<commit_before>---
layout: post
title: A working from home experiment
tags: personal work
---

For the last year, I’ve been commuting from Cambridge to an office in London.
The office is near King’s Cross station, so on a fast train with no delays, it’s about 90 minutes each way – or about 15 hours of commuting a week.
Turns out, that’s a lot!

Several weeks ago, I got home on the Thursday evening, and I was *exhausted*.
I’d had some severe train delays that week, and I was crying tied.
As a short term fix, I worked from home on the Friday – and I finally realised that 15+ hours of commuting was unsustainable for my long-term health.
I needed a release valve.

With agreement from everyone at work, and encouragement from [David][david] and [Camilla][camilla], I’m going to start working from home one day a week.
I have a nice home office, and our project is set up to support remote development.
I’m very lucky – from a practical standpoint, it’s easy for me to work from home.

[david]: https://twitter.com/drmaciver
[camilla]: https://twitter.com/spimescape

The primary benefit is that I’ll spend less time commuting, and just the free time I get back is significant.
It’ll probably be a mixture of Tuesdays and Thursdays, so it breaks up my remaining commutes as well.
(I’d prefer not to do Mondays or Fridays, so I can bookend the working week in the office, and one of my few fixed meetings is weekly planning on Wednesdays.)



Wellcome is an open office, which I know some people find harder to work in.
I don’t usually feel like an open office is a problem for me, so the quiet working space is less of a benefit – but it’s another reason to consider working from home.

<commit_msg>working-from-home: another round of drafting<commit_after>---
layout: post
title: A working from home experiment
tags: personal work
---

For the last year, I’ve been commuting from Cambridge to an office in London.
The office is near King’s Cross station, so on a fast train with no delays, it’s about 90 minutes each way – or about 15 hours of commuting a week.
Turns out, that’s a lot!

Several weeks ago, I got home on the Thursday evening, and I was *exhausted*.
I’d had some severe train delays that week, and I was crying tied.
As a short term fix, I worked from home on the Friday – and I finally realised that 15+ hours of commuting was unsustainable for my long-term health.
I needed a release valve.

With agreement from everyone at work, and encouragement from [David][david] and [Camilla][camilla], **I’m going to start working from home one day a week**.
I have a nice home office, and our project is set up to support remote development.
I’m very lucky – from a practical standpoint, it’s easy for me to work from home.

[david]: https://twitter.com/drmaciver
[camilla]: https://twitter.com/spimescape



The primary benefit is that I’ll spend less time commuting, and just the free time I get back is significant.
It’ll probably be a mixture of Tuesdays and Thursdays, so it breaks up my remaining commutes as well.
(I’d prefer not to do Mondays or Fridays, so I can bookend the working week in the office, and one of my few fixed meetings is weekly planning on Wednesdays.)

THIS NEEDS ANOTHER BENEFIT

TRYING GOING FULLY REMOTE?

Wellcome has an open office, which I know some people find harder to work in.
I don’t usually feel like an open office is a problem for me, so the quiet working space is less of a benefit – but it’s another reason to consider working from home.

When I've worked from home before, it's often been at short notice -- for example, when the trains to London are cancelled.
I live on my own, so on days like that I might unexpectedly not see anybody else all day.
The risk of loneliness is a common concern about remote work.
I'm hoping that by making this a more regular fixture, I can plan around it so I don't get lonely.)

The big challenge for us as a team is to keep up our communication.
The majority of working days are spent with every developer in the office, so it's easy to keep up with what we're all doing.
As we spend more time working remotely, we need to make sure we keep that up.

The other risk is that I don't end up following through!
Because I don't have a fixed day when I work from home, it would be easy to skip it in any given week, if the timings don't work out.
Longer term, I'd like to move to a fixed day.

I've only been doing this for a few weeks, but already I feel much better.
I'm less tired at the end of the week, and I have much less dread of commuting on days when I do.

As with all big changes, this probably came three to six months after I really needed it, but I'm glad I'm doing it now.
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