Isolation, depression, dark thoughts and the dark side of the remote work. Can it be salvaged?
Can you work remotely and be Not unhappy? Is it possible,
Magda?
Welcome to 71st episode of the NoOffice podcast. Again,
we skipped a few episode numbers right below 70, so it's now 71. And today we'll
talk about hacking remote work, how to get more done when you're working remotely
and if it's actually possible to be productive when you work remotely. Yeah,
because now as there's a lot of discussion about hybrid work and remote work,
I can hear people kind of biased about remote work.
It very often seems to be the source of depression and isolation,
as you said, in a theatrical way at the beginning, and people think that people who
work from home are really isolated and sad and they are squeezed somewhere between
the kitchen table and the sink and the toilet seat and it's horrible and we would
like to just, you know, like break some of those stereotypes and give you some
practical tips. Of course, it's not perfect. You can't have everything, but there are
many ways to make remote work really nice and productive and efficient and not so
lonely. Yeah, some of these tips and the whole idea for this episode was inspired
by Karl Newport. Karl, we're, you know, waving to Karl Newport. If he's listening,
I don't think he is, but if he's listening, Cal Newport, thanks for his amazing
books, Deep Work, and So Good They Can't Ignore You, and Recently Slow Productivity,
Amazing Books, and Amazing Podcast. He has a very cool podcast, and in one of the
episodes, he was talking about his way of hacking remote work, and this inspired me,
us, to do this episode to talk about some things that he mentions,
but also mention our own experiences and ideas. That's right.
So the first dark side I would think of would be the fact that when you are
working from home most people think that you are actually unemployed and you don't
have work and you are just sitting at home so So they're not kind of recognizing
it and they're not respecting your focus and they are calling you in the middle of
the day. Your dad will call you asking to help him with,
I don't know, with the car and your mom will call you just to have a chat while
she's having coffee at noon and stuff like that.
Maybe that can be difficult because not everyone really can understand that. Yeah,
that's the one thing. And especially I remember when my parents visit me sometimes
and my dad also works in our company. So we both sit with my dad. This is kind
of our co -working experience. My dad is here. I am here. We work in the same room
for a while. And then my mom comes over and she just asks, Like out of the blue,
she just asks us questions. And we're like, we are working right now.
Because she thinks, okay, there is my husband, there is my son in the same room.
Let's ask them some things, you know? And we actually know that we're working. So
we are respecting each other's boundaries. Like my father is with his laptop, I'm
with my iPad, we work, but she just comes in and she just like ask questions out
of the blue. And we were like, huh, we are working.
So it's kind of awkward.
But I think your mom understands. She knows that you are working remotely. Like she
knows. I know she's also the evangelist. But I don't know, it just works like that.
People just-- When you don't
with, you know, with desks and people and your boss standing above you. It's just,
yeah, that's just the feeling that you are not working. So what are the ideas that
how can we, how can we avoid it? There's a really good, apart from the rational
thing. So you just talk to your close ones and you explain that please don't call
me from that hour to this hour, because I'm really trying to focus. I'm working.
My dad, after like 10 or 11 years of me working in Nozbe,
he got it. Yeah. But yeah,
decade, whatever. But Paweł, Paul from our team, he had a great idea because he
also had that problem that his parents who are like elderly people. They would call
him regularly during his working hours. And when he didn't pick up the phone,
they would text him like really horrible messages, like please urgently call back or
something. So he was really stressed out. He thought that maybe there was something
wrong, an urgency accident. And then it turns out that, oh, I just wanted to ask
you whether you could lend me this hammer or I don't know the, you know, anything.
So it wasn't urgent. So what he did is he turned, he turns his phone into focus
mode. But there is some setting that lets you unblock this focus mode and let the
incoming calls through after the second time one caller calls you.
