laptop, and use it to work from home now and then, but I'm slowly getting used to more screen real estate. It's not even so much 2 monitors, just a much larger main one. 32" vs the 15" has been a big difference, mostly for the better.
But... I had years of comments from a lot of folks about "no idea how you can get anything done from just one laptop - that screen is so small, etc."
I've done WFH for a year and a half now (and the odd day in the years before that), and I still kinda struggle; it's easy to let the distractions take hold, and it costs me energy to get started on work. Mind you, the work is not the most exciting at the moment either.
That said, as other commenters have mentioned, there is value (for me) to work in a team and to have others actually depend on me and my progress; I need a bit of external pressure. At the moment it's mainly self-pressure / self-motivation, which isn't the best.
I do think in the future I'll pursue jobs where I'm both independent but also replaceable, because at the moment I'm not replaceable so I don't feel like I can move on yet.
“ I'll pursue jobs where I'm both independent but also replaceable”
I totally get the pressure felt when you’re not yet replaceable. At least from the responsible, not wishing to burn bridges vantage point. It can add stress because it means vacations are only half spent and makes other opportunities seem wrong to take because you know you’d be leaving the company in a bad state. And mind you this is at the same time as trying to spread as much knowledge around as possible. Small teams can make this more common.
> Surely there are more optimal ways of doing stuff. Odds are that there is a Taylorist approach that would pull more productivity out of me. But much like my typing speed (~50WPM) isn't really the limiting factor in my programming skill, screen real estate isn't a big factor in getting stuff done for me.
Your work habits suggest the best "Taylorist" improvement might just be to let you roam. Seems to be working best.
> I could never have done that when I was in an office. I couldn't take 20 min and play banjo or accordion and come back to my problem with a fresh eye.
I've seen music/game rooms at good companies. If a company can't set aside some space for breaks, that's a red flag.
Working from home only possible with experienced devs. Once you have lots of juniors, it's very difficult to coach them. Juniors need to be able to contact fellow devs randomly and not via a zoom call.
I’ve been mentoring two juniors at work and I prefer zoom actually. It’s a lot easier for me to share my screen with the both of them than it is to all huddle around my desk. If they run into a problem they ping me on slack and we hop on a call together. It’s not any harder than strolling over to my desk.
> I could never have done that when I was in an office. I couldn't take 20 min and play banjo or accordion and come back to my problem with a fresh eye
I should say, "I wouldn't have felt free to do that in the situations I've been in".
And maybe that's just a supposition that I was making.
People pay me to play music-- it's not that I'm bad at it. But there are a lot of reasons ranging from not annoying other folks to not looking like I care more about playing scales than fixing a problem which make me think I should not do that kind of thing.
You have summarized the good experiences I have had working from home (except onsite for a while at Google and Capital One) since my wife and I moved to a small town in the mountains of Central Arizona in 1998.
I have two areas of my yard where I can work, one is always shady, I have a dedicated office, but also work in the living room and kitchen table. I have a nice external monitor on my desk, but I don’t really need it for most writing or work tasks.
I really don't know much in this area but this seems to be more of a posture thing. A physiotherapist told me he only uses laptops because apparently that's the best combined with the right table and chair due to the tilted, low screen.
In my experience he's at least not completely wrong, but in the long term I still aim to try a standing desk to mix it up, sooner or later sitting in general feels wrong when I overdo it. And I just prefer a single large screen. Enough to fit two windows beside each other with enough space for any situation.
Best thing is to get an external keyboard, otherwise the screen will be too low and your neck will be perpetually craned downward (same issue with prolonged smartphone usage), or you set the laptop on a pedestal so it's eye level, but now your typing like a praying mantis.
I worked from home for around 15 years and I miss it tremendously. I think my productivity was much better when my "take a moment from work" diversions were exactly the things you described-- doing some laundry, washing some dishes, preparing lunch, etc.
I'm back in a traditional office setting. My diversions are mostly the "surf around on the Internet" variety. That's not to say random Internet use didn't happen when I worked at home, but I found I enjoyed random non-computer diversions far more than sitting viewing websites. Now that I'm in an office those non-computer diversions aren't an option. I just end up wasting time on websites when I need a break.
I also really, really miss working from my couch with my 15" laptop on my lap. It was vastly more comfortable than any desk setup I've ever had and discouraged me from hoarding physical articles in drawers, corners of a desk, etc.
I never understand the ability to work on a laptop. For me it would be a significant blow to my productivity. How do people do it?
I have 3 full monitors, one for running 10 or so processes that I can glance at stdout, then the other two monitors for having many different editor files open, numerous data plots, and multiple reference guides open, etc.
Different engineers do different work. Not everyone is running 10+ processes and referring to reference guides all day, some, like myself, spend most of our days writing emails or reviewing PRs, neither of which really necessitate lots of screen real estate.
You're not looking at and digesting all of that information at once (unless you have an impressive dozen sets of eyes :) ). You're context switching, and you've found that the most productive way for you to context switch is to have everything fully available at a glance. For others, being able to switch at a literal glance is less productive and more taxing (those 10 process can be distracting!) so we use different tools or methods, like workspaces, tmux sessions, terminal tabs. I usually have three projects each loaded and available for attention at once with a key press, but I don't need (nor do I want) them actively visible alongside each other.
Virtual desktops and 3 finger swipes for me too. I cannot understand how having multiple apps visible helps, because you have to continuously switch your eye focus and if you have distracting apps like Slack in your field it's even worse. So laptop with 1 window maximized is the best for me. And the mobility that it allows: move to the sofa, armchair, cafe, I even deployed from a taxi. I tried to buy and use external keyboard and trackpad on my standup desk during the pandemic, but I returned the same day - the distance between the position of keys and the trackpad was so weird after years of laptop only.
On windows I alt tab often. I close anything not related to work keeping the list of windows short (maybe 5 at most).
Split screen some where appropriate.
My home office is 2 monitors.
My work office is 3, however I only find myself using 2
Here is my first hand experience from roughly 15 years of working from home at this point, with a little office time mixed in.
This is the right approach from an ergonomic standpoint - cycle through how you sit/stand while working and you’ll minimize a lot of joint issues. If some position is causing you issues, it’s easy to identify and effortless to switch. At minimum it isn’t healthy to sit for hours straight. It’s also easy to mix in a few workouts or use some sort of treadmill or stationary bike.
Years ago I went from 3 27” screens down to 1 12” MacBook and had no loss in productivity. I was primarily doing design and data analysis work. DPI and OS window management matters more unless you have vision issues.
