Transcript: Remote Work

I'm Will Vincent, joined as ever by Carlton Gibson.

Hello, Carlton.

So we thought we'd talk about remote work, uh, which is an episode we had planned for a long time anyways, and is perhaps a bit more timely.

Um, but first, a couple a little bit of news.

Um, I'll start with some Django news.

So the Django Software Foundation board approved a new governance model for Django.

There'll be a link in the notes that removes the older core.

There's now a technical board and a DSF.

And the gist of it is it makes it easier for new contributors, more accurately reflects um current contributors.

And so this is a win overall, most people feel for Django itself.

So that's something we talked about in the meeting last week for the Software Foundation.

Anything you want to add, Carlton, or how that impacts the work of the fellows?

I think it more um recognizes in the structure of the Django Software Foundation and the Django project how it's been run for quite a few years since the fellow project began.

So, you know, since since that began, first it was Tim Graham, he was there doing it, and he was he was the merger.

He was doing all the merging, all the um um PR review, not all the PR review, but you know, putting it into the thing itself.

And there were this um Django core, which had commit rights from back in the day, but no one was using any of that.

So the with the the change in the governance model that kind of recognizes the structure as it is, and it it you know the hope is that it gives us a nice foundation for the next you know period in Django's life.

So thank you, James.

Um what else?

Uh in personal news, my wife and I had our third baby 10 uh 16 days ago, so um, so that's uh wonderful.

I'm pretty sleep deprived on top of everything else.

Um so this might be meandering, but certainly gives me extra perspective about you know, thinking about the world, holding a little kid for 12 hours a day and um ways in which you know tech can help people generally and specifically with this health stuff.

Um because I don't know about you, Carlton.

Certainly I have a uh sometimes a feeling of you know, I know people who are front lines, you know, the hospitals and everything else.

And um, you know, I have to remind myself tech is a part of that, right?

We're all commuting remotely and and there's gonna be more and more ways in which technology and you know Django can and will be used um to help.

I don't know if they've got enough capacity, but you know, it's all yeah, it's the way it should be going, right?

And also for education, I mean, so all the schools are closed here in the states, I assume.

So um you know, lots of things.

And then I'm um yeah, and I think I'm also, you know, uh all these things bring out the best and the worst in people, but there are so many um helpers out there.

You know, a small example is uh the schools are closed in the United States, uh, child nutrition is linked to the schools.

There are people in my hometown in many towns who are working extra time shifts, who are making meals, sending them to families in need.

So even though the headlines are pretty bad, there are all these micro examples of people doing amazing stuff.

Um so that's about all say on that.

And if you want to add anything, Carlton.

You're allowed to go out to go to the um supermarket, but that's the they're the only shops that are open.

So it's really, you know, and you're if you're out and the police will be like, well, why are you out?

And if you haven't got a good reason, you can be fined and you know.

Probably by the time this airs, it will be.

Um so let's talk about working home remotely.

Um so we'll try to separate those two.

So to me, the it's kind of areas I think about, and I should think back to when I first started working remotely.

Um the first one, the biggest one is discipline.

Um and part of that is as we both well, I don't now, but as you do, having a dedicated space and time to do your work.

Um or just that acclimation of the first, I would say the first two weeks.

Um, it's really interesting to me how even people who in an office environment are really go-getters can really struggle with the discipline of not turning on Netflix, getting a snack.

Um, it's really you you kind of have to get through that and you have to, you know,

You go to the office and you sit at your desk and you know there's other people and there's a kind of a expectation work.

And you know, if you go and spend too much time hanging out at the wall at the water cooler, you get a bad name.

But then you're at home, right?

And then you're on your laptop, and then you, you know, you oh, Twitter's all open all of a sudden, or you know, and oh, I'll just go and make a put the coffee pot on, and you know, all of a sudden the entire day kind of disappeared, and you've you've done 25 minutes work and you but you're exhausted because you've spent the entire day procrastinating, and that's mentally draining.

And I think, you know, in a way, you know, you and I both have um hordes of children, and and their schedules forces a discipline that you know, if if right if not for that, it would it would be harder in a way.

I would have all day.

Like what there's working from home when you're like not got kids with you, and then there's working from home when there's kids.