Yeah, so probably if it's really urgent and someone is once again, okay, he's not
picking up once again, then that would go through and that would be really urgent
probably. Yeah, so that's a good idea. Yeah, on the other hand, on the other hand,
as you mentioned, like your dad, it took him quite a while to understand that
you're working, you know, even though you're at home, it's, I feel like this is a
minus. People still don't understand this people still don't take me seriously here
like here my neighbors they think i'm a just stay at home dad so and even my
children sometimes like my favorite quote from my elderly daughter she was it was
like daddy i need to play with you right now i cannot i'm working no you're not
you're just writing random stuff on the internet so yeah So it's like, you know,
I'm not a, you know, lawyer, I'm not a doctor, you know, I like, there is no
respect. So, so it's, it's, it's, it's kind of okay. It's kind of okay that you
have to get used to it. But as we mentioned, you can work on the boundaries front
and explaining. I have this thing I have them right now you can buy in IKEA these
smart bulbs. So like this, you know, we can remote remotely control these bulbs. So
light bulbs. And I have a light bulb right outside of my office. And when the
right light bulb is on, it means I'm recording something. And now my kids know it.
So they don't barge in to this office, because they know that, you know, daddy is
recording something because there is a light bulb. If this light bulb is not there,
then they know, okay, they can come in because daddy is not recording anything. So
it's also kind of a, you know, visual queue, as you mentioned, but you cannot
overuse it because they would realize very soon that you were cheating if the light
bulb would be on all the time. No, no, that's why I'm not overusing it. I have it
like this that I put it on only when I, so I have this mode in my home app,
the podcasting, and when I put it on, automatically this light light bulb turns on.
So this way, when I'm done with podcasting, I turn it off and then the whole thing
turns off. So that's why I'm not using it, but on the other hand, this way, my
daughters know that at that moment, please don't come in. That's a really good idea.
Next point is lack of external motivation and the work energy, this vibe that you
can probably feel when you are in the open space office or in any kind of office
that you can see that everyone around is working, they are, you know, like, looking
into their screens and I don't know, maybe wearing headphones and just appearing and
looking very busy and very concentrated. So maybe this vibe makes you feel okay,
everyone is working, so maybe I will try to work as well. But Probably everyone
knows that in the circumstances like that you are not able to stay focused all the
time, so probably 50 % of the people who you think they are focused, they are
probably checking private email or doing something on social media, but still this
vibe can be really helpful if someone needs these external triggers and external
motivation to concentrate and work. This reminds me of something we mentioned in the
last episode of the podcast, when we're talking about this, that people were
offending me, but telling me that, you know, we wouldn't be able to work like you
guys, because we have to be in the same place, because only when we are in the
same place, there is this vibe between us and we can work creatively, otherwise we
cannot be creative. So this is like the key to being creative is that we are in
the same space and in the same place. So, but I get it. I get it.
People are here. People are around you. You know, when you work from home, you have
to self manage much better. You have to have a good tool like Nozbe to have your
tasks and projects and have feedback loops from your people. And, you know, in the
comments to tasks, this way you know what needs to be done and you know what to
do and you are motivated by by work but for me for example one of the things that
motivate motivate me a lot is seeing action in our tasks like yesterday and and the
day before when I came back from from a week long vacation and I was reviewing all
these tasks you know, all these mentions and all these comments that I was missing
out on. I was so inspired and so like motivated by seeing, for example,
some of your demos that converted into praying customers, that Jarek, for example,
did this cool thing with AI for Nozbe.
So spoiler alert, AI is coming, but it's going to be cool. So he did that.
So to me, more than seeing people work, seeing fruit of their work inspires me,
you know? And seeing that, for example, that, you know, coming back here from the
vacation and seeing that you have all prepared, you know, for the podcast and
everything is ready. So I just have to just, you know, catch up and I'll be able
to record. All these things motivate me To be better and to work better and to get
things done things that I see that you're progressing everybody's progressing and This
way I don't want to be left out because I see movement in the tasks. I see
movement in the comments I see you don't want to be the lazy one. I don't want to
be the lazy one exactly I want to be delivering cool results as well. Hey, I want
to be cool. So cool, too So so this kind of thing motivates me. Yeah, but someone
has to start right someone has to bring the effects first just to inspire the
others. And probably here the counter argument would be that it's really hard to
focus when you are all alone in your room and there are plenty of stuff that
really seduces you and tries to distract you. And here comes Mr.