I have a desk with dual monitors and a laptop dock where I do most of my work, but sometimes that just isn’t where I want to be. The biggest win is the flexibility, I can be in bed, on the sofa or outside and do the same stuff I do sat at my desk.
> I couldn't put on my laundry and hang it up while I listen to other folks on the daily stand up.
Yeah, there's a secret value in low level distractions: they prevent higher level distractions. When you go into a deep focus environment for that daily, chances are your mind will focus deeply on something entirely unrelated.
Not at all. It might actually cause you to burnout if you begin to feel your work has encroached on your personal life. I went through a rough phase a while back because of this.
For the past 2 weeks, I've been working from a treadmill. It has been incredible. I got a small under-the-desk treadmill for my standing desk and I walk at about 2.5km/hour and get around 20,000 steps in per day. It has improved my mood, my clarity, and also has improved my sleep (because I'm tired of walking). I also find it easier to focus on tasks for some reason.
If you can make a setup like this work for you, I highly recommend it. Your body will thank you in the long run.
EDIT>> A few of you are asking about the model. I actually bought 2, one for myself and one for my partner, who also loves it.
This one is mine https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07V7F8QYK. I got it when it had a $100-off coupon, so the price wasn't as steep. No real complaints so far, except you can't store it upright. I just roll it out of the way when I want to sit.
The one for my partner is https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0895DRWVY. She likes it. It's a little smaller and can be stored upright and out of the way, which is nice. There have been complaints about the remote (and it only comes with 1), but the manufacturer claims to ship new remotes free of charge if yours breaks.
They're both a little quirky with a very simple LCD screen. Supposedly mine has an app integration for step counting, but I just use my phone in my pocket. They both get the job done.
I’ve had a walking treadmill desk for over ten years.
Whether it’s for you is quite personal: See if you can find somewhere to try it out for a few minutes, in particular try typing and using the mouse/trackpad while walking. My treadmill tops out at 4 mph (6.4 km/h), which is really too fast to do anything but walk. I can watch videos at 3mph, code routine easy stuff at ~2mph, code hard stuff at ~1mph, and to read hairy code I have to stop completely. I don’t walk all day, I also stand and sit.
Some things that will help you have a good experience:
• Get a purpose-built walking treadmill: They’re smaller and more importantly go much slower.
• Get a very solid, stable desk and put it on a stable floor. Any little monitor shake will make things miserable.
• The treadmill is not silent, so you’ll probably need to stop when speaking on video. It’s awesome to be in watch/listen-only meetings and put in a mile or two.
• A nice option I’ll upgrade to someday is a stand-alone walking treadmill with a wireless control, plus a nice sit/stand desk.
I'm not intending to give health advice but the health benefits of walking are pretty well established and commonly accepted by doctors. I encourage you to do the research if you are skeptical or talk to your doctor.
We often joked that, when we all inevitably got treadmill desks, we'd have to get him a climbing-wall desk. It'd be great! We could just stick a computer at the top of this thing, and maybe some espresso for motivation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjiepNna8GA
I walk around 4 hours per day. Yesterday was 4 hours 13 minutes, 22k steps, 5.96 miles. It seems like a short distance for that many steps, but it's because you tend not to take huge strides.
I'll usually do 10k steps in the morning, take a break and sit and eat lunch and rest for a bit, then finish another 10k steps.
The treadmill has rear wheels, and I roll it back out of the way of my desk, then roll my chair back to my desk, when I want to sit.
I don't wear shoes while walking or indoors. If I start getting foot problems, I might get a pair of indoor shoes.
In my experience typing while walking has not been an issue but using a mouse with moderate to high sensitivity can be challenging. Using a gaming feature such as "sniper" mode to toggle mouse sensitivity when precise clicking is necessary solved the problem.
Yep! I walk regularly on calls and during pairing sessions. Google meet is pretty good at noise cancelling. My coworkers say they can't even hear the treadmill. Heavy breathing isn't really an issue for me at 2.5km/hour. I'll have to dig up our standing desk dimensions, but there is no problem there for me or my partner. I'm 6', she's 5'8", and we both have different standing desks and different treadmills. There would be no issue with the desk height or width, but you should measure your own setup if you're thinking of doing the same.
I jump on a rebounder a couple of times a day, nothing like your setup but it seems to improve my wellbeing. The rest of my time is unfortunately quite sedentary, I tried working while standing but for some reason it didn’t work out for me. But now im thinking that standing and walking are quite different. You made me think about getting a thredmill...
Fitbits have longer bracelets you can swap in, so you can fasten it over your ancle. People in jobs where they cant use watches usually do that if they want to track steps. Your doctor/nurse might be wearing one.
IMO sitting just makes your blood slower to flow = less juice for your brain.
I was helping IT support before the pandemic when I had free time (or waiting something to finish)
And I liked all the walking around the office, between buildings, etc.
Now, I artifically simulate situation by leg-shaking :)
Picture tech people walking on their treadmills for compensation and then picture gerbils running on wheels for food. Picture tech people drinking Soylent and then picture gerbils eating pellets. The world is whack.
People are substituting artificial things for the natural things that made us happy in earlier times. Walking on a treadmill vs walking outside in the sun and shade amidst plants, trees, and other living things. Eating things for nutrition vs eating fruits and vegetables for enjoyment.
The options here are sitting while working or walking while working. The options aren't sititng while working or disregarding society and returning to the forest.
I also get plenty of sun and eat well. But I happen work at a job that requires me to look at a stationary screen for much of the day, like I imagine most of us do. So I am choosing to not be as sedentary. But if you're suggesting that we should abandon working in tech because it's unnatural, I'm afraid you're probably talking to the wrong audience :)
You're not the first person to mention gerbils on wheels to me. I think it's mostly a reaction to seeing something unconventional, despite its health benefits. If you feel like you're not living your ideal life in this industry (assuming you are also in tech), that's fine, but don't project that onto me please. I enjoy what I do and how I live.
> People are substituting artificial things for the natural things that made us happy in earlier times.
You frame threadmills and soylent (terrible name, though) as gerbils in a cage. That's one way to frame it. But I choose to frame those things as steps towards becoming something more than humans, with humanity taking its destiny in its own hands.
Maybe one day we will have conquered death and live as long as we want to, but until then a small-ish machine that improves my quality of life with me barely noticing is a good first step.
We might be the only animals that eat "for nutrition" instead of "for enjoyment", but we are also the only animals that read.
Just because you make an analogy doesn't mean it's valid lol.
Like there's obviously an entire category of differences between a person consciously choosing to use a treadmill desk versus a captive pet gerbil on a wheel.