So let's talk about working at home if like you when you're by yourself.

Because for me, the the trick is you've got to find out when you're productive, you've got to find the bit of the day.

So human body, it can get you know, it three, four hours work done maximum, needs a break, and then another two, three hours work, you know, possibly as well.

But that that second period isn't gonna be as high productive as the as the first bit.

So you've got to find the part in the day where you've got that three hours, three, four hours that's that's yours, and then you've got to work it.

You know, the commute, the water cooler.

And so Well,

That's two hours a day.

That's like that's like half of the gold time.

So I was gonna say that on the one hand, um you realize how productive you can be when you uh remove all these distractions.

It's amazing how much you can get done in an hour or two.

But uh but to what you were saying, it's also true that I was certainly guilty of this of I was just like, I need to work all the time.

And I quickly realized, you know, I do hit, you know, I have these mental, physical, mainly mental limits of I can't code for more than three hours at a time.

I do need to have these blocks.

And certainly now, what am I, seven, eight years into my you know, more or less remote journey, the way I structure my day is the I'm a morning person.

Yeah, me too.

Um I'm not always successful at that.

You know, if I start in on you know an email or something, the morning has kind of blown up.

Um but that is my ideal day is doing that three, four hour block.

And of course, you know, and also, you know, your brain is always working, or certainly ours are.

So even if I'm playing with my kids or something else, um, you know, I'm still thinking of the problem.

And you know, in the same way that if you sleep on it, if you if you do time box things and you do say, I'm gonna try to be present for dinner and this and that, you know, or pick up, you know, thoughts will come to you, right?

You can't kind of force that.

So certainly I I you know I had to learn the hard way that you know I felt like I had to sit at a desk for you know eight, nine hours a day or more actually.

Um, and I just that wasn't getting the best out of me.

You work for 50 minutes, take a 10-minute break, and that 10-minute break can be like putting the washing on, right?

So you can get the house jobs done as well.

Right.

That that occupies your sort of left brain, the bit that's needs something concrete to do.

So that's that's distracted.

And then your creative right brain side is going, hey, you know that problem you've been struggling with, here's the answer for free.

And it's like, ah, you win, you win.

I was hanging out there washing, I sort of solved this really hard algorithm that I've been.

There's like taking 15 minutes and then there's taking an hour to you know make an elaborate lunch or something.

So there's a balance.

That's that's where the discipline, that's where I I think it's really requires so much more discipline.

Um, but you know, once you get used to it, you you get these wins of you, you know, it's kind of you and I know, like I know what I need to do to get a great day's work done.

And I also know that I can get more done, you know, in a day remotely than I could you know in a week in an office setting where all this time would be burned.

I'll come and visit the office for the day, but no way am I there say all week.

That would just be a quick.

I mean, even um, you know, partly in an office setting, you have to be available for things, but you just become much more stringent of even, you know, I live or normally I live in a city.

Um, and if people want to get coffee or something, like that's half the day.

And if it's the morning, like that's my whole day.

So I'm much more can and do say no a lot more than I would in an uh, you know, office environment where there's open spaces and people tapping you all the time, and it's just so hard to get into any kind of flow.

So those things are off and you know yeah you know I use Twitter.

That's the only thing I actually I'm on but I'll check that periodically and it's like a quick response and then back to work.

I I typically only use Twitter and pretty you know once or twice a day but you know recently with I had with an infant in my arms I kind of have you know him in one hand and my phone in the other getting updates on the state of the world and it's exhausting you know just looking at in it you know and for what right so um

No that's the time when the phone has to be moved and put away and you know not touched.

So um another piece of this and maybe this veers more into if you're doing your own thing is around creativity or perhaps I just want to get this in there which is John Cleese of Monty Python Fame um has these incredible talks on creativity in business and how to have open and closed minds.

We'll put a link to one of his talks um because it maybe I guess in all you know whether you're self-employed or not I often struggle with those transitions.

I mean it helps me if I say as I did you know the morning is code and then the afternoon is sort of contemplation.

When I try to think about what to do and how to do it I often muddle about and it doesn't feel good.

So at the same time I um I'm I have a planner and I think you do as well and I'm very specific on what my goals are I usually have three you know three a day three big ones and I try to do that thinking the night before and I do weekly and daily so that when I come in in the morning instead of blowing an hour getting my brain revved up it's like right boom boom boom I've already decided what to do.