Nir Eyal, I think that's how you pronounce it. This is the guy who wrote the book
"Indistractable". And he seems to be really irritated by people saying,
oh, I really cannot focus because there are all those triggers and incoming noise
and notifications and social media. I'm a victim of the whole system and I cannot
focus. And he, yeah, he says, come on, if you are like you have to find tools to
fight those things. And also, there is a nice quote that he that he wrote being
indestructible means striving to do what you say you will do. So first,
okay, generally, all motivation and everything we do or we don't do stems from the
desire to escape discomfort, to avoid discomfort and feeling anxious and feeling bad.
And it's really easy when you are in this position of a victim, that you're a
victim of the system, of notifications, of social media. Of course, it's all bad for
us. But let's avoid believing in the willpower,
and let's start labeling ourselves as having self control. After all, it's difficult,
but we can. So this is a good start just to make ourselves
accountable and just, okay, to practice self compassion,
not to be too cruel and to hurt with ourselves, but not to be a victim of
everything around because if you
There are tools to find this and you have much more agency than you believe like
you can really do things To to help you get in the groove and there are all these
you know Small tips and tricks that we have already mentioned on this podcast many
many times But this thing of having you know most of notifications off or some of
the notifications on, I still don't understand how people can have notifications about
likes on the posts on social media. Why would you do that to yourself? Also,
notifications to email. You shouldn't have these notifications. You just commit,
and this is another thing, when you commit that you will be checking email every
two hours, then it's fine. Every two hours you go there. It's like on WhatsApp.
I use WhatsApp a lot because here they use, so whenever I get, I am being added
to a new group in WhatsApp, the first thing I do is go to this group, mute
notifications always, like completely mute notifications from this group, because I
don't want to have this deluge of, you know, messages coming my way. I will open
WhatsApp. I'm using it every day. So, you know, if there are messages in this
group, I'm going to get to them, but I don't need to have notifications about them.
So it's like this you can do. And of course, you know, we have already been
talking about our Super Fridays and about weekly reviews. So about this whole fact
that if you have a good weekly review and you prepare for next week, then you know
what to do next week. Like, you know, if you have a good tool that, you know,
that has some projects and tasks, you could you could have a structured day and you
would know what to do. So it's like now as a dad I have three daughters and they
are right now basically teenagers. I mean two of them and the third is the youngest
but she's not far off and we talk about this that you know he provoked me and I'm
like no he didn't provoke you. There is no way I mean do you have do you give
him so much power that he can provoke you to do something you chose to do this
because you saw him do that you made the choice you can make another choice so
it's like the whole conversation that you know that's about your agency and about
other people or other other things not influencing you you I mean they can try to
influence you but you still have a choice it's your choice to make. Yeah it's
really difficult because naturally we are programmed to avoid discomfort so we do
things that will save us from that difficult feeling so let's say if you have a
really hard task some report or some long article something really that will require
a lot of mental energy of course you will move to checking emails,
work emails, because you want to still be working not to feel bad about it,
or you will answer to some comments, or you will do something easy. That's natural.
But if you try to convince yourself that doing this will bring a lot of
satisfaction, that you can divide it into smaller steps, that you can turn off
notifications and not check your social media and your email from 1pm to 2pm.
There are several tricks and several approaches that can lead you to
trying to And this procrastination,
this way you escape from this comfort and choose easier things and choose not to
focus and to work, but to do other stuff. Also like a practical tip that,
you know, this is what I do. So every day I start with smaller tasks.
So this way I get up to speed, like I start doing something and then, you know,
from this, I start doing the bigger task and the bigger task. And then I do
something really big. So it's like, it always like, you have to find ways that work
for you, that, that, that help you get motivated and then help you get things done.