Some of the highest performing humans for the past couple thousand years have spent an abnormal amount of time in dimly lit rooms reading, what we're doing now is not far off if you're actually plugging away at useful tasks and not mindless scrolling.
For what it’s worth, I made a similar decision. My dedicated home office is large enough to reengineer for a treadmill (I used one at Google every day for a short while), but I decided it was better for me to go on frequent mini 5 minute walks outside, with long walks before work and sometimes during lunch break. Being outside is healthy, which is why I like to find a shady spot outside to work for short periods.
Also, short walks are great times to think about work. Or, sometimes having a pad of paper to think away from a computer.
> Picture tech people walking on their treadmills for compensation and then picture gerbils running on wheels for food. Picture tech people drinking Soylent and then picture gerbils eating pellets. The world is whack.
A bit much? I'm not sure where you get soylent from.
Nobody is substituting here, I didn't get that from the OP at all.
Another commenter mentioned that working from home allows for asynchronous tasks, the OP merely stated that means he can work and work-out on a treadmill. He is neither being compensated for or replacing going out into nature.
Yeah. That’s what optimization is. It turns out that when I sit for work, then lift for health, then walk in nature for enjoyment I get a lot more out of each of these than when I try to get one thing to meet all these needs.
Like, this is the most normal thing that it works this way.
This naturalistic fallacy nonsense is so tiresome. “Oh wasn’t it great that we lived in nature and got eaten by bears”. No. It sucked.
Survey seems pretty flawed and potentially biased. The survey was done by a contractor/home improvement company so maybe they used customer's as their population?
While SWEs might need/want a good desk setup, many office jobs just don't need it. I'm not sure people are really improvising but rather find sitting with a laptop is how they normally work anyway.
And working in the bedroom can be misleading... it's often a private place you can put a proper desk.
I WFH and went from living alone to having 3 roommates who all WFH. I have my bed, desk, and theater setup all in the (master bedroom). It's actually better than a 1bdr apartment, it's quieter (no leafblowers!) and I don't have dirty dishes right behind me.
I have a small desk but a 4K 32" monitor and a vertical 1080p one. A microphone on an arm and NO webcam; I use screen sharing 90% of the time but I don't need to see peoples faces. (I really wish video calling didn't compress >1080p screens so much). If I need a webcam, I use my laptop.
Maybe the pandemic changed things but you could get decent chairs for $20 at goodwill.
I guess I'm just skeptical that a majority of people have difficulty working from their home... You know the place you live and pick your own furniture.
It depends of the country. In my country-side town in Europe, I would have no issue.
Now I am in Hong-Kong, and it's really hard to find a place that have enough place for a desk in a bedroom / place in the living room, without breaking your bank account. I heard that it's the same for Singapore.
I'm still amazed at how we lack both ergonomic and comfortable ways to use computers, it's usually just either one or the other, never both.
Imagine a large pillow that's shaped vaguely like human back should be when resting, which you could put on your bed to support your entire back, neck and head, at a slight incline. Then, add a keyboard support that can be moved around, alongside with one for mouse (or just a trackpad), as well as a VESA wall mount for a few monitors above the bed, angled so that you can look up at the screens directly, without putting too much strain on your eyes.
And, because it'd be just a few pillows and some aluminum pieces for the mounts, it shouldn't break the bank like the linked item either. Otherwise, even with reminders to get up and walk around every hour, it always feels like my back is in the wrong position, regardless whether i'm sitting at a table with a chair, laying in bed with some pillows underneath or anything else. Even though i do stretches and daily exercise, the lack of truly ergonomic ways to work without having to constantly monitor my own posture (which will realistically never happen) feels like a detriment, or at least will become one in 20 years, when back issues start manifesting.
So here's my question: why are people so obsessed with office chairs and why don't we have such pillows be more popular, or just don't put more thought into working from bed?
The most capable and ergonomic interface device I have found is, after extensive configuration, the Steam Controller. For file management, web browsing and social media I don't really have to use a keyboard aside from typing, and in both modes my posture is symmetric. Transition to games is of course seamless.
Sadly, it is no longer on the market but the community behind it expects a new model.
This is almost my setup for years, except using a laptop with a hi-res 17" screen rested on my knees.
I can sit in this position for hours on end without getting uncomfortable.
I've tried out every office chair including the Aeron, they don't compare in any way. If I was forced to work from a chair, I'd get a $100 adjustable deck chair.
I also found multiple monitors are very tiring on your head/eyes which need to be constantly moving between them which takes time and energy. Alt-tabbing is much quicker and as a bonus you're not gimped when forced to work from a single monitor/laptop while outside.
I'm afraid that trying to compile an enterprise Java codebase with a laptop on my knees would be painful, since currently it maxes out all cores for a few minutes.
A deck chair seems like an interesting idea, however!
In regards to screens, I've found that 4 is still not enough for me - even some of them are stacked vertically with a DIY VESA mount and stand, so the movements end up being pretty limited and are more like the occasional gentle stretch.
Then again, I'm the kind of person who likes to have multiple categorized browser instances open, text editors, IDEs, source control tools and terminals to the point where managing all of the windows would be a hassle. Workspaces could help, maybe even tiling window managers, but I think everyone has their own preferred workflows.
For the pillows I recommend pregnancy pillows - they're filled with some kind of small grains and adjust to your body perfectly, providing an amazing level of comfort.
Is $7k really expensive even for non-programming jobs? Assuming a 5-year lifespan, that comes at around $120/month which should be affordable to most of the developed world.
I have another theory: The reason we didn't adopt such ergonomic setups is because they look "weird". We are quite used to sitting in chairs and it's not quite far from sitting on a rock.
A customized ergonomic setup will pay itself in quite a short time.
Yes, it is. For that same amount of money, in my country, i could purchase 2 used cars, or just buy food for about 3 years (without eating out), or pay rent for almost 2 years.
Alternatively, such a setup would cost me almost 5 month's worth of net salaries (as a software developer in one of the countries that people outsource to) and that is before any additional shipping costs.
Such setups might make sense for people in the 1st world countries with decent salaries, but for me and may others who live in Eastern Europe or other countries that aren't as financially advanced, that is still a considerable sum of money.
As for your point in regards to looks - i somewhat agree, however i definitely wouldn't mind such a setup in a full remote working position.
Especially when eventually coupled with some high quality VR headset that would provide a passable resolution for programming (essentially at least an effective resolution of 1280x720 per virtual screen). It might be a while until that becomes feasible, if ever, though.
