It might be useful to make a distinction between async work and remote work. We are remote but not async; if you are going offline for several hours between 9 and 5 you need to warn the team in advance and probably take some PTO because you are going to be missing from your Zoom calls, not responding on Slack, etc.
I am not the person you are responding to, but the two are not mutually exclusive. You can still answer your messages and not miss meetings. For example:
- 8h30AM start working, until 10AM, mostly focused work.
- Take 5 minutes to start the laundry.
- 10h05AM to 11AM, back to work. Mostly focused work.
- Meeting from 11AM to 12PM.
- Lunch from 12PM to 12h30PM.
- Work/meeting from 12h30PM to 2PM.
- Random chores around the house from 2PM to 2h30PM.
- Work/meeting 2h30PM to 4PM.
- Go for a 30 minutes run. I have my phone with me, obviously won't go if I have a meeting.
- 4h45PM I am back in my chair and I work until 6PM.
Now to my colleagues, I was there the whole day. To my employer, I worked the correct number of hours. Yet personally, I was able to break my focus/meeting time into chunks and get a lot more done than if I was in office from 9 to 5.
It's not really about being async. It's about accepting that my brain will start slowing after 1-1h30 of focused work, so I can take a real break, while still doing something valuable. Whereas at work I'd probably just browse HN for 15-30 minutes.
You are correct - and I'd expand my statement to say that the most effective remote teams I've worked on are teams that supported flexibility.
All my remote teams have established expectations of what response times should be expected. I have never worked on a remote team that expected quick responses on Slack, although I know such teams do exist. My teams have varied from 1 hour to 4 for Slack response expectations. Meeting attendance is clearly expected, but my teams have always tried to respect people's boundaries and schedule them at times that work for people. It does take effort to make remote flexibility work at a team level, but the benefits in job satisfaction and getting the work done are totally worth that effort.
Comments
It might be useful to make a distinction between async work and remote work. We are remote but not async; if you are going offline for several hours between 9 and 5 you need to warn the team in advance and probably take some PTO because you are going to be missing from your Zoom calls, not responding on Slack, etc.
I am not the person you are responding to, but the two are not mutually exclusive. You can still answer your messages and not miss meetings. For example:
- 8h30AM start working, until 10AM, mostly focused work.
- Take 5 minutes to start the laundry.
- 10h05AM to 11AM, back to work. Mostly focused work.
- Meeting from 11AM to 12PM.
- Lunch from 12PM to 12h30PM.
- Work/meeting from 12h30PM to 2PM.
- Random chores around the house from 2PM to 2h30PM.
- Work/meeting 2h30PM to 4PM.
- Go for a 30 minutes run. I have my phone with me, obviously won't go if I have a meeting.
- 4h45PM I am back in my chair and I work until 6PM.
Now to my colleagues, I was there the whole day. To my employer, I worked the correct number of hours. Yet personally, I was able to break my focus/meeting time into chunks and get a lot more done than if I was in office from 9 to 5.
It's not really about being async. It's about accepting that my brain will start slowing after 1-1h30 of focused work, so I can take a real break, while still doing something valuable. Whereas at work I'd probably just browse HN for 15-30 minutes.
You are correct - and I'd expand my statement to say that the most effective remote teams I've worked on are teams that supported flexibility.
All my remote teams have established expectations of what response times should be expected. I have never worked on a remote team that expected quick responses on Slack, although I know such teams do exist. My teams have varied from 1 hour to 4 for Slack response expectations. Meeting attendance is clearly expected, but my teams have always tried to respect people's boundaries and schedule them at times that work for people. It does take effort to make remote flexibility work at a team level, but the benefits in job satisfaction and getting the work done are totally worth that effort.