But yeah, and what you said is really great because you said that you are planning
also the same, the same guy, Mr. Nir Eyal, he said that you can't call something a
distraction unless you know What is distracting you from? So just you need to,
this is also a nice phrase. You need to make time for traction. Yeah.
If you want to complain about this traction. So he asks people, okay,
you, you, you are being distracted all the time, but show me your calendar. And
then there is empty calendar. We've just the dentist visit p .m. or 5 30 p .m.
and maybe one meeting in the middle of the day. How can you plan your work and
how can you fight with those procrastination and with the urge to avoid discomfort
if you even didn't plan what you are going to do at which part of the day.
This is the this is the basic thing. You have to plan your day and create this
rational and achievable list of things,
blocks of time for your day, and only then you can complain that you are being
distracted, but there is a big chance that you won't be distracted because you know
what to do, you have nice breaks in between, and this is so much easier. - Yeah,
completely, completely. So yeah, planning, executing tasks, it's,
you know, And just one last thing, we talked in the last episode about hybrid,
about return to office and all that stuff. So one of the things that what I like
about people who work a hybrid way, and we mentioned that in the last episode is
that very often they treat going to the office as the more social kind of work
because they interact with people, they visit people, they talk to them and they
have more meetings. But then the day that they stay at home, it's their day for
focus. It's their day for deep work. And this way, they can turn off the computer--
I mean, the turn off the notifications on the computer, turn on the stirp,
and just focus on the big document, on whatever they're working on. Yeah, exactly.
It also relates to Carl Newport's idea about the fact that when you are working
remotely, you can use something that he calls small scale seasonality or intensity
seasonality. So this is the way that lets you while in the real off in the like,
you know, brick brick and how do you say that? Anyways,
in the in the physical office, you have this atmosphere of work and culture that
kind of demands pseudo productivity and when people are just pretending and feeling
pressured to appear busy rather than really get productive. He suggested that remote
work allows you to balance this high intensity when you have to really work focus
and go to deep levels of work with something that you can call a recovery day.
So when you are making less effort, you are doing lighter tasks just not to exhaust
yourself and this way you can actually boost productivity.
- Yeah, completely. And the thing is also that we, you know, I think, I mean,
we have proven that people who work from home, of work remotely, they actually,
instead of slacking off, they're actually trying to prove to others, yeah, I'm
working here, I'm here. This is what I deliver. So they work a lot. And sometimes
we have days that are very effective, very efficient, and sometimes this means that
the next day it's gonna be less efficient because you will kind of pay the price
of yesterday's work, then today your body and your mind will tell you,
"I need to relax a little bit." So this is also important to have for these kind
of days, have lighter tasks. Exactly, to manage this, to predict it and to manage
it, to have this balance. Exactly. This way, even on a worse day,
you still are going ahead, you still are doing something, you still are moving
forward compared to these days when you're just so effective and everything is,
you know, going your way. - Yeah, so there are four points that Carl Newport
suggested in this short episode as a cure for this thing. First,
time block your schedule to different between deep work and logistic tasks. Then
balance heavy and light work days so that you have this kind of sinusoid instead of
spreading tasks evenly to make each day equally productive. Just give yourself a
chance to have this trend. Then this is a really nice phrase,
trade accessibility for accountability. So yeah, focus on deliverables rather than
constant availability and being there and pretending to take part in every discussion
or chat or email conversation. And another one that you don't really like,
Michael, create no meeting days. For example, Mondays, no meeting days, so that
everyone in the company is able to focus and then go to deep work and do something
instead of being distracted by meetings and calls and phone calls. - I'm gonna
explain why I don't like no meeting days, because no meeting days means that on any
day, you can have any kind of meeting at any kind of time, which I don't like. So
in NOSB, we say meetings are regular, optional and well -prepared. And because they're
regular, we can plan our time blocks, our work around them.