This is the most out of touch comment I have seen in a long time, even for hackernews. A lot of people with office jobs are making $35k-$40k a year. You're talking about 1/4th of their take home salary, and $120 a month is an expense that at least 50% of America couldn't afford and most don't have $7k on hand to blow.
I've worked from home since March 2020 and I sit in a crappy folding chair from Costco. My office sent me a chair, and I also tried a kitchen chair, but I found the folding one the most comfortable, in that it doesn't lead to back pain after long use, while the others do.
I've found the most important thing is setting the heights of my screen and keyboard properly, that seems to be the main determinant of discomfort.
I think there's something to be said for the general lack of movement that comes with WFH. It could be pure coincidence but the years I was in best shape running were the years when I had a 30 minute walk to/from work.
I now work from home and try to get out some mornings for a walk around the neighborhood but more often than not, I go straight from bed to a chair. My body gradually loosens up during the day but mostly in a seated position.
I bought a pair of Steelcase Criterions from a local used furniture store for $75 each. They have been wonderful. But I am going to have to order new pistons for them as mine has started to slowly sink. Those seem to run about $45 and are easy to replace. Might upgrade the casters while I’m at it.
I’m probably going to be an outlier in any poll because I’ve almost always worked from home, and never bought a chair for my desk. I did however have a really painful experience with my most recent chair, as in significant pain head to heel daily for months. And it turned out it was back pain I couldn’t even feel. A friend gave me a desk chair when he replaced his and now it’s down to head and neck pain.
When I found out I was working from home a few years ago, I bought a used Steel Case Leap
for about $200. Since then, I’ve probably sat in that chair for at least 5000 hours.
It’s easily worth every penny.
The same logic for busing a bed should apply to home office ergonomics. You’re going to spend eight hours per day with both. Invest!
I use a $3999 Hale Aircomfort Zero Gravity Recliner with Air Massage [1]. I have three 27" monitors that are attached to a motorized sit/stand desk, purely so I can adjust their height as I adjust my depth of recline. This is an investment in my health that my employer doesn't seem to want to even discuss.
Recent survey asked "Are you missing equipment that is only available at the office?" No, it's the other way around thanks.
Working from home for a few years I have a Steelcase Leap v2, standing desk I use about 20-30% of the time, and a crappy office chair I use when I'm just sitting down for a few minutes (one 'problem' with a lot of high quality office chairs is that they tend to be designed in a way that promotes continued sitting).
Surprisingly, "gaming" chairs might be the best, most cost effective option. Ars Technica[1] reviewed a couple gaming chairs from the home office viewpoint.
I bought a toned-down style version of the Secretlab Titan chair pretty early in the pandemic and it is way better than my Aeron at work. And the Aeron is way better than any other normal office chair.
I have a crappy $80 ikea office chair. It’s served me well for years and is light years ahead of random dining room chairs - if people are using those for extended periods of time I’m not surprised they’re getting injured - I’ve been there and it’s why I got a half decent chair.
I love the Capisco Hag "standing desk" chair. The desk stays in standing position and I hop on and off of the chair. It's a chair that encourages you to take new positions all the time.
It works really well for me. It's the single best piece of equipment I have in my office.
A lot of people recommend the Aeron, but I am not a fan of the plastic hoop, as I sometimes pull a leg up underneath me.
I have a Lifeform with a custom seat made with a cut out for the perineum and coccyx to make sure all my weight sits on my glutes and thighs and keeps pressure off the spine. It's insanely adjustable, has a amazing lumbar support, and is very comfortable to sit in for long periods of time.
I bought an used fully loaded Aeron for $320, delivered, on Craigslist 2 years ago. I wasn't sure it would be worth full price, so used seemed like the way to go.
I wouldn't think twice of spending full price ($1500?) for one now. But I doubt it will ever need replacing... it was built in 1998(!!), like a tank. Some time later I bought a new gas strut for $50 (the old designs wobble) and some Atomdoc castors so it would glide over the hardwood floor.
Adjusted it once when I first got it. Vastly reduced my back issues - though a chair is just one part of back care.
After switching to standing and seeing incredible gains in my body health, it's hard for me to consider spending on a good chair. I have a standing stool at the ready if I really need a rest, or at that point it means I need a break anyway. Oh and I started without a standing desk: just repurposed a piece of high furniture to find out if I can work this way. I was tired the first week but you quickly get to where sitting for long periods is unappealing!
It's cliche, but the Aeron. Your ass and back will never feel sore or like you need to get up.
They're wicked expensive brand new, but I found mine for $200 off Craigslist. Have had it for 3-4 years and it's one of the best purchases I've ever made.
Steelcase Please seems to be ideal for my above average height. Quite expensive though, if you are getting it for the list price - check if your company has a discount with them or their local distributors as many companies apparently do.
The way it's written it looks like the bed (and the couch etc) are used for work because alot of remote workers don't have a real office to work in. I have a dedicated office in my home to work from with a real office chair and standing desk and that's where I do my work. A colleague of mine even has an under desk treadmill.
This does bring up a valid point that not everyone can afford these things, but employers should provide them IMO.
This is the issue with “hybrid” work. You either live somewhere where you can afford an office, or somewhere where the commute is bearable. Living somewhere where you have a dedicated office and the commute isn’t hell is a very expensive proposition in most American cities.
Agree. WFH a couple of days a week is largely nonsensical. Employers still need to pay for office space. Employees need dedicated work space in their homes and additional equipment while still needing to be located relatively close to the office.
It seems impractical for employers to pay for an addition to your house if you don’t have a room (let alone moving you to an entirely new building if you don’t own).
In which case employers should just increase wages to take into account how much is saved on office space. Then workers might be able to afford larger houses or apartments.
Then let employees work from home permanently so they can afford a larger house.
Telling employees to work from home for a year but be prepared to come back to the office at any time is the worst of both worlds - they have to pay high housing prices to live within easy commute distance of the office, but meanwhile they have to work from home and may live in a very small home.
Some employees may prefer to live in or near a city for other reasons, but others would be happy to move farther away.
Even in their own offices most employers don't even provide a height-adjustable desk, or a good quality mouse and keyboard. They're not going to pay for a treadmill at home…
mmm yeah thats a good point, I was considering downsizing during the pandemic because I wasn’t using some rooms and am nomadic and hanging out at cafes and coworking spaces
but now that I’m back I can see how having the dedicated office is a luxury
The tone of these articles gives me an ulcer. Let me relay to you all the places I've gotten remote work done over the years:
* Private office space
* Co-working space
* Dedicated home office
* Bedroom corner office
* Bed
* Sofa
* Kitchen
* Bathroom
* Garage
* Solarium
* Hotel
* Coffee Shop
* Car
* Lakeside
* Beach
* Park bench / picnic table
* Jury Duty waiting room
* Airplane
* Subway
* Streetcar
* Train
* Ferry
* Top of a mountain in the wilderness
And I'm probably forgetting a handful of other locales!