And that's a bit of the

So you get to the desk in the morning you look at the planner I have a sort of weekly diary with some notes on the side I look at the notes and I'm like okay yeah get on with that and then that first 30 minutes that first hour is just super and then you're in the zone.

And the great the great danger of being at home is that you you you just can't find I can't get in the zone I can't get in the zone.

That's because you're on Twitter.

Get off Twitter and do some work so like you're suddenly find you're in the zone is that thirst it's those those first three minutes those first five minutes.

It's all I I read a study that backed this up but I don't know if it's placebo or not but I often tell myself that the first five first ten minutes it's never gonna feel easy.

Even if I've had you know a perfect night's sleep and everything is great I show up there's still a part of me that's like

And I just know that if I just put in that 10-15 minutes just feel like right I'm gonna attack the hard problem first I know I'll get into that state and I don't sit around thinking like oh where's my muse or you know or writer's block right I mean slight tangent but I used to be a book editor so you know with writer's block I always love the idea of like you just don't ex allow it to be an option.

You're like I just can't have writer's block right paper has to get done code has to be done.

Okay open up your terminal file activate your virtual environment run your test suite right look at some logging errors that pop up like dig in and you're there all of a sudden you're there and all you did was actually begin.

Well and part of that too is I I um the uh you know or are or sometimes I'll read to articles about Django or there's the Google groups there's the Django newsletter that I have now so it's a little bit of a cop out but it's still kind of Django related where I'm you know slowly rolling into a downhill that that's better for like for me for afternoon evening time.

So I'd save that for the afternoon or the evening.

Like I'm kind of like how do humans do anything when you think about all the nonsense we spend our time with right like and one analogy is there's this famous skier Michaela Schiffer who used to live near where I do and she calculated she spends her entire year trying to ski she spends less than 24 hours on the snow.

And in a way if you think about how much time you actually spend thinking about coding or like these problems it's so small right but it's because it requires all this other you know work right like athletes talk about how they you know even with like resting is part of the work right so like being rested having these focus zones even though it's only four hours you can only get that four hours by the other 20 you're trying to spend the right way.

yeah so I guess that's what I'm kind of getting at um even um so another piece is a big one is socialization um for working uh remotely so I you know even the most introverted programmer still finds that they need some human interaction and you you know when you strip out the commute when you strip out the daily this and that if um you know you lose that right so you lose that both in and and there manifests itself in a number of ways I've found so one

And so I had to make steps I'd A recognize that and B be a little more specific about and deliberate about my steps.

So trying to go to meetups um trying to schedule online calls with people um making more of an effort to you know do social things.

I mean this is this is I think especially you know men as they get older there's they don't are we aren't always great at maintaining kind of friendships and stuff like and that and that's there's a um this is a tangent but whatever um John Mullaney is a comedian who hosted SNL recently and he had a little bit about the most amazing thing about Jesus is he had 12 adult friends who weren't friends of his wife you know his wife's husband because it you know like all my friends are my like my wife's friends' husbands.

So anyway so that's that that's a big thing and I think and and and and I think there is a little honeymoon period for especially for introverted people who you know it takes a little more work to be social but even they find like you need to make that important.

So don't think you can just be a hermit forever.

It's almost a dis it's almost a discipline in a way of saying like this is important and if you know I it's not just part of the daily flow of things and it enriches your life um yeah

s are and then where those gaps are you can say oh well actually I'd like to do this or I'd like to do that and that's where you can fill in bits of your life that are missing.

And you can do that periodically.

Well and I think too I've also again with this idea of when you work remotely you can really squeeze as much out of yourself is is also for me I I can be a bit hard on myself so trying to be kinder when I have days where it's just not coming to me.

Like I try so I try to focus on the the effort and the input rather than the result.

So I can say you know some days I'll get so much done in an hour and some days I'll I'll do all the right things.

I'll try for three, four hours um I'll get stuck on something and I have to remind myself that the process is what's important and and not focus on the result.

Which you know you know so there's that saying like don't um you know don't let your successes get to your head and don't let your failures get to your heart.

