My 3 Simple Tips For Being A Productive Remote Developer

This article was originally posted to dev.to.

When I started at my company Fusion Media Group, I had to make a personal decision 8-months in, to move out of state in order to afford to take care of my mom. It was a big responsibility to take on, but I did it. My company accepted my request to go remote full-time and my journey working from home began.

I initially thought it would be difficult to get adjusted, but I quickly noticed that I kept waking up at the same time that I normally did, as if I were still going to the office. I quickly learned that this was a key takeaway that helped maintain my productivity.

Start Early

When I woke up and started my day early, using time that was spent commuting, immediately went toward starting work quicker (it may have also been the overall feel-good sensation of it being quiet mornings that affect my mind in a positive way.) A fair amount of my immediate colleagues are in Budapest 🇭🇺, so getting extra time in the morning also meant getting extra time with my overseas colleagues. Between the two, I felt a lot more productive using my morning energy to put toward reading emails and writing code than sitting on the train.

Be Present

At my company, if you're on Slack, you've more than likely seen my name in a channel. It's because I'm active. I ensure that I'm as communicative as possible with people, but I'm also just present. An unfortunate side effect of being a remote employee, is the potential for getting lost amongst the people who are physically at your office. If you ensure that you're present and people know that you're there, you can avoid falling through the cracks.

Whenever I can or have a reason to, I try to visit my office. Something that I took the liberty of doing recently was organizing our company Hackathon. Not only was it something that I was passionate about wanting to do, but it also gave me a reason to go back to the office and see my colleagues again. I found it to be a big boost in my own morale, but also my colleagues' morale that I had a reason to visit, and wanting to do something inclusive.

Stay "In The Know"

I do my absolute best to stay "in the know" with everything in my field. I do this by subscribing to a lot of feeds and keyword digests (ie. #JavaScript on Medium). I read a lot, and I practice a lot. Ensuring that I'm at the top of my game helps to maintain my productivity as a developer, in general, but also helps when you have a reason to post in Slack, like an interesting article.

I hope these 3 simple tips provide food for thought on how you can increase your own productivity as a remote developer. What are some of your productivity tips?