Hear from Sander

I am Sander Brienen, founder of Balean foundation. I live near Nijmegen with my wive, 2 children and a dog. In the passed I worked for GitLab where I experience remote work from the organization who kind of invented it.

During the COVID pandemic, I noticed that I enjoyed remote work a lot and was reluctant going back to the office every day. My remote working days were quite efficient with meetings happening online. Apart from that, I also had the time to go for a walk with the dog during lunch break rather than having to order dog services for that and I had the time to welcome my children from school every day.

I’ve talked a lot with other people on the advantages and disadvantaged of working from home fulltime before I accepted my role at GitLab. Before I started, I thought that I needed more time with colleagues / peers to share thoughts and ideas and a change of scenery. But as I started working for GitLab, I noticed I hardly ever missed going out to meet with peers. The social talk I had online with people was enough to cover for that. So my experience was much better than I initially expected.

I must admit that the working conditions for me are quite optimal: I have a big enough house to have a separate room to work from; I usually have enough people around me to distract me or to chat with when I need to let off some steam or want to share my enthusiasm; I live quite rural so it’s easy to go out and walk in nature.

But there is always some challenges: the transition time between work and private and vv is extremely short. So no time to wind down. This means that I am still busy with work inside my head when I ended my day. It is also too easy to keep going. No colleagues to remind you to take a break, go for lunch or go home. It is via my family that I take regular lunch breaks and stop working in time. Otherwise I would continue going.

So when you work from home, you need to be aware of the biggest challenges: you are the only one to bring routine and force yourself to take enough breaks. If you find yourself in a situation where the environment is not providing you with that, then create one: Meet with friends or other co-workers in a co-working space or elsewhere to force yourself to take regular breaks; schedule an appointment or sport activity at the end of your working day (not too late) to force yourself to stop in time; put lunch breaks and coffee breaks in your calendar with a reminder to remind you to take it; schedule coffee chats with other people, co-workers, etc to have a social talk between your other meetings or as a change to your regular working rhythm.

Working from home is really great, gives you a lot of flexibility, generates extra time that you otherwise waste with traveling and is very sustainable as well. But make sure you have the right working conditions or create them for you. Discuss with your employer about possibilities for claiming expenses. There is often many options available.