That's true in a lot of realms but especially with you know something very thoughtful like like coding where it it does go in these kind of leaps or it feels like these leaps but when in fact it's all the process.

You know, I've checked the news 45 times in the last hour and nothing's changed.

You know.

Yeah.

At that point, stop working.

Just get off the computer because as much as anything, it's probably a sign of burnout or tiredness.

You know, burnout's a big, much more substantial thing than being tired that one day.

But you know, back away, take the space that you know, you're at home.

Just go and go and cook a risotto or something.

Like do something fulfilling, do something different, go for a walk, spend some time with your spouse, go and see a friend, whatever it is, but get away from the view.

Don't just sit there banging your head against the machine.

Yeah, that sometimes happens.

And so really all this comes down to you have to self-manage, you know, if you're working in a company, because they care about your whatever your deliverables are.

And in a way, they don't, you know, it's as long as you get them done.

I mean, part of that is Well,

Right?

You've got to you've got to be sustainable.

You can't just burn yourself out on a given day or a given project.

You've got to go the next day and the next day and the next day.

Well, I was gonna say that um, you know, Google used to have this 20% time, and and I certainly did they

Because I thought that was fantastic.

Okay.

Okay.

Um but I was gonna say personally, I again I try to time box this where and I've started doing this on Fridays where you know, because creativity oftentimes comes out of sometimes procrastination or boredom.

So I will I've started trying to have Fridays be days where I I you know I I put the time in, but I let my you know my brain go a little bit.

So I have all these side projects I work on.

Like I have starter projects and I have all these various things that are kind of interesting but not um they're important but not urgent, I would say.

Um and so I I found that rather than constantly feeling like I don't have time to like be creative or play, I have to just you know drill on you know my my responsibilities, I I I do have an outlet for it.

I say, okay, on Friday, I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna take you know a couple hours and play around with this tutorial or you know, keep learning.

These things that are easy to kind of forget doing when there's just so much of a you know a constant stream of things in my to-do list.

Sometimes I just really need to say, like, well, I'm still gonna do stuff related to this, you know, in a way like I don't know, like a rock musician playing jazz or something, or like a theater actor, you know, movie actor doing theater.

Like you you need that, but it also needs for me, it needs to be kind of time boxed so it's not just like a a procrastin uh procrastination-ish the scratch.

I allocate exactly this amount of time for it and perfect.

Yeah.

So we should talk about kids, right?

Because it's all very well saying I'm gonna do my three, four hours solid in the morning when you've you know you've got three or four children at home who are running around and I'm

You're a bad man.

So, you know.

We can talk about whatever we want.

Um, what are your thoughts?

How do how do kids

You've got to look at how old they are, right?

Because if they're if they're babies, then you you know there's a quite simple routine.

They they they they eat, they do activity and they sleep, right?

So the activity is probably changing their nappy or look looking out the window or playing with a teddy, right?

And they sleep and they've got this routine, they do it all day and all night, and you've just got to fit in with it.

So if you're gonna work, the only time you can work is when they're asleep.

So you can feed them, you can play with them, you can put them down, and then you can do maybe an hour's work before you've got to start thinking about hey, they're gonna wake up soon, they're gonna want some food.

You know, and you just gotta be realistic with that.

You can't, you know, you can't expect to do you know 40 hours 40 hours on a week.

You could you're gonna do get what you get, get done what you get done.

Um and you know, that's sort of the self-care piece.

I mean, I'm in the middle of that right now, right?

I had, you know, coronavirus nonsense.

I'd plan to take a month a little bit easier, knowing that it's an intense period of time and um, you know, rewarding time, but you know, I need to just remove thoughts of all these projects or things.

I'm like, oh, I want to do that.

You know, I mean, and part of that is because coding is you know, coding is fun.

It's it's fun to focus on a problem and kind of block out the rest of the world, especially when you're got little kids and you're just constantly reactive.

Um, you know, so building in some self-care there um is good as well.

Yeah.

Well, I was just gonna say, um, so our my kids are spaced out a little bit, seven, four, and zero, as my kids say.

Um, so uh it's amazing and I and I I I grew up with multiple siblings, but we're all around the same age.

Seeing a seven-year-old who can soothe and take care of the baby is amazing.

