Working from Home: Now & Then

A decade on, what have I learned about working remotely?

As daily life as we know it continues to change and adapt in the face of the Covid-19 crises, many of us are now working remotely.

Now back at my home desk, it struck me Friday that it’s been over a decade since I last worked from home full-time.

Back then, a year of freelancing from the surrounds of my rented kitchen was the envy of friends and family who headed into the office each day. But of course, the proverbial grass as they say, was always greener. With fast reliable smart technology not yet developed — or not yet on my laptop at the time — working from home in the last days of the boom saw me adopt some rather unorthodox habits in a bid to carve out a routine that helped me stay connected and in touch with colleagues and friends outside of my sitting room.

And while it’s been 13 years — and a change in career since then — here are some of the lessons I learned from that time that I’ll be paying close attention to once more:

Fresh Air is the Best Air:

Just as my love of a good pun or wordplay continues, I will be following my old routine of aiming to get outside (alone or with my co-worker/ other half only) as much as possible for my lunch-break. Back then, I lived close to Phoenix Park and segmented my day with a slow half jog around part of its perimeter. Inevitably, I ended up…