So for example, you know, we both know that our marketing meeting isn't Tuesday So,
we know that at that time we're going to be on the meeting. But then we know that
we can prepare our time block for after the meeting or, for example, on Monday
before the meeting, so to get prepared for the Tuesday meeting. So, it's just
predictable and it's easy to predict and it's easy to plan for. And now,
to make it even,
you know, because as we work remotely very often I want to talk about some things
with people on our team and I asked them via messages in Nozbe, "Hey, do you have
availability now? Can we talk now?" But I started doing it less and what I
instituted was office hours. So on Thursday afternoon I have office hours, two hours,
and it's in our company calendar. Everybody knows that in these two hours you can
talk to Michael, this is my Zoom is open. And also, I use it as a way to lure
people in. I'm like, "Hey, Magda, can we talk in my office hours now about this
and this?" And then, you know, you come in and we talk about this. So this way,
people also know that most likely I will not ask them for a meeting,
any kind of meeting apart from this time. Yeah, exactly. And this is And this is
time blocking, again, this is scheduling, and this is just helping yourself to manage
yourself in time.
Exactly. Exactly. So I think this is a cool thing, and also what you mentioned
about accessibility and accountability is, again, I think people are very often
mistaken that they are being expected to reply within five seconds. But what they
are being expected is to deliver things. So if you prove to your superior, to your
boss or to your manager that, hey, I'm not going to reply within five seconds to
anything you write, but I am going to deliver, when I say I'm going to deliver,
then they're going to be happy. You're probably, unless your work requires instant
reactions, but yeah, that's probably, yeah, you will earn more money by doing
something than replying to some random and public emails or questions.
Okay. You don't have to reply to any emails or phone calls if you are using Nozbe,
right? Because everything is there and this is asynchronous way of working.
- Yeah, completely, and that's why we have, In Nozbe, we have project tasks and
comments for these tasks. And we have also messages in Nozbe. So we can really have
your own team communication within one app. And you don't have to just be accessible
all the time. Even in our Nozbe messages, the messages are bigger to encourage you
to write a longer comment and not just, "Hey, enter. How are you?
Enter. I have a question. Enter." And you're like, "Oh man, what's the question?" So
anyway, so even that we have designed, so it encourages like a thoughtful question
or a thoughtful message. And we are not alone here. We have thousands of happy
customers. And maybe today, let's listen to Sarah. We haven't had her for a while.
When we've been around for about 10 years, our business has, and we've been using
NOSB for about eight of those years. And as we grew, we kind of got to the point
where I just couldn't remember everything anymore. I'm pretty organized. I would just
kind of keep everything in my head and with Post -it notes and things like that.
And it just got to be too much. And so I started looking around for some sort of
project management software that could help me have a set up really trusted system.
But really, I just wanted a system where I could know that I had everything in
there. I wasn't going to forget anything. I wasn't going to drop any balls for
clients or missed deadlines.
All right, so let's talk about home office, my favorite subject.
Yeah, another dark side of remote work the work space,
the limited home office space that regular, not super rich people struggle with.
Yes, we usually live at this in Poland, in, I don't know, apartments to maybe two
or three bedroom apartments. But if you are at the beginning of your career,
you can probably live just in a room, in a rented room in the shared apartment. So
that's really difficult to create your proper,
really nice and ergonomic work, I don't know,
work home office with proper desk, with proper chair that won't destroy your spine,
with microphone, with the second monitor, with a good mouse and You know this is
really difficult for regular people. So that's that's that this is the aspect when
you shouldn't When you shouldn't save money on that's one thing,
but there are several ideas to like you know to hack this or just to To find a
different solution not necessarily Seek in your home so first of all,
I think I think Magda in, 'cause I remember this, like I remember when I was
buying my first apartment and I remember that we bought a very small apartment,
of course, and that's why if you go back, if you go to my blog, Michael .team
/office and you look at my first home office, it was an IKEA cabinet in the corner
of my living room and because I didn't have a special room for my home office.