_This is the whole point of remote work._ The tasks you perform and the location in which you accomplish those tasks are wholly unbundled, and I'll be damned if I let anyone talk down to me to tell me which ways are better or worse for me at any given time. That's my decision and mine alone.
Anyone complaining about the pain doesn't know how to work in bed. lie face down and prop your chest up with a pillow. you can work for hours that way. When that gets tiring, roll over, and brace yourself against the backboard or wall with the same pillow to support your lumbar. repeat for zero back stress computer programming.
if it's because of muscles, you should really be training your neck but adjusting your pillow to support your head works as well. it's a bit more finicky though. If it's flexibility you've gotta do more stretches just for your health.
I'm a fan of raising my legs and propping the laptop up against my knee. Comfortable typing angle and my head can rest on a very small pillow so I am no craning my neck forward.
Readit News
I've had "real" offices. I've worked in open-plan offices. I've had a home office. I've worked from bed.
There are tons of good ways to do it.
Lately I swap between a kitchen table and a chair on my porch. I no longer use multiple screens, I've just gotten really fast at swapping windows on my 15" laptop; I've gotten good at figuring out how wide my terminal window breaks should be and where my browser dev tools should sit.
Surely there are more optimal ways of doing stuff. Odds are that there is a Taylorist approach that would pull more productivity out of me. But much like my typing speed (~50WPM) isn't really the limiting factor in my programming skill, screen real estate isn't a big factor in getting stuff done for me.
But the big thing for me is that, in the end, it's fine for me to switch stuff up on a monthly or quarterly or yearly basis.
I could never have done that when I was in an office. I couldn't take 20 min and play banjo or accordion and come back to my problem with a fresh eye. I couldn't put on my laundry and hang it up while I listen to other folks on the daily stand up. I couldn't start my lunch cooking in the instapot while waiting for a script to finish running.
It would take a hard, hard sell to get me back in an office, not matter how much real and legitimate enjoyment and utility other folks get in an office.
However, I have my doubts about productivity in smaller teams and startups. Being in the same space physically I think speeds up a lot of things. In small teams and esp. at early stage startups your whole day is a meeting where things are discussed and resolved spontaneously. Sometimes it is important to have an environment where information is exchanged dynamically and in an unordered fashion, as opposed to structured meetings, schedules and planning that become necessary in fully remote teams.
Then there's the social part. At least don't forget to do regular meetups in real life if you can.
Honestly, I'm very divided over this. Is there a way to have the spontaneity and dynamism of working in small teams in real life, and have the comfort and freedom of working from home?
Who's going to write the fine-detail code if they whole day is a meeting? It may change from case to case, but for some small teams the biggest challenge is to produce something so good that it out-competes the product of teams significantly larger. A brilliant idea gets you 5% of the way, the rest is getting busy with very boring details and corner cases.
My small teams and startup experience: none of that boring work gets done as soon as there are two people together. Simply put, social interaction is way nicer than boring work. This is not just technical development work, but even commercial research. I know this is a thought crime, but I sometimes feel like it would be a good idea to lock the socialite sales person in a room with no human contact whatsoever until they finish that Excel spreadsheet.
If we need a real meeting or need to talk with a specific subject, we just go to another conference room, in the same way we’d use a meeting room in the office.
The thing though is that we have a dedicated device for the visio. For now it’s a Cisco DX but it could work with an iPad for example.
One argument that I think fails in the long run is that creativity drops. Maybe it does, in the short term, but if people are happier at home, and more companies will support it, new ways of being creative or even together will be found. I wouldn't worry so much about losing the "classic, old" way creativity worked before, there is so much to be gained and so much yet to be learned. Give it some time, embrace it, see where it takes us.
One example of growing creativity for me has been: One colleague in our team is from the US, he's the only one. Pre-Covid he'd be on a speaker in our meeting room, no cam on. Since Covid he has his cam on, same as everyone else. We engage much more in small talk, recently we got a tour of his house and garden via webcam. What a nice guy! We wrote some patents together now too. Even though we are 8 hours flying away from each other. The talent pool for teams just grows much bigger.
I do not understand how people can get work done in an environment like this. I've had similar experiences and "the whole day is a meeting" only served me for unnecessary interruptions, useless workplace banter and unsatisfactory results.
It's worth remembering that this high communication method isn't really scalable too, and that larger teams trying to follow it will find themselves dedicating a larger % of their time to noise. It would take some intentional actions to move away from it as the team grows.
Many people who like remote work although also do not like something like that arrangement although.
...and also makes a lot of people unable to focus.
Putting engineers in a war room or open office is only going to irritate the ones who want to spend their time doing deep work. And those are usually the better ones.
Being able to noodle on a guitar while stepping away from a problem is a super power for me. If you work from home, get an instrument you can distract yourself with. The music or drills can break you out of ruts, and if you do it half seriously, you can develop real skill.
The oh so serious kabuki show we all play out in offices, especially open plans, wastes a lot of mental energy on "professionalism" and decor. People get away with being good at that type of theater, instead of being competent problem solvers, or try to turn those things into leverage for internal politics and career maneuvering.
If people are doing knowledge work, then the privacy of their home gets rid of all the unnecessary play acting. Maybe the pandemic will demonstrate once and for all that an employee with a good work ethic can be lots more effective from home than at the office. And if we encourage music and creativity and development of other relaxation and focusing skills in service of optimizing mental acuity, that leads to a better world.
Except for all the hours you spend on video calls where people are looking directly into your home. If you use some type of background to blur your home, that becomes the same type of "kabuki show" you reference about offices.
==Maybe the pandemic will demonstrate once and for all that an employee with a good work ethic can be lots more effective from home than at the office. ==
Maybe you have a bias here? I know lots of people with "good work ethics" who feel less productive at home.
Contrasting to a 9-5 job, I would rather just order takeaways after getting back home from the office.
And I find too that it doesn't even reduce down your working time too - an awful lot of thinking time in an office is when you get up from your desk and walk to the watercooler, bathroom, whatever. I do so much thinking and working out whilst doing these home chores.
Having the right setup is not only about making your brain more productive - it's about keeping your spine pain free. While my home office is set up for this purpose, only one company that I have worked with so far had this aspect in mind. In the past, I had to take days off because of terrible set ups and long work hours. Having a well positioned and large second monitor helps a lot.
