It’s no secret that many of us in tech are working from home more often than ever before. For some, this is a welcome change; for others, not so much. At Sparkbox, we have been operating as a hybrid team with two offices and many fully remote team members for a while now. In fact, there are now Sparkboxers in eight states!
Our team members with more experience in the WFH lifestyle have shared some great advice we can all learn from! The articles below cover everything from deep work to remote meetings and even what to do when WFH means searching for wi-fi from a remote campsite. Each of these articles can give you valuable ideas for how to be a more effective remote worker.
Articles We’ve Written
Best Practices for Remote Meetings
Meetings can be frustrating, especially when you start to feel like you spend your entire day talking to a computer. Katie has some great reminders for remote meeting etiquette, like leaving time to chat about life and our lives outside of work. She gives advice we can all use to make each meeting productive and make a day full of meetings feel a little less like a day full of meetings.
Attention Management Strategies for Developers
Working from home can bring on so many new distractions: kids, pets, those dishes you forgot to put away. Managing our attention is more difficult and important than ever. Yosevu has advice for everyone, not just developers, on how we can better manage our attention and do our best work.
An Epic Adventure: Around the Colorado Plateau in 60 Days
For some, a closed office has opened up the opportunity to work from beyond the office and home. Gary shares the nitty-gritty details of how he planned and executed a 60-day work trip in Colorado. Spoiler: a wild dream like this is more attainable than you might think! He covers the importance of a clear work agreement with your employer and the many lessons he learned along his journey.
Effective Collaboration in Remote Project Management
Collaboration might look different now, but it’s arguably more important than ever. It’s easy to spend our days focused on the work in front of us, but Caralyn reminds us to connect with our team members on a human level before getting to work. Her advice is written from a project manager’s perspective but applies to everyone!
3 Steps to Better Internal Communication
When working from home, communication looks very different and usually involves more writing. With the casual nature of tools like Slack, it can be easy to let the quality of our written communication slip. But Naomi reminds us to slow down our writing process to focus on clear and effective communication. When we write well, we can have better conversations with coworkers and clients.
Creating an Effective Virtual Onboarding Process
What happens when you need to onboard new team members from a distance? Natalie shares what her remote onboarding experience at Sparkbox was like and gives tips for building your own. It’s important to create a welcoming environment with a smooth onboarding process to help new team members go from newcomers to valued contributors.
Additional Resources
Some other resources on working from home that we’ve found helpful.