But what I wanted to say is that I think that it was also a mindset that we
would, like people who would, you know, get an apartment, they would always just
think about like what they need now, like without thinking like what they could need
a little bit down the line in the future. I remember like my wife's brother was
getting an apartment and he wanted to get, you know, only a you know, only a two
bedroom apartment. And we were like, look, man, like you just got married, tell the
kids whatever, get a three bedroom apartment if you can afford it. 'Cause you will
need it and you might need it. And then later he actually got a three bedroom
apartment instead of two bedroom apartment because of that. Because like, you know,
we didn't know what we need at this point and we think, you know, we don't need
so much. We're going to be, you know, less is better. But in that sense, it's not.
I don't think so. But I remember even in this crammed space, I managed with my
IKEA cabinet, which I could close, which was like the end of work, was a good hack
to be able to have a home office and the dedicated corner for my home office in
my apartment. So it is doable, but there are more tricks.
Like you can have a co -working space, maybe next to your, I mean,
not far away from your home. This way you kill two birds with one stone because
you can go out on a commute, which is like a five minute walk or 10 minute walk.
And then you go to the co -working space and you work there, and then you have
like your co -working space, which means work. And then you walk back home and then
it's home. So there are things that can be done. Yeah, but still, if you decide to
stay at home, it's really important to try to do everything to separate your life,
personal life from your work life. So even if you have a small place, you could
arrange things. And you know, there are many inspiration and inspiration and solutions
on the internet. I'm sure you can find something, you know, people now with DIY and
different ideas just to make this separation. It's very important because otherwise,
you will feel like you are constantly at work and that's not healthy for you. So
yeah, various tables, various cabinets, various tables that are like closed and opened
from the wall or I'm sure there are many things that's important that this is the
this is the aspect where you shouldn't save the money and probably your employers
also can refund some of the furniture or some of the stuff because yeah if you are
employed probably there is some paragraph that advises the employer to support you in
this aspect Also there is. Yeah, so also also like the whole idea for me of
changing where you work. So like you can take your laptop or that your ipod like
in my case and do your weekly review in your favorite cafeteria. So this way you
work in a different place and and to me doing a weekly review in this cafeteria
means weekly review. It means I have to finish the weekly review over there. And
And Cal Newport mentions this, that you can even go to a museum or something to,
you know, to get this higher price. Yeah, he calls this adventure work and looking
for inspirational places or parks or cafes or even galleries or museums,
that will just change your mindset and help you do the work even better than
sitting on your sofa or in your kitchen table. There is another way,
another tip from Cal Newport. And this is, I think, you are doing it very often by
doing sport directly after work. This is kind of the simulation of the commute,
because if you are not working, if you are not working in the office, you don't
have this time when your brain switches from the working mode to the leisure mode.
And it's nice to have it, to have this sharp break, sharp line between your work
and your private life. So yeah, it can be sport, it can be short walk.
It can be, as you said, with your small corner in your first apartment that your
ritual was closing this cabinet and hiding everything related to work and then doing
something else. So yeah, that's the simulation of transition. it's needed as well.
- Yeah, I mean, for me, just this Monday, when I was my first day after a week
-long vacation, and it was a very intensive day. So for me,
going out and just going for a run was amazing. It was a great way to close the
day and to get ready for the evening with family and then for tomorrow. So I think
walking is anyway a good idea. We already mentioned sometime on this podcast that on
some meetings we go out with people, we go out for walks. So we can, you know,
have a meeting while walking. And, you know, right now all our, you know, iPhones
and smartphones are connected to 5G networks. So we can really have a great
connection, great audio, great video and just walk around, talk to people.