You have much more control over this while designing your home office. Working from bed is not the way unless you're planning to marry a physiotherapist in the future.
One of my team decided that they needed a good chair for medical reasons and asked for it. They got a really nice chair.
I don't know if anyone complained, but it wasn't long before the whole team had really nice chairs. The cost was negligible compared to the morale boost, IMO. I don't think I ever looked at that chair without thinking, "Man, that's a good chair!"
When I got a new job that had crappy chairs, I bought myself a new chair right away without even asking. Whenever I upgraded, I'd give my old one to anyone on my team that wanted it. I don't know if they cared much, but it sure made me feel better.
The headline is misleading because I would have answered that I work from bed sometimes, but I also work from every chair or position around the house. I have a laptop and I move around.
Working from bed is when I am trying to finish something that's not particularly challenging while also kind of watching the baseball game on TV.
Lately, I've been wondering if less screen real estate actually makes me a better programmer.
Being able to simultaneously have 6 files open across two large monitors with a lot of vertical real estate means that messy code doesn't hurt me as much. In fact, I'm pretty sure the only reason I do that is to facilitate dealing with messy code. I no longer have to build a stable mental model of it in my head, because it's reasonably convenient to just keep referring back to the original source code.
When I'm just on the laptop screen, though, and I can fit one file full width, or two if I've been good about keeping the line length below 90, I start having to keep things in my short term memory. Which means that, when it's not amenable to that, I'm relatively quick to get annoyed and refactor it for comprehensibility. I'd like to think that, with time, I'd eventually come to just write more comprehensible code in the first place.
A couple more data points here, obviously riddled with bias, come from my colleagues. Some have desktop computers with multiple 4K monitors, some have a laptop connected to a single external monitor, and some have that and also a habit of unplugging the computer and working on the front porch whenever the weather is nice. My impression is that the people in the first group tend to write the least comprehensible code.
Of course, the 4K monitor jocks also tend to work the fastest. But I think it's maybe a bit like when I used to work for building contractor. Nobody liked to be on the same crew as the person who worked the fastest.
I used to have two external monitors and it was always frustrating to dock/undock and re-arrange my windows. That was why I transitioned. But I've seen no reason or negative impact on my work to drive me to return to multiple screens.
HackerNews often talks about how task switching and multi-tasking negatively affect focus. I wonder if those same people think multiple monitors contribute to either of those. On my screen I only ever have one window; it feels more intentional. On three screens I had email and teams on one, a browser on another, and my IDE on the third. Surely that's more distracting, no?
Initial Google results seem to sing the praises of multiple monitors. Am I truly unproductive on my one screen or have others seen the same benefits? How can "productivity" even be quantified?
So I was forced to just use my Macbook Air, and I was preparing for a massive productivity hit, and tbh- I think it may have actually helped a bit- I don't think we realize how much we get distracted by having email and slack or whatever open all the time, and just being able to focus on one task at a time visually was actually kind of a relief.
Long term, I am going to want monitors back and all, but I think there is a real benefit to keeping the things that are not 100% your attention at that moment entirely minimized and out of view.
I too stopped using multiple screens some time ago because it felt like being overwhelmed with information and experiencing fatigue, while not being more productive.
I do agree about going back to an office... Its not really something I anticipate doing.
My approach is that I think about how much commuting would cost me, and consider that a reasonable amount to invest in my working space at home. As a result, I have a very small, but very functional space that I feel good about sitting in for 8 hours a day. I'm comfortable, I'm calm, and when I need to think, I don't feel stressed by my environment.
Edit: to give some examples - I have very carefully chosen art for the walls that I can stare at and my mind can drift, when I need to solve problems. I had a desk custom made to give me the most amount of space because this is a very small room (~3m x ~2.5m) that regular desks can't make the best use of. I have great audio gear (mic, headphones and speakers), carefully tuned lighting, etc, etc. In isolation the thousands I've spent on this room seems kind-of ridiculous, but compared to the thousands more I haven't spent on commuting and compared to the satisfaction I get when sitting in here, I think it was absolutely worth it, and I am very grateful that I was privileged enough to be able to make all these choices.
In the last year, as travel/f2f was essentially taken off the table, I've moved to laptop with 2 external monitors, and just recently to 'desktop' setup. I still have the laptop, and use it to work from home now and then, but I'm slowly getting used to more screen real estate. It's not even so much 2 monitors, just a much larger main one. 32" vs the 15" has been a big difference, mostly for the better.
But... I had years of comments from a lot of folks about "no idea how you can get anything done from just one laptop - that screen is so small, etc."
That said, as other commenters have mentioned, there is value (for me) to work in a team and to have others actually depend on me and my progress; I need a bit of external pressure. At the moment it's mainly self-pressure / self-motivation, which isn't the best.
I do think in the future I'll pursue jobs where I'm both independent but also replaceable, because at the moment I'm not replaceable so I don't feel like I can move on yet.
Your work habits suggest the best "Taylorist" improvement might just be to let you roam. Seems to be working best.
> I could never have done that when I was in an office. I couldn't take 20 min and play banjo or accordion and come back to my problem with a fresh eye.
I've seen music/game rooms at good companies. If a company can't set aside some space for breaks, that's a red flag.
I mean ... you could.
And maybe that's just a supposition that I was making.
People pay me to play music-- it's not that I'm bad at it. But there are a lot of reasons ranging from not annoying other folks to not looking like I care more about playing scales than fixing a problem which make me think I should not do that kind of thing.
I have two areas of my yard where I can work, one is always shady, I have a dedicated office, but also work in the living room and kitchen table. I have a nice external monitor on my desk, but I don’t really need it for most writing or work tasks.
How's your spine? my neck can't handle laptops any more.
In my experience he's at least not completely wrong, but in the long term I still aim to try a standing desk to mix it up, sooner or later sitting in general feels wrong when I overdo it. And I just prefer a single large screen. Enough to fit two windows beside each other with enough space for any situation.
IMO, core strength has been the big change in how my spine feels.
I'm back in a traditional office setting. My diversions are mostly the "surf around on the Internet" variety. That's not to say random Internet use didn't happen when I worked at home, but I found I enjoyed random non-computer diversions far more than sitting viewing websites. Now that I'm in an office those non-computer diversions aren't an option. I just end up wasting time on websites when I need a break.
I also really, really miss working from my couch with my 15" laptop on my lap. It was vastly more comfortable than any desk setup I've ever had and discouraged me from hoarding physical articles in drawers, corners of a desk, etc.
I have 3 full monitors, one for running 10 or so processes that I can glance at stdout, then the other two monitors for having many different editor files open, numerous data plots, and multiple reference guides open, etc.