I just didn't even think that was

That's brilliant.

But we gotta be realistic about, you know, if you're gonna be a present parent, yeah.

It it takes a w and really it's it's sleep, I think.

Um, you know, until you sleep regularly through the night, I mean, you know, I'm up four or five times a night, my wife even more.

Um it's just unrealistic that I'm gonna do any good work.

I'm probably gonna cause more harm if I try

You know, even if you were doing a commute going into an office, you would expect that your company would know you had a newborn and be sympathetic of the fact that your productivity is gonna be down for six months or twelve months or eighteen months.

Like this that's just how it is.

Um maybe we'll just do a slight tangent on self-employment.

Um I think it's just you just have to I have to build in all this additional time to think about what to work on, think about you know, self-care.

Like I can't just assume I can just execute 40 hours a week.

There is a huge component of you know, both in my remote work having those those two big blocks of time where I can be productive, and then being self-employed of allotting time to contemplation, which at least for

me, you know, it's

It's like design work, software design, you know, where you sit there drawing boxes and arrows on a piece of paper.

Feels like a waste of time.

But I tell you what, when you sit down to the hard work of coding, all that time comes back in in you know, when in space or whatever in like with dividends.

It comes back with an express payment on it.

It it feels not as good.

And it's not as rewarding to that dopamine receptor bit of your brain that likes hey, I've solved a problem, I've solved a problem, I've solved a problem, cookies.

Right?

There's um the mythical man month, I think.

There's a you know, quite an old book now.

But yeah, I think I think it's in there, it could be one of those other old books.

But you know, they say that a programmer, even in a sort of old school enterprise environment, would only spend 10 to 15% of their time actually coding.

The rest of it is meetings, planning, you know, testing, debug.

I don't know what testing counts as coding to me, but who knows?

I don't want yeah, coffee, water cooler.

I I I've you know testing is always underdone, and I find testing a great procrastination tool.

If I'm stuck on something, there's always more tests that can be added, and usually that's a little more low level or a little bit easier to do than you know an architecture kind of thing.

So that's something I'm I look to instead of Twitter.

Like I've got some tests somewhere.

Will you been writing tests for two hours now?

You're sure you're still adding value?

Well, and again, this is um, you know, this is the thing about remote work or especially being self-employed.

Um you just have to have all the discipline.

Like nobody, nobody sees the tests I write on stuff if it's a solo project, right?

So no one's not no one no one's clapping me in the back being like, good job in the test coverage, right?

It's you can kind of punt that.

So, but so I've allocated it in the just like good cleaning and health, right?

Just like I shave occasionally, like writing tests is important and valuable, and and you know, I do it for its own sake, also because I tell people to write tests.

But like the writing tests is how you can make changes later, right?

So for me, when I come to when I come to untested code, it's like, but how can I change anything?

And it it might be because it's untested, likely it's um highly coupled, and that's kind of why it's untested, because it's highly coupled and it's a vicious circle.

But it's like before I can start changing this, before I can start fixing this, I have to write these harnesses around it so that I can put some tests in place to know that when I make this cut over here, I didn't break it.

Well, and I and I think too, I've realized that I can just as I have starter projects and I find myself, you know, everything is crud with a list view and a detail view and you know, some auth.

Um, you can reuse tests too.

So it's not like um this is I I I have I I will be doing a at some point a uh deep dive on a Django testing course because I always think of tests as really hard to write at first because you don't really know where you're going, so it's hard to write tests for it, and then I don't know of great canonical guides for it, but then it becomes quite boring because you're just doing the same kind of tests, boom, boom, boom, boom.

So I sort of seek out the boredom.

Like if I'm getting bored writing tests, I'm like, okay, good, you know, like this is kind of where I want it to be.

Um, and you can, you know, you can copy and paste broadly your tests in the same way you can do that with you know your URLs or whatever else, if it's a similar type of project to something you've worked on before.

So I'm right, hey, I'm I've written this test before.

Well, that means there's a

So you've got little ones.

Little ones you've just got to look after because of each activity, sleep.

But like say they're older, say they're like 10, 11, 12, you know, see secondary school kind of thing.

What do you call secondary school in the States?

A bit older, anyway.