And if you have Nozbe on your phone, you can have access to all the information
you need. So if you have to look up something, you can still do it right on this
phone. So this way, the meetings are not so stationary. And especially,
I think if you wanna just talk over something with somebody, it's even better
because the pace walking stimulates you to actually make some decisions and just,
you know, just have a better conversation. Yeah, when you are on the move, on the
go, your brain is working in a different way and probably is aspiring information
quicker. Okay, another dark side that is being mentioned is the way People who work
from home are kind of afraid to take their time off or they are afraid to go to
sick leave. I think it's called presentism or something like this. And this is the
way that you feel you should be present all the time. That you should be present,
seen, and the fact that you are working remotely is already a bonus so you
shouldn't ask your boss to take some days off because, yeah, even if you are sick,
you won't infect anyone by coming to the office because you are working from home,
you won't be sneezing on people, you don't have to commute so your fever won't get
worse. You can just sit in your blanket, in your bed, but still be working.
And I think this is dangerous. This is dangerous, taking your work with you when
you were going on the vacation because it's okay, I'm working remotely, I will take
my job with me, I will be working a lot and then I will be just having fun in
the evenings. But that shouldn't work like that. - Unless it's a choice,
like for Emilia on our team, she travels a lot with her husband and she clearly
states which days are her days where she does work even though she's traveling and
which days are the days where she's sightseeing and she's not working. So like she
takes, you know, she takes it kind of very consciously that on these days she's
working, you know, her, but then on these days she's taking the days off.
So this way also we know when we can, you know, reach her and we when we
shouldn't reach her. Also in our team, we had these moments where people were
sometimes working when they were very, very sick and we told them like, come on,
just close the laptop, like go away. You know, it just relax,
take care of yourself. So it took, I can tell you, it took some time for everyone
to understand that we can do this, like we should do this. We should not be afraid
to take time off. And probably that's also depends on how your boss is and how
your boss sees that. Speaking of Emilia, because you mentioned Emilia, she's amazing.
She travels a lot and she also gave us her tip.
It's related to and to the the way you can have flexible working hours when you
are working from home. Because sometimes she lives in Poland and then she's working
in the regular hours because most of us are in the Central European time zone and
so she wakes up really really early and then she works until 3 p .m. but then she
often moves to Taiwan and Then when she is there, she adjusts her schedule to align
with us here in Europe. So what she does, her mornings,
when we are deeply asleep, fast and asleep, she's doing the deep work.
So she's replying to customer emails, she's doing some strategic work and some deep
work. And then she takes time off, she goes to, she eats something,
she's having lunch, she's doing some sports, only to come back to work its evening
there. And then we are already awakened and we are working here in Europe.
So she can dedicate maybe two hours or one hour and a half or two hours to in in
touch with us and to be more interactive. So this is, as she said, this is not a
problem for her. This is just adjusting this rhythm. It's easy for her and she
appreciates this flexibility. Yeah, I mean, to me, it sometimes looks like she never
sleeps because she applies to messages like at 2 a .m. my time and then at 3 at
3pm my time. So it's like, does she ever?
I'm sure she would say if that wouldn't be okay for her. So yeah, I'm not sure.
But it's so cool that she can do that actually, you know, and very often when
she's in Poland, she's a very early riser. And then when she's there, she's not,
she's like, she's doing it differently. So it's cool. And I like it. I like how
this way, even when we are, you know, nine hours apart, we can still have a
meaningful overlap to be able to work together. Yeah. The last thing probably that I
would like to mention is the way people say, oh, when you are working from home,
you have so many distractions like
homeworks. Actually, you are really tempted by the washing machine or dirty floor and
you said okay I will do some work and then you do breaks and breaks and breaks
just to do some homeworks and then it turns out that to be honest and to be fair
and to really work eight hours that you have in your contract you will be in front
of the computer until seven p .m. or something like that. So I have my own system
to avoid it but honestly Honestly, this is possible because I'm not working full
time, like eight hours, but maybe seven. I think it's seven and a half. So I have
right to work a little bit less according to my contract. But what I do is I
invented my own Pomodoro technique. Probably you all know Pomodoro technique.
This is the way you work for 25 minutes, and then you have a short break, then
again working session and then share break again. And after several working sessions
like this, you are allowed to have a longer break and then restart the short breaks
again. And I modified it a little bit. And my breaks are a little bit longer,
but they involve doing the homework.