My home office is 2 monitors. My work office is 3, however I only find myself using 2
This is the right approach from an ergonomic standpoint - cycle through how you sit/stand while working and you’ll minimize a lot of joint issues. If some position is causing you issues, it’s easy to identify and effortless to switch. At minimum it isn’t healthy to sit for hours straight. It’s also easy to mix in a few workouts or use some sort of treadmill or stationary bike.
Years ago I went from 3 27” screens down to 1 12” MacBook and had no loss in productivity. I was primarily doing design and data analysis work. DPI and OS window management matters more unless you have vision issues.
Yeah, there's a secret value in low level distractions: they prevent higher level distractions. When you go into a deep focus environment for that daily, chances are your mind will focus deeply on something entirely unrelated.
Does Remote Work prevent burn out?
If you are feeling disconnected from the value of your work, being away from other people doesn't reconnect you.
If you are fire-fighting one emergency after another, not seeing other people in vivo doesn't get you downtime.
1. Your work is not your life.
2. Since it's not your life, don't get too invested in it.
3. Plan your free time ahead and fill it with stuff that makes you happy.
4. Eat good, sleep good, and Sport sport sport (from everything a good amount and not too much)
5. Don't take drugs on regular "recreational" basis (yes alcohol is especially included here)
6. If your away from work, don't think about it.
I think stand-ups are useless.
If you can make a setup like this work for you, I highly recommend it. Your body will thank you in the long run.
EDIT>> A few of you are asking about the model. I actually bought 2, one for myself and one for my partner, who also loves it.
This one is mine https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07V7F8QYK. I got it when it had a $100-off coupon, so the price wasn't as steep. No real complaints so far, except you can't store it upright. I just roll it out of the way when I want to sit.
The one for my partner is https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0895DRWVY. She likes it. It's a little smaller and can be stored upright and out of the way, which is nice. There have been complaints about the remote (and it only comes with 1), but the manufacturer claims to ship new remotes free of charge if yours breaks.
They're both a little quirky with a very simple LCD screen. Supposedly mine has an app integration for step counting, but I just use my phone in my pocket. They both get the job done.
Whether it’s for you is quite personal: See if you can find somewhere to try it out for a few minutes, in particular try typing and using the mouse/trackpad while walking. My treadmill tops out at 4 mph (6.4 km/h), which is really too fast to do anything but walk. I can watch videos at 3mph, code routine easy stuff at ~2mph, code hard stuff at ~1mph, and to read hairy code I have to stop completely. I don’t walk all day, I also stand and sit.
Some things that will help you have a good experience:
• Get a purpose-built walking treadmill: They’re smaller and more importantly go much slower. • Get a very solid, stable desk and put it on a stable floor. Any little monitor shake will make things miserable. • The treadmill is not silent, so you’ll probably need to stop when speaking on video. It’s awesome to be in watch/listen-only meetings and put in a mile or two. • A nice option I’ll upgrade to someday is a stand-alone walking treadmill with a wireless control, plus a nice sit/stand desk.
We often joked that, when we all inevitably got treadmill desks, we'd have to get him a climbing-wall desk. It'd be great! We could just stick a computer at the top of this thing, and maybe some espresso for motivation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjiepNna8GA
He agreed.
Sadly, we never did get treadmill desks.
Do you wear shoes while walking? Do you typically wear shoes indoors then?
I'll usually do 10k steps in the morning, take a break and sit and eat lunch and rest for a bit, then finish another 10k steps.
The treadmill has rear wheels, and I roll it back out of the way of my desk, then roll my chair back to my desk, when I want to sit.
I don't wear shoes while walking or indoors. If I start getting foot problems, I might get a pair of indoor shoes.
If not, what kind of mic are you using? I think a headset will suffer from the heavy breathing
Also - post your standing desk or its dimensions please
I was helping IT support before the pandemic when I had free time (or waiting something to finish) And I liked all the walking around the office, between buildings, etc.
Now, I artifically simulate situation by leg-shaking :)
People are substituting artificial things for the natural things that made us happy in earlier times. Walking on a treadmill vs walking outside in the sun and shade amidst plants, trees, and other living things. Eating things for nutrition vs eating fruits and vegetables for enjoyment.
You're not the first person to mention gerbils on wheels to me. I think it's mostly a reaction to seeing something unconventional, despite its health benefits. If you feel like you're not living your ideal life in this industry (assuming you are also in tech), that's fine, but don't project that onto me please. I enjoy what I do and how I live.
You frame threadmills and soylent (terrible name, though) as gerbils in a cage. That's one way to frame it. But I choose to frame those things as steps towards becoming something more than humans, with humanity taking its destiny in its own hands.
Maybe one day we will have conquered death and live as long as we want to, but until then a small-ish machine that improves my quality of life with me barely noticing is a good first step.
We might be the only animals that eat "for nutrition" instead of "for enjoyment", but we are also the only animals that read.
Also, short walks are great times to think about work. Or, sometimes having a pad of paper to think away from a computer.
A bit much? I'm not sure where you get soylent from.
Nobody is substituting here, I didn't get that from the OP at all.
Another commenter mentioned that working from home allows for asynchronous tasks, the OP merely stated that means he can work and work-out on a treadmill. He is neither being compensated for or replacing going out into nature.
Like, this is the most normal thing that it works this way.
This naturalistic fallacy nonsense is so tiresome. “Oh wasn’t it great that we lived in nature and got eaten by bears”. No. It sucked.
https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2019/02/seeking-the-prod...
While SWEs might need/want a good desk setup, many office jobs just don't need it. I'm not sure people are really improvising but rather find sitting with a laptop is how they normally work anyway.
And working in the bedroom can be misleading... it's often a private place you can put a proper desk.
I WFH and went from living alone to having 3 roommates who all WFH. I have my bed, desk, and theater setup all in the (master bedroom). It's actually better than a 1bdr apartment, it's quieter (no leafblowers!) and I don't have dirty dishes right behind me.
I have a small desk but a 4K 32" monitor and a vertical 1080p one. A microphone on an arm and NO webcam; I use screen sharing 90% of the time but I don't need to see peoples faces. (I really wish video calling didn't compress >1080p screens so much). If I need a webcam, I use my laptop.
Maybe the pandemic changed things but you could get decent chairs for $20 at goodwill.
I guess I'm just skeptical that a majority of people have difficulty working from their home... You know the place you live and pick your own furniture.
Now I am in Hong-Kong, and it's really hard to find a place that have enough place for a desk in a bedroom / place in the living room, without breaking your bank account. I heard that it's the same for Singapore.