But they can work, they can sit down with the with some work and they can read, they can write for an hour, they can work on the computer for an hour.

So they can actually sit in the same room as you because they can do it in silence, and then it's like you're working together with your kids, and that's kind of really rewarding.

That's like, oh wow, you know, we can get some work done, and they can be in an environment where it makes them feel like empowered and big, and you know, and and you spend some time that oh I'm a bit can you help it out?

Yeah, okay, two minutes, no problem.

Like that's kind of cool.

That's kind of cool.

So they're kind of taken care of.

It's the middle ones that are charble, like three, four, five, six, seven, eight years old.

They are you've got no chance.

You've got no chance.

Mom, dad, I need some help.

Okay, we're gonna spend 10 minutes getting you settled.

You all settled, yeah.

You're in you're into I'll just sit down.

Mom, dad, I need some help.

But these middle ones, they're just like the like, ah, you've got no chance.

So essentially uh you just have to go with that as well.

You have to be realistic about what you can chieve and you can't beat yourself.

Look, they're off school because there's a pandemic and the schools are all being shut, and you just have to be realistic about what you're going to achieve in that circumstance, and don't try and don't get cross with them because they're kids, it's just age-appropriate behavior, right?

And you'll I want to do some work tough.

You can't do any work.

You've got yeah,

Like half an hour, an hour, like a day.

Like you can't just put them in front of the telly and let them watch it all day.

So you have no choice.

If you've got kids of that middle-aged period, that middle period, you are going to the best you can do is potter at your work.

So we talked about the creative work and the notebook and the downhill start.

Try and make notes, right?

Try and make notes, and so give yourself that downhill start, that that to-do with the bullet points that break down.

So that let's say they they do get into something, and that means you've got half an hour.

Well, okay, that half an hour you can get on because you created that downhill start.

But that's all you can do.

You like if it these are these are strange times, you know.

They all over the world they're shutting schools, and we just have to be realistic about what we can achieve in that time.

I will I I did have a minor victory yesterday, and I'll just mention this.

Yeah, uh a quick aside.

So with dad jokes and parenting things, I used to think that parents you know didn't know that they were wearing

They're like, hey, I've got a dad joke and it'll be atrocious.

They'll be

like, yeah, I told you it's a dad joke.

So they're too exhausted to get why wear anything nice, it's just gonna get stuff on it.

You know, it's like, oh, you don't want to see pictures of my kid?

I don't care, I'm gonna show them to you.

Like that's my recent I I've totally lost the thought of what I was gonna say, but um

Um and my first grader completed the second grade math assignment on her own, like a stallion, and I was like, Yes, that's my girl.

So and then she needed help with everything else.

Yeah, so it's a glimpse of maybe high school, but I think also kids, you know, kids model your behavior.

So if they see you being disciplined and and enjoying things, um, they'll pick up on that, you know.

So like already, you know, my seven-year-old has we gave her an old phone that is in airplane mode, and she's constantly wants to be on it, and we're like, no, no, no, don't look at that.

But you know, we're always on our phone too, so it's it's a good push to be better

as I do.

Yeah, totally.

It's basic rules.

It says get dressed, have breakfast.

When you're working from home, get up in the morning, get dressed, have breakfast, make your bed, put the laundry on, do all the things that like make you into a normal human being, and then do some work.

Don't don't just sit in the back of the house.

There's there's this poster, is it like the oatmeal that shows like the chronology of I'll find it in link, the chronology of working from home.

Um and uh yeah, you just it's self-care and discipline, right?

Like yeah, you and you're just gonna

Like if you bother to get dressed, you know, if you bother to have breakfast, if you bother to take care of yourself, it means yeah, I I I'm respecting myself and I'm respecting that I'm gonna I'm gonna do some work now.

Just because you're at home doesn't mean it's a holiday.

It's called why working from home is awesome and horrible.

And part of that, I think the you know, motivator is I gotta get stuff done, right?

Like I I I don't have the luxury of not being productive, right?

Whether you're working from someone else or you're working for yourself.

Uh you know, or you have a family, it's like I you know, I can't f around here.

So um so that stress and anxiety is quite productive.

Yeah.

Okay, great.

Um we will continue to have episodes on Django related things.

Um thank you everyone for listening.

Bye bye.