Yeah, exactly. My first break is maybe like after one hour and a half or two hours
of work in the morning. This is when I'm trying to arrange and tidy up our flat
after the morning cows when kids are leaving to school when my son says,
"Okay, mom, I won't be washing this plate after my breakfast because, you know, I'm
in a hurry, so he leaves it somewhere in the middle, then someone leaves the
clothes in the middle, someone, oh no, it's a huge chaos. So, and I prefer to work
in the neat place. So, my first break is just tidying up this this chaotic mess
after the morning, morning rage. It takes me like maybe 10,
maybe 15 minutes. Then my second longer break after working sessions is either going
out to buy some food or doing some, I don't know, paying bills or checking
something in, you know, something related to my home and to my my personal life.
But during my break, legal break, and then, and then I have my third break
dedicated to cooking lunch or cooking dinner, whatever. And yeah,
I'm preparing food. It takes me like 20 minutes or something like this. And then
I'm done with all my responsibilities as mom and as a housewife and as my person
who lives with the family. And also I'm done with my work probably in time.
and I'm not cheating with the working hours because I take my breaks.
I only devoted them, dedicate them to my chores.
- Magda, I think we missed the whole opportunity of a good headline here.
Like we have here remote work, burnout, depression, isolation, or maybe we have this
other remote work hacks get in less time. I think we have it.
No, we have a much better headline. Remote work. Is Magda tempted by the washing
machine?
Yes, sometimes my second break is doing the laundry. Like there is so much in
there.
With this washing liquid, That smells so nicely. - The washing machine is flirting
with you.
- That's true. - Yes, completely. - Do you have any other tips or hacks or ideas
that we can share?
- Yeah, I have kind of the same routine in the morning. So I also first throw my
kids out of the house to the school bus, and then I start to work.
And then after also like maybe an hour, maybe an hour and a half, I go to the
kitchen, I make myself a cup of coffee, and I clean up the kitchen, I clean up
some stuff. Maybe I have a late breakfast. It depends if I had breakfast right
there with them or if not. So it's like, it also gives me a natural break after
the first stint at work to just gather my thoughts as well and just,
you know, get ready for the rest and, of course, having the coffee, having a little
bit more energy and down the line. So I also have something like that and I find
this nice. And especially in the morning after everyone's out, it's so quiet.
It's so nice. So it kind of activates me and after that, oh no, I'm gonna get
something done. So it's like, it's kind of a natural break and I like it. I love
it.
So I, you know, this is another aspect. You know, we are both extroverts.
We like people, we like hanging out with people, but as an extrovert, I also
appreciate this moment when just there's quiet and I can just focus on my thoughts,
focus on my work, focus focus on things I have to do. So there is a benefit to
that.
So yes, so remote work can be really productive unless you are you not put yourself
in place of a victim of a system and with no willpower, with no strength to
overcome procrastination and all the temptations from the washing machine to social
media and and other distractors and triggers.
And just look for your ways to make it productive and to make it not so this,
like not so stressful or not so, I don't know what.
It can be really productive. If you just work, if you're just not looking for some
golden rules, super hacks, just sit and work. That's the best advice.
- Yeah, the basic thing, you know, the basic thing we said on a Friday, do a
weekly review, prepare your week. On Monday, you will know what to do. You will
have, you schedule it, you schedule your time blocks, as Cal Newport suggests.
And we will have a whole episode about my weekly template, because I think this is
something that we also have to have to talk about how we can plan the week so
that we have this seasonality and take advantage of this seasonality, like, you know,
things that I do on Mondays or Tuesdays, or which part of day what we do, all
these things can be taken care of. And this way, it's kind of, you know, the work
flows, you flow, and you feel that you're achieving something, that you're doing
something, that you're getting things done. And of course, you know, to get things
done, the best way is to use Nozbe and to put everything in projects, tasks and
comments, but you knew that already. But if you still haven't had an opportunity to
try Nozbe, or maybe you were using Nozbe before, but haven't tried the new one, and
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