Just get an Aeron and expense it.
Imagine a large pillow that's shaped vaguely like human back should be when resting, which you could put on your bed to support your entire back, neck and head, at a slight incline. Then, add a keyboard support that can be moved around, alongside with one for mouse (or just a trackpad), as well as a VESA wall mount for a few monitors above the bed, angled so that you can look up at the screens directly, without putting too much strain on your eyes.
Essentially, it'd be the bed version of this: https://altwork.com/
And, because it'd be just a few pillows and some aluminum pieces for the mounts, it shouldn't break the bank like the linked item either. Otherwise, even with reminders to get up and walk around every hour, it always feels like my back is in the wrong position, regardless whether i'm sitting at a table with a chair, laying in bed with some pillows underneath or anything else. Even though i do stretches and daily exercise, the lack of truly ergonomic ways to work without having to constantly monitor my own posture (which will realistically never happen) feels like a detriment, or at least will become one in 20 years, when back issues start manifesting.
So here's my question: why are people so obsessed with office chairs and why don't we have such pillows be more popular, or just don't put more thought into working from bed?
Sadly, it is no longer on the market but the community behind it expects a new model.
Here's a Google Translate link for anyone who isn't familiar with the German language: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https...
I can sit in this position for hours on end without getting uncomfortable.
I've tried out every office chair including the Aeron, they don't compare in any way. If I was forced to work from a chair, I'd get a $100 adjustable deck chair.
I also found multiple monitors are very tiring on your head/eyes which need to be constantly moving between them which takes time and energy. Alt-tabbing is much quicker and as a bonus you're not gimped when forced to work from a single monitor/laptop while outside.
A deck chair seems like an interesting idea, however!
In regards to screens, I've found that 4 is still not enough for me - even some of them are stacked vertically with a DIY VESA mount and stand, so the movements end up being pretty limited and are more like the occasional gentle stretch.
Then again, I'm the kind of person who likes to have multiple categorized browser instances open, text editors, IDEs, source control tools and terminals to the point where managing all of the windows would be a hassle. Workspaces could help, maybe even tiling window managers, but I think everyone has their own preferred workflows.
I have another theory: The reason we didn't adopt such ergonomic setups is because they look "weird". We are quite used to sitting in chairs and it's not quite far from sitting on a rock.
A customized ergonomic setup will pay itself in quite a short time.
Alternatively, such a setup would cost me almost 5 month's worth of net salaries (as a software developer in one of the countries that people outsource to) and that is before any additional shipping costs.
Such setups might make sense for people in the 1st world countries with decent salaries, but for me and may others who live in Eastern Europe or other countries that aren't as financially advanced, that is still a considerable sum of money.
As for your point in regards to looks - i somewhat agree, however i definitely wouldn't mind such a setup in a full remote working position.
Especially when eventually coupled with some high quality VR headset that would provide a passable resolution for programming (essentially at least an effective resolution of 1280x720 per virtual screen). It might be a while until that becomes feasible, if ever, though.
I want a breakdown of remote work preference by dollar amount spent on office chair. I think this would be revealing.
I've found the most important thing is setting the heights of my screen and keyboard properly, that seems to be the main determinant of discomfort.
I now work from home and try to get out some mornings for a walk around the neighborhood but more often than not, I go straight from bed to a chair. My body gradually loosens up during the day but mostly in a seated position.
Yep, what you sit on makes a huge difference.
It’s easily worth every penny.
The same logic for busing a bed should apply to home office ergonomics. You’re going to spend eight hours per day with both. Invest!
Recent survey asked "Are you missing equipment that is only available at the office?" No, it's the other way around thanks.
[1] https://relaxtheback.com/products/hale-aircomfort-recliner
Good setup costs about $200USD, you will be feeling enlightened in no time.
I bought a toned-down style version of the Secretlab Titan chair pretty early in the pandemic and it is way better than my Aeron at work. And the Aeron is way better than any other normal office chair.
[1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/10/gaming-chair-shootou...
Style, material preferences, and budget will guide the best pick. You can't really go wrong so long as your choice is an adjustable chair.
It works really well for me. It's the single best piece of equipment I have in my office.
[0] https://www.fully.com/hag-capisco-chair.html
Video: https://fast.wistia.net/embed/iframe/85magd19k5
I have a Lifeform with a custom seat made with a cut out for the perineum and coccyx to make sure all my weight sits on my glutes and thighs and keeps pressure off the spine. It's insanely adjustable, has a amazing lumbar support, and is very comfortable to sit in for long periods of time.
https://lifeformchairs.com/ultimate-2390-ergonomic-office-ch...
I wouldn't think twice of spending full price ($1500?) for one now. But I doubt it will ever need replacing... it was built in 1998(!!), like a tank. Some time later I bought a new gas strut for $50 (the old designs wobble) and some Atomdoc castors so it would glide over the hardwood floor.
Adjusted it once when I first got it. Vastly reduced my back issues - though a chair is just one part of back care.
http://neutralposture.com/
https://bodybilt.com/
I've had a BodyBilt from even before the DotBomb so I never understood the fuss about Aerons.
They're wicked expensive brand new, but I found mine for $200 off Craigslist. Have had it for 3-4 years and it's one of the best purchases I've ever made.
Haworth are renowned for ergonomic quality, but aren't a stylish tech brand. For that reason you can usually find great deals, especially second hand.
I'm OK either way, my cat is sleeping on the Ikea chair, she won't touch the Aeron, so I get the leftovers.
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This does bring up a valid point that not everyone can afford these things, but employers should provide them IMO.
Telling employees to work from home for a year but be prepared to come back to the office at any time is the worst of both worlds - they have to pay high housing prices to live within easy commute distance of the office, but meanwhile they have to work from home and may live in a very small home.
Some employees may prefer to live in or near a city for other reasons, but others would be happy to move farther away.
but now that I’m back I can see how having the dedicated office is a luxury
* Private office space * Co-working space * Dedicated home office * Bedroom corner office * Bed * Sofa * Kitchen * Bathroom * Garage * Solarium * Hotel * Coffee Shop * Car * Lakeside * Beach * Park bench / picnic table * Jury Duty waiting room * Airplane * Subway * Streetcar * Train * Ferry * Top of a mountain in the wilderness
And I'm probably forgetting a handful of other locales!
_This is the whole point of remote work._ The tasks you perform and the location in which you accomplish those tasks are wholly unbundled, and I'll be damned if I let anyone talk down to me to tell me which ways are better or worse for me at any given time. That's my decision and